"I don’t believe in God, but I miss him." So begins Julian Barnes’s brilliant new book that is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his brother (a philosopher), a meditation on mortality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God, and a homage to the writer Jules Renard. Barnes also draws poignant portraits of the last days of his parents, recalled with great detail, affection and exasperation. Other examples he takes up include writers, "most of them dead and quite a few of them French," as well as some composers, for good measure.

The grace with which Barnes weaves together all of these threads makes the experience of reading the book nothing less than exhilarating. Although he cautions us that "this is not my autobiography," the book nonetheless reveals much about Barnes the man and the novelist: how he thinks and how he writes and how he lives. At once deadly serious and dazzlingly playful, Nothing to Be Frightened Of is a wise, funny and constantly surprising tour of the human condition.

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

NOMINEE 2008 - Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

"Death has a habit of bringing the best out in writers…Given its subject matter the whole book has an unexpectedly jaunty air. On virtually every page there is a good joke, even when – or perhaps especially when – Barnes is writing about the grimmest events. Julian Barnes is wonderful at keeping awe and flippancy in perfect balance…One of the joys of this book is that it contains so many playful asides, so many exhilaration diversions from its gloomy central theme."
—Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

"It is not, Barnes tells us, an autobiography. It is rather an essay in the best sense: speculative and precise, intimate and metaphysical, capacious and democratic in the variety of voices, alive and dead, that are invited to counsel the author as he edges his way towards the void"
—Brian Dillon, Times Literary Supplement

"Julian Barnes is a delightful companion and much of the book (its informal tone included) is like an extended and very interesting conversation."
—Cressida Connolly, Literary Review

"Compelling…witty and erudite…consistently interesting and entertaining."
—Val Hennessy, Daily Mail

"This book is both fun and funny. It is sharp, too, in the sense of painful as well as witty…You are in the presence of a nimble mind in complete mastery of, and engagement with, his chosen subject."
—Lucy Beresford, New Statesman

"Intensely fascinating."
—Jane Shilling, The Times

"Entertaining, intriguing, absorbing and so expansive that I was startled, on finishing, to note its brevity…Irresistible reading."
—Penelope Lively, Financial Times

"Superb…[Barnes’s] funniest and frankest work yet."
—Kate Summerscale, Daily Telegraph

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

Julian Barnes is the author of ten novels, including Arthur & George (shortlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize), Flaubert’s Parrot, A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, and England, England, (shortlisted for the 1998 Booker Prize). He is also the author of Something to Declare and Letters from London, as well as two collections of short stories, Cross Channel and The Lemon Table. He lives in London, England.

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page