Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

On Proust, memory, and relationships

Departure(s) by Julian Barnes

by Leave a Comment

CBR18 BINGO: Left, because this is Julian Barnes’s last novel; ergo, there’s nothing left I’ve always had a difficult relationship with Julian Barnes. Sometimes I read a line and think, “What a genius. No wonder he won the Booker Prize.” Then I read a bit more, and I just feel tired. Departure(s), which Barnes has said is going to be his last book, is a blended novel, comprising elements of memoir, essay, and fiction. This format is what prompted me to realize that, as a […]

This week, in ‘Men Doing Stupid Shit’…

Before She Met Me by Julian Barnes

10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall

by 2 Comments

Two books this week, both about men who do things they either haven’t thought through, or that they should maybe stop thinking about. altogether.  Before She Met Me (Julian Barnes) *** Graham is an academic and teaches history at university. He’s left his shrewish wife Barbara for Ann, a former b-list actress, and he is very happy with her until the day when he accidentally sees his wife in a dumb b-movie. In it, Ann is seen in bed with another actor. Graham’s mind latches […]

“…all you can truly say of any historical event … is that ‘something happened.’”

The Sense of an Ending: A Novel by Julian Barnes

by 1 Comment

Cbr16bingo Free Spot (sub for Rings square), +3 bingos The Sense of an Ending is a 2011 novel that won the Booker Prize. It is short but manages to delve into deep themes regarding memory, history and remorse through a story with a surprising finish. Told in two parts by the same narrator, Tony Webster, the reader must constantly question Tony’s memory and reliability, as he himself does. Part 1 of the novel finds Tony as a teenager in the 1960s with his friends in […]

Margery Allingham (1); Barbara Tuchman (1); Barry Goldwater (1); Katherine Dunn (1); William Wells Brown (1); Elaine Marie Alphin (1); Julian Barnes (1)

The Case of the Late Pig by Margery Allingham

Notes from China by Barbara Tuchman

Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater

On Cussing by Katherine Dunn

Narrative of William W Brown, A Fugitive Slave by William W Brown

An Unspeakable Crime by Elaine Marie Alphin

The Pedant in the Kitchen by Julian Barnes

by Leave a Comment

The Case of the Late Pig “The main thing to remember in autobiography, I have always thought, is to not let any damned modesty creep in to spoil the story.” This middle of the road mystery by Margery Allingham (I mean middle of the road in the sense that she is eight books into the series with this particular detective and about 10 books into her career) from 1937 begins with our narrator, the detective (erm criminologist) Albert Campion. He is called out into the […]

Blast From the Past

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

by Leave a Comment

Forty years later, retiree Tony Webster slowly comes to new realizations about a tragic event from his early twenties and the part he played in what happened. After his first girlfriend leaves him for one of his best friends, said friend winds up taking his own life shortly after. And then, life moved on. Tony traveled around, got married, had a kid, got divorced, worked a steady job for forty years and retired. He’s put Veronica and Adrian mostly out of his mind until a […]

More assorted Ends

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

We Always Treat Women too Well by Raymond Queneau

A Mercy by Toni Morrison

I, Autohouse by Gish Jen

American Santa by Vanessa Hua

One More Hour by Carrie Brownstein and Corrin Tucker

My Therapist, My Lover by Cris Beam

Orphans of the Sky by Robert Heinlein

Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Adichie

by Leave a Comment

The Sense of an Ending – 4/5 Stars This is a reread from a few years ago, and in the reread I like it a lot better now than I did then. I do think the plot goes a little off the rails but the narration, the narrator, the character development are all alive and rich, and so beautifully and painfully rendered. There’s a lot of emotional tenderness, sadness, pain, anger, and spirit here. Our narrator is a man in his late fifties or early […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo