By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, "The Sense of an Ending" extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with "Arthur & George" and continued with "Nothing to Be Frightened Of" and, most recently, "Pulse."

Reviews

"Elegant, playful, and remarkable." --"The New Yorker"
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"A page turner, and when you finish you will return immediately to the beginning . . . Who are you? How can you be sure? What if you're not who you think you are? What if you never were? . . . At 163 pages, "The Sense of an Ending "is the longest book I have ever read, so prepare yourself for rereading. You won't regret it." --"The San Francisco Chronicle"
"Dense with philosophical ideas . . . it manages to create genuine suspense as a sort of psychological detective story . . . Unpeeling the onion layers of the hero's life while showing how [he] has sliced and diced his past in order to create a self he can live with. --Michiko Kakutani, "The New York Times"
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"Ferocious. . . . a book for the ages." --"Cleveland Plain Dealer"
"An elegantly composed, quietly devastating tale about memory, aging, time and remorse. . . . Offers somber insights into life's losses, mistakes and disappointments in a piercing, thought provoking narrative. Bleak as this may sound, the key word here--the note of encouragement--is 'insights.' And this beautiful book is full of them." --"NPR"
"With his characteristic grace and skill, Barnes manages to turn this cat-and-mouse game into something genuinely suspenseful." --"The Washington Post
""[A] jewel of conciseness and precision. . . . The Sense of an Ending packs into so few pages so much that the reader finishes it with a sense of satisfaction more often derived from novels several times its length." -"The Los Angeles Times"
"Elegiac yet potent, "The Sense of an Ending" probes the mysteries of how we remember and our impulse to redact, correct - and sometimes entirely erase - our pasts. . . . Barnes's highly wrought meditation on aging gives just as much resonance to what is unknown and unspoken as it does to the momentum of its own plot." -"Vogue"
"Deliciously intriguing . . . with complex and subtle undertones [and] lace

When we look back on our lives, what do we remember from our experiences? Tony's story starts and finishes with his school chums, one of whom commits suicide during his college years, and his first girlfriend. When he is contacted by someone from 40 years in his past, he must reexamine events, memories, causes, and results. The pacing is steady and the insights poignant, although the ending is a bit contrived. Narrator Richard Morant moves smoothly between the awkward, loud voice of an English schoolboy, the all-knowing college student, and the resigned elder. VERDICT Barnes's 14th book and winner of the Man Booker Prize, this short novel will best appeal to readers of introspective literature. [The Knopf hc, published in October, was a New York Times best seller.-Ed.]-J. Sara Paulk, Wythe-Grayson Regional Lib., Independence, VA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.