‘The Sense of an Ending’ by Julian Barnes.

Man Booker Prize, Bestseller.  2011

DB   73935     LB   07051

If you like gossip about other people’s love lives, you will like this book. You will even like it when your naughty predilection comes back to bite you in the butt at the end of the story.

Retired Tony Webster realizes his life is not what he thought after receiving a puzzling inheritance and a journal left behind by Adrian, a friend who committed suicide four decades ago. His entire life Tony has held a petty grudge against his first girlfriend Veronica and her relationship with Adrian. Reading the journal changes Tony’s perspective of what happened between the three of them. It leads him to discover unexpected and harsh consequences, and his own responsibility in bringing them about.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s short but powerful.  It does a great job of getting under the skin of the characters and weaving their emotional life into a larger picture, where the reader can link long forgotten causes to indelible results. Publisher’s Weekly says “From the haunting images of its first pages to the surprising and wrenching finale, the novel carries readers with sensitivity and wisdom through the agony of lost time.”

Other books by Julian Barnes:

ARTHUR AND GEORGE (2006)          DB 61635 DLD, RC   61635

NOTHING TO BE FRIGHTENED OF (2008)      DB   68481

LOVE, ETC. (2000)                RC   53948

ENGLAND, ENGLAND (1999)               RC   49553

PORCUPINE (1992)                RC   38098

TALKING IT OVER (1991)                RC   34498

HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN TEN-AND-ONE-HALF CHAPTERS (1989)                RC   31893