The Lemon Table by Julian Barnes (Jonathan Cape, £16.99)

THERE are times in this new collection of short stories when the bleakness of Barnes' main theme - old age and the approach of death - threatens to throw a pall of depression over the whole book.

So, it's lucky, or rather a sign of the author's craftsmanship, that the book is also laden with generous helpings of comedy.

Such a scene change comes exactly half way through the collection, between one rather bad-tempered tale told by a foul-mouthed narrator and a disturbing story about a man who eats bark and waits for his peers to die and make him rich.

In Vigilance an enraged concert-goer adopts increasingly radical tactics for dealing with his fellow audience members who spoil the music with their raucous bouts of coughing.

Vigilance is one of the best things in the book, and one of three or four genuinely excellent short stories in which Barnes marshals an impressive range of settings, styles and subjects.

He successfully pulls off a fable-like tale of thwarted avarice, a brilliant piece that unfolds entirely through the letters that an 80-year-old woman sends to a character who is an author called "Julian Barnes", and the private thoughts of a composer at the end of his life.

Barnes does hit the odd dodgy note, usually while trying a bit too hard to demonstrate his considerable, but not limitless, artistry.

And on one sad occasion he fails to avoid the comic writer's trap of patronising his own characters and then asking us to take them seriously.

Tim Ross