“Brief and beautiful,” was one reviewers reaction to this 2011 Man Booker Award winner and I tend to agree. I find that award winning books do not always sustain my interest or are particularly readable, but Barnes has written a meditative book on memory and how it shapes our understanding of ourselves-a universal idea that is worth exploring.

Tony Webster lives a very ordinary life. He is that quintessential Englishman, who lives life with very little emotion. Divorced, but still amicable with his ex and daughter, and recently retired, Tony expects to live out his days in comfort and with very little introspection or drama. But then he receives a letter from a lawyer announcing that he has received a legacy from an old school friend, forcing him to confront his past and re-evaluate his memories.

As someone once said, “the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there,” and certainly Tony finds that his memories are unreliable which makes the way he lived his life, the regret he carried for his lack of judgment and the choices he made based on those understandings, something to reexamine.

Barnes writes beautifully, and with deep insight. Tony, as anti-hero, and protagonist, is harder to access as his essential reserve makes him seem almost emotionless. And yet, there is something that compels you to keep reading, to understand the complexities of what Tony discovers, and the impact it has on his idea of himself. Barnes seems to invites us to visit this foreign country called the past so that we can make sense of it and let go of whatever is holding us back from living our lives more fully.

Brenda’s Rating: ****(4 Out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to: Keith and Sharon

Book Study Worthy? Yes

Read in ebook format.