Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011

From the hairdessing salon where an old man measures out his life in haircuts, to the concert hall where a music lover carries out an obsessive campaign against those who cough in concerts; from the woman who reads elaborate recipes to her sick husband as a substitute for sex, to the woman 'incarcerated' in an old people's home beginning a correspondence with an author that enriches both their lives - all Barnes' characters, in their different ways, square up to death and rage against the dying light.

'A moving portrayal of characters facing the end of their lives and looking back with regret, resignation or defiance' Independent

About the Author
Julian Barnes is the author of thirteen novels, including The Sense of an Ending, which won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, and Sunday Times bestsellers The Noise of Time and The Only Story. He has also written three books of short stories, four collections of essays and three books of non-fiction, including the Sunday Times number one bestseller Levels of Life and Nothing To Be Frightened Of, which won the 2021 Yasnaya Polyana Prize in Russia. In 2017 he was awarded the Legion d'honneur.

Reviews
All [the stories] are a joy to read as Barnes glides between forms...Each story is distinct and indelible, a tribute to the form. Above all they make you think about growing old and what, if anything, can be done about it. * Glasgow Herald *
All have a photographic clarity, a psychological realism that embraces extremes of feeling...with a deliciously wry streak * Observer *
Barnes's steely wit finds best expression when inhabiting the anguished and angry... Their brilliance rather plays upon our petty furies and failures, embellishing them with self-deprecatory wryness...entrancing and curiously cheering * New Statesman *
Masterly...his best stories have a strong air of Maupassant about them...extraordinarily effective...a compelling series of vignettes of old age, executed with great skill * Daily Telegraph *
Splendid, beautiful...reads like Turgenev * Spectator *



Book Information
ISBN 9780099554998
Author Julian Barnes
Format Paperback
Page Count 224
Imprint Vintage
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 182g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 14mm