Book reviews: The Sense of an Ending | The Price of Evrything

The Sense of an Ending

by Julian Barnes

Rating: ****

This short novel won last year’s Man Booker Prize. No wonder: it’s beautifully written, engrossing and put together with a watchmaker’s precision. It’s about a guy called Tony Webster who tells us about his life – his schooldays, a woman he had a relationship with, a weekend he spent with her family. She ended up going out with his best friend. Then something terrible happened. Years later, something odd arrives in the post, and Tony begins to question his memory of events. What happened? Tony is desperate to know. So will you be.

The Price of Evrything

by Eduardo Porter

(Windmill, £8.99)

Rating: ****

After Freakonomics … le déluge. But, in terms of popular economics, this one’s good. It’s about prices, the key to any market. Why do fewer people smoke these days, while more snort cocaine? Smoking is more expensive, cocaine is cheaper but people are not always logical when it comes to prices. As Porter’s analysis broadens, he takes in the whole world. It’s superb.

Comedy and Error

by Simon Day

(Simon Schuster, £8.99)

Rating: ***

Opening this, I was expecting one of those showbiz memoirs in which the performer says how talented everybody is and what a normal chap he is underneath. But Simon Day, the tall guy from The Fast Show, tells us about how damaged he was. He was homeless for a while. He got involved with drugs. He went to Borstal. He lived on the margins of normality. All of this is compelling. Day has a good story to tell and he’s good at telling it. Even the showbiz stuff.

Book reviews: The Sense of an Ending | The Price of Evrything | Comedy and Error