Man Booker Prize Winner: The Sense of an Ending

On Tuesday night the Man Booker Prize was presented to Julian Barnes for The Sense of an Ending. Barnes has triumphed and won the prestigious Man Booker Prize after being shortlisted on three other occasions. This is a well-deserved win by a master of his craft.

Memory is a key player in this compelling book. The narrator begins to look back on the events of 40 years after receiving an astonishing inheritance. His memories of his friendships at school and with the women in his life were not always as they appeared on the surface. Shades of meaning, misinterpreted remarks and small gestures were seen by others in a whole different light.This short novella can be read in one sitting, but I was so intrigued by what I had read that I went back and read it two more times – something I have never done before. Each time it shed more light on the missing fragments of the narrator’s memory that altered with the passage of time to turn long-held truths upside down.

If you're on the holds list and want to check out Barnes's earlier shortlisted works, BPL has the following:

England, England

Arthur and George

Flaubert's Parrot