Book Nineteen 2014: 

The Sense Of An Ending by Julian Barnes

I’ve read a couple of his things over the years (A History Of The World In 10 1/2 Chapters and England, England) and was never sure why I didn’t stumble across him again. Glad I did.

Simply, this is the story of a young man, the people he falls in with in school and college, an event that happens and the the ripples of which that extend all the way through his life right up to retirement.

There are very sharp and real observations here mostly about the fallible nature of memory and how we reshape stories from our past both for the telling to others (and the telling to ourselves!) and about how vain and silly we men get in our old age. His characters too scream of reality and an everydayness that I’m sure seems easy to pull off, but isn’t.

I know I seem to be on a run here but this one too is definitely one to buy.