Birds Babbling Nonsense: JulianBarnes.com -- Featured Items Blog

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Previously Unseen Extract from Julian Barnes's Novel England, England

The Library Book aids The Reading Agency’s library programmes -- From Alan Bennett's Baffled at a Bookcase, to Lucy Mangan's Library Rules, famous writers tell us all about how libraries are used and why they're important. Tom Holland writes about libraries in the ancient world, while Seth Godin describes what a library will look like in the future. Lionel Shriver thinks books are the best investment, Hardeep Singh Kohli makes a confession and Julie Myerson remembers how her career began beside the shelves. Using memoir, history, polemic and some short stories too, The Library Book celebrates 'that place where they lend you books for free' and the people who work there. All royalties go to The Reading Agency, to help their work supporting libraries.

Julian Barnes contributes a previously unseen extract from his novel England, England, and Stephen Fry asks, ‘have you heard of Oscar Wilde?’

For the press release, please visit the Reading Agency's website. You may also purchase online.

Labels: England, England; Libraries; Reading Agency; Charity

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Julian Barnes on Sibelius's Home, Ainola

Julian Barnes explores the house where Sibelius lived, died, wrote much of his music -- and spent decades not writing, or not publishing ...

"Where Sibelius Fell Silent." More Intelligent Life January/February 2012.
From the Article:

"There are two famous silences in the history of classical music: those of Rossini and Sibelius. Rossini’s, which lasted nearly 40 years, was a worldly, cosmopolitan silence, much of it spent in Paris, during which time he co-invented tournedos Rossini. Sibelius’s, which lasted nearly 30 years, was more austere, self-punishing and site-specific; and whereas Rossini finally yielded again to music, writing the late works he referred to as “the sins of my old age”, Sibelius was implacable. He fell silent, and remained silent."

Barnes also wrote a piece for More Intelligent Life in 2008 about the Museo Mandralisca in Cefalu, Sicily:

"Julian Barnes Is Very Fond of an Unknown Man."

Julian Barnes at Sibelius's home

Labels: Sibelius

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Julian Barnes Wins the 2011 Man Booker Prize

Julian Barnes has been named the winner of this year's Man Booker Prize for Fiction for The Sense of an Ending, published by Jonathan Cape, Random House Canada, and Alfred A. Knopf.

Barnes has been shortlisted three times previously for Arthur and George (2005), England, England (1998) and Flaubert's Parrot (1984).

The story of a man coming to terms with the mutable past, Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending is laced with his trademark precision, dexterity and insight. It is the work of one of the world's most distinguished writers.

Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they navigated the girl drought of gawky adolescence together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they swore to stay friends forever. Until Adrian's life took a turn into tragedy, and all of them, especially Tony, moved on and did their best to forget.

Now Tony is in middle age. He's had a career and a marriage, a calm divorce. He gets along nicely, he thinks, with his one child, a daughter, and even with his ex-wife. He's certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer's letter is about to prove. The unexpected bequest conveyed by that letter leads Tony on a dogged search through a past suddenly turned murky. And how do you carry on, contentedly, when events conspire to upset all your vaunted truths?

Available from Jonathan Cape, Random House Canada, Alfred A. Knopf, Waterstones.co.uk, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, BN.com, or a variety of Independent Booksellers.

Labels: Man Booker Prize, The Sense of an Ending

Thursday, July 21, 2011

The Sense of an Ending: Signed, Limited Edition from London Review Bookshop

The London Review Bookshop is offering a signed, limited first edition of The Sense of an Ending, published in association with Jonathan Cape, comprising 100 copies, 75 of which have been quarter-bound in Tusting Chestnut fine grain leather with Rainforest cloth sides, numbered 1 to 75, and 25 copies fully bound in the same leather, numbered i to xxv. All books have head and tail bands, brushed green tops and green Bugra Pastell endpapers, and are housed in suedel-lined slipcases.

Edition of 75: £150 (£170 after 4 August)
Edition of 25: £260 (£280 after 4 August)

For ordering information, please consult the promotional flyer.

Labels: Signed Edition, The Sense of an Ending

Win a Signed Copy of Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending

The Julian Barnes Website is working with Jonathan Cape to offer the chance to win a signed copy of the Cape edition of Julian Barnes's new novel The Sense of an Ending, published August 4th.

Please email the correct answer to the question below to contest@julianbarnes.com to be entered into a random drawing for one of the signed copies. We will forward a handful of randomly selected names supplying the correct answers to Jonathan Cape, and they will contact the winners for their postal address. Sound good? Please only enter once.

Here It Is: Julian Barnes's paperbacks are published by Vintage, and Vintage is about to turn 21. What Julian Barnes novel will be repackaged as part of the Vintage 21 promotion? (It will be published on August 4th in the UK, which is also the deadline for the giveaway).

Labels: Contest, The Sense of an Ending

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Julian Barnes on Voltaire's Candide

Julian Barnes writes "A Candid View of Candide" for The Guardian (1 July 2011), in which he pays tribute to Voltaire's Candide. Barnes's essay introduces the new Folio Society edition of the book, available via the Folio Society Website.

From the Essay:

All this makes Voltaire's Candide even more of an extraordinary case. It was written between July and December 1758 and published simultaneously in Geneva, Paris and Amsterdam in January 1759. That year no fewer than three English translations appeared, shortly followed by the early version that is now most often read, by Tobias Smollett. This formed part of a 25-volume edition of Voltaire's works "translated from the French with Notes by Dr Smollett and others" and published between 1761 and 1765. Even the British acknowledged Voltaire as Europe's most famous public intellectual, and his Candide as a prime example of literature as news. This philosophical tale may be described as an attack on Leibnitzian optimism – and, more broadly, on all prepackaged systems of thought and belief – a satire on churches and churchmen, and a pessimistic rumination on human nature and the problem of free will. But it was no fable inhabiting some make-believe or symbolic location; rather, it was a report on the current state of the world, deliberately set among the headlines of the day.

Labels: Candide, Folio Society, Voltaire

The Sense of an Ending (Extract)

The Telegraph has published an extract from Julian Barnes's soon to be published novel The Sense of an Ending.

The Sense of an Ending, the disturbing new novel from Julian Barnes, is narrated by a man looking back on a lifetime of hope and remorse. In this exclusive extract, he grapples with his memories of a former friend -- a charismatic figure who enters his life as a prodigious schoolboy and departs it with an act of chilling calculation.

Read the extract at the Telegraph website.

Labels: Extract, The Sense of an Ending

Birds Babbling Nonsense

Philosophy

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

JulianBarnes.com -- Featured Items Blog