Books About Julian Barnes

 

Order online through Continuum, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, or through other fine booksellers.	Sebastian Groes & Peter Childs, Editors Julian Barnes (Contemporary Critical Perspectives) Continuum, 2011. Pp. 192 COMPETITION (Win a free copy of the book!) Continuum will provide a free copy of the book Julian Barnes (Contemporary Critical Perspectives) to the five randomly selected winners who answer correctly all three questions posted on the Continuum Literary Studies blog (details are also listed below): To be in with a chance of winning, email your answers to these three questions: 1) Julian Barnes begins Nothing to be Frightened of by stating, "I don't believe in God, but I miss Him". What does his brother Jonathan Barnes make of this statement? 2) Julian Barnes recently won what prestigious literary award? 3) Which Julian Barnes short story was featured in the May 2011 edition of Playboy Magazine? Please submit your answers by Friday June 24th to literature.uk@continuumbooks.com From the Publisher: Julian Barnes is one of the most admired British writers of his generation. Although known primarily as a novelist and essayist, the ‘chameleon of British letters’ has written with distinction across the widest range of literary genres. Both he and his diverse and distinguished body of work have been awarded numerous literary prizes both in the UK and abroad. This critical guide provides a wide range of current critical perspectives on Barnes's work from best-selling novels of the 1980s, Flaubert’s Parrot and A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, up to his recent memoir Nothing to be Frightened of. Including contributions by some of the finest critics working in the contemporary field, it reflects the richness and diversity of one of Britain's greatest living writers.
Contents Foreword Chronology of Julian Barnes's Life Introduction: Julian Barnes and the Wisdom of Uncertainity / Sebastian Groes and Peter Childs 1. The Flâneur and the Freeholder: Paris and London in Metroland / Matthew Taunton 2. Inventing a Way to the Truth: Life and Fiction in Flaubert's Parrot / Ryan Roberts 3. ‘A preference for things Gallic’: Julian Barnes and the French Connection / Vanessa Guignery 4. ‘An Ordinary Piece of Magic’: Religion in the Work of Julian Barnes / Andrew Tate 5. Crossing the Channel: Europe and the Three Uses of France in Julian Barnes’s Talking It Over / Merritt Moseley 6. ‘Stranger Than Fiction’: an epistolary essay on The Porcupine / Dimitrina Kondeva 7. England, England and Englishness / Richard Bradford 8. Matters of Life and Death: The Short Stories of Julian Barnes / Peter Childs 9. ‘All Letters Quoted are Authentic’: The Past after Postmodern Fabulation in Julian Barnes’s Arthur & George / Christine Berberich Afterword / Andrew Lycett Index

Order online through Manchester University Press, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, or through other fine booksellers.	Peter Childs Julian Barnes (Contemporary British Novelists) Manchester University Press, 2011. Pp. 166 From the Publisher: Peter Childs's Julian Barnes is a comprehensive introductory overview of the novels that situates Barnes's work in terms of fabulation and memory, irony and comedy. It pursues a broadly chronological line through Barnes's literary career, but along the way it also shows how certain key thematic preoccupations and obsessions seem to tie Barnes's oeuvre together (love, death, art, history, truth, and memory). Chapters provide detailed reading of each major publication in turn while treating the major concerns of Barnes’s fiction, including art, authorship, history, love and religion. The book is very lucidly written, and it is also satisfyingly comprehensive - alongside the 'canonical' Barnes texts, it includes brief but illuminating discussion of the crime fiction that Barnes has published under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh. This detailed study of fictions of Julian Barnes from Metroland to Arthur & George also benefits from archival research into his unpublished materials. The book will be a useful resource for scholars, postgraduates and undergraduates working in the field of contemporary literature.
Contents Acknowledgements Series Editor’s Foreword List of Abbreviations Introduction : Pleasure in Form 1. About to be less deceived: Metroland 2. Silly to Worry About: Before She Met Me 3. What happened to the truth is not recorded: Flaubert’s Parrot 4. Intricate Rented World: Staring at the Sun 5. Safe for Love: A History of the World in 10½ Chapters 6. Tell me Yours: Talking it Over and Love, etc. 7. We won’t get fooled again: The Porcupine 8. History doesn’t relate: England, England 9. Retrospectively Imagined Memorials: Cross Channel and The Lemon Table 10. Conviction and Prejudice: Arthur & George Select Bibliography

