Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 about Love October 13, 2008
I found Barnes` take on Love very interesting. it`s changed the way I approach love...
100% recommend reading this book. its absolutely terrific!!!
Yup. September 30, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
An honestly brilliant book. There's a section toward the end where the author slips into a first person narrative and talks about his wife subconsciously 'baring the nape of her neck for him'. It very nearly brought me to tears on the train whilst I read it. Utterly human, empthatic and masterly. This fictional biography of the earth is somehow completely ridiculous at the same time as being very believable. I don't read as much as I used to but I'm delighted that I picked this up last year.
 Believe the hype, this book is fabulous March 14, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Subverting history should not be this much fun. But somewhere in the midst of stowaways aboard Noah's Ark, an absurd trial in Medieval France, and a visit to heaven, we come to realise just what a ridiculous species Human Beings are. Absolutely ridiculous. Even the Earthworms think so. 10 stories, 10 narrative voices covering the entire scope of humanity. This is a secular history more divine and inspirational than any dogmatic text could ever be. I believe in Julian Barnes, he has earned my praise.
A really interesting take on history August 2, 2006
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
We all take history to be factual; well, I did anyway! Then I grew up a bit, and realised that there are two sides to every story. Julian Barnes cleverly presents a third viewpoint - one that might have happened, set in a brilliantly quirky and yet astonishingly believable perspective. I was so taken with the chapter on the Wreck of the Medusa, I went to visit the actual painting in the Louve, Paris, and marvelled at how Barnes had come up with his version of events. Well worth a read. In fact, read it two or three times!
Original perspective on "history" January 20, 2006
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
What a great read! Original and quirky without the irritation of pretension. This novel manages to make you think about history and how it is presented apparently without effort (though I'm not at all sure it is without intention)yet avoids becoming too heavy or bogged down simply by changing the subject every chapter. Starting with story of Noah as never before seen and working his forward gives the author ample scope for choice which he deftly uses to gives us tales of a biblical, historical and personal nature apparently as the whim took him, their only connecting feature being repeated references to the ark, and curiously, to woodworm.
This said, I feel the author is trying to make us think about the way history is told, percieved and perhaps created.
If you fancy somehting engaging and different, you could do a lot worse than this book.
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