A brilliant, discursive, very funny book about death and the fear of death, god, nature, nurture and the author's childhood. The closest thing to a memoir Barnes will ever write.
Julian Barnes is the author of twelve novels, including The Sense of an Ending, which won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. He has also written three books of short stories, Cross Channel, The Lemon Table and Pulse; four collections of essays; and two books of non-fiction, Nothing to be Frightened Of and the Sunday Times Number One bestseller Levels of Life. He lives in London.
Both fun and funny. It is sharp too, in the sense of painful as
well as witty... Barnes dissects with tremendous verve and insight
this awesome inevitability of death and its impact on the human
psyche. He also tears at your heart
*New Statesman*
A maverick form of family memoir that is mainly an extended
reflection on the fear of death and on that great consolation,
religious belief... It is entertaining, intriguing, absorbing...an
inventive and invigorating slant on what is nowadays called 'life
writing'. It took me hours to write this review because each
reference to my notes set me off rereading; that is a reviewer's
ultimate accolade
*Financial Times*
A brilliant bible of elegant despair...that most urgent kind of
self-help manual: the one you must read before you die
*Vogue*
Intensely fascinating
*The Times*
An elegant memoir and meditation. A deep seismic tremor of a book
that keeps rumbling and grumbling in the mind for weeks
thereafter
*Garrison Keillor*
An essay in the best sense: speculative and precise, intimate and
metaphysical, capacious and democratic in the variety of voices,
alive and dead, that are invited to counsel the author as he edges
his way towards the void
*TLS*
Intensely serious book of striking elegance: a clever, complicated
reverie on last things, so full of ideas as to reveal itself quite
slowly, through frequent re-reading
*Sunday Telegraph, Books of the Year*
A fantastic work of non-fiction, a showcase for his elegantly
unfussy sentences and Barnes's ability to burrow to the very bottom
of a subject, no matter how daunting
*The Sunday Herald*
Julian Barnes takes on the ambitious subject of death - and
succeeds brilliantly
*Scotsman*
It is a sincere, humble work, punctuated by moments of
poignancy
*The Irish Times*
Both fun and funny. It is sharp too, in the sense of painful as
well as witty... Barnes dissects with tremendous verve and
insight this awesome inevitability of death and its impact on the
human psyche. He also tears at your heart * New Statesman *
A maverick form of family memoir that is mainly an extended
reflection on the fear of death and on that great consolation,
religious belief... It is entertaining, intriguing,
absorbing...an inventive and invigorating slant on what is
nowadays called 'life writing'. It took me hours to write this
review because each reference to my notes set me off rereading;
that is a reviewer's ultimate accolade -- Penelope Lively *
Financial Times *
A brilliant bible of elegant despair...that most urgent kind of
self-help manual: the one you must read before you die -- Tim Adams
* Vogue *
Intensely fascinating * The Times *
An elegant memoir and meditation. A deep seismic tremor of a
book that keeps rumbling and grumbling in the mind for weeks
thereafter * Garrison Keillor *
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