Keeping an Eye Open

[A] beautifully produced and judiciously illustrated collection. – Keith Miller, 4 stars * Daily Telegraph *The essay on Lucian Freud…is completely brilliant. I feel uplifted by it… It is a wonderful book. – Celia PaulI became entirely mesmerised by Barnes’ prose… Keeping an Eye Open is a rich and thoughtful book that should not be rushed. These essays are too full of chiaