Will I love The Sense of an Ending?

This autumnal book takes a hard look at aging and the end of life, also regrets and memories.

This is a succinct, gripping novel about memory and its unreliability. It looks at the power of the narratives we construct to explain our lives and ourselves to ourselves.

I was captivated by Julian Barnes’ treatment of memory and time in this novel, which tells the story of Tony Webster and his group of school friends, whose relationships fracture and strain as life and death leave their marks on their lives. In his retirement, Webster's own memories of his youth prove unreliable.

I felt it was a well-paced and exquisitely written short novel, which makes impressive use of subtle imagery (the sight of the Severn bore is a good example–a nod to how the world can sometimes surprise us). He uses these subtly constructed visual reference points to illustrate… show more.