Aldous Huxley 
Those Barren Leaves 

In a renovated Italian palace set above the blue of the sea, the Junoesque figure of Mrs Aldwinkle moves among her guests. These include a poet who earns his living editing The Rabbit Fancier»s Gazette; a popular novelist who records every detail of her affair with another guest as future literary material; an aging philosopher who pursues a wealthy yet mentally-disabled heiress and a pair of na-ve and charming young lovers. Deliciously satirical, Those Barren Leaves bites the hands of those who dare to posture or feign sophistication and is as comically fresh today as when it was first published.