	Conversations with Julian Barnes collects eighteen interviews, conducted over nearly three decades, by journalists and correspondents throughout the world with the author (b. 1946) of such highly praised novels as Flaubert’s Parrot and Arthur & George. The interviews collectively address the entirety of Julian Barnes’s varied works and provide readers the most vivid portrait yet of contexts and influences behind his ten novels, his short stories, and his essays. The interviews focus not only on the author’s fiction but also on his essays, translations, and pseudonymous writings. Barnes’s evolving understanding of the themes developed in his works (history, truth, love, art, and death), his views on the art of the writing process, and the role of authors in contemporary society are also discussed at length. Conversations with Julian Barnes Edited by Vanessa Guignery and Ryan Roberts University Press of Mississippi, April 2009. Pp. 212 Order online through Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, the University Press of Mississippi, or through other fine booksellers. A paperback edition is also available. Reviews: Bursey, Jeff. RAINTAXI online, Spring 2010: "There is much to mull over in this comprehensive and worthwhile collection that will give new and old readers of Barnes’s work a greater appreciation for his erudition and geniality." Peters, Arjan. "Vreugde en verdriet der conversatie." de Volkskrant, 21 August 2009.

	Frederick M. Holmes Julian Barnes (New British Fiction) Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Pp. 176 From the Publisher: "This book presents an accessible introduction to the work of Julian Barnes which places it in historical and theoretical context. It presents a comprehensive and accessible introduction to all of Barnes' publications to date. It includes a timeline of important dates to help place new British fiction in context. It also provides an overview of the varied critical reception his work has provoked. This guide explores his characteristic literary techniques, offers extensive readings of all ten novels and provides an overview of the varied critical reception his work has provoked." Order online through Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, or through other fine booksellers.

	Vanessa Guignery The Fiction of Julian Barnes: A Reader's Guide to Essential Criticism Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Pp. 240 Vanessa Guignery has written extensively about Julian Barnes, including her most recent book, The Fiction Of Julian Barnes (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Her insightful and scholarly critiques of Barnes's works are complemented by accessible writing and a genuine understanding of the author. Covers all novels from Metroland through Arthur & George. This book should be read by anyone studying Barnes's work. Order online through Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, or through other fine booksellers.

	Matthew Pateman Julian Barnes: Writers and Their Work Northcote House, 2002. Pp. 106 A terrific resource that examine the works of Julian Barnes from Metroland through Love, etc. Matthew Pateman offers straightforward commentary of the novels, while retaining a high level of scholarship and interpretation. A must-read for anyone studying Barnes's work. Order online through Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, or through other fine booksellers.

	Bruce Sesto Language, History, And Metanarrative In the Fiction of Julian Barnes (Studies In Twentieth-Century British Literature, Vol. 3) Peter Lang, 2001. Pp. 136 Bruce Sesto's book offers moderate insight into Barnes's work. Covering Metroland through The Porcupine, the work is essentially Sesto's dissertation published in the mid-1990s. Contains a few errors, but otherwise a harmless examination of Barnes's work. Considering the price, try consulting other works before attempting this one. Order online through Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, or through other fine booksellers.

	Merritt Moseley Understanding Julian Barnes Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1997. Pp. 198 Merritt Moseley's book represents perhaps the first book-length study of Barnes's work. Moseley covers Metroland through The Porcupine, including some short stories and Barnes's pseudonymous work as Dan Kavanagh. Written at a basic level, this book offers a nice introduction to Barnes's major works and themes. Order online through Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, or through other fine booksellers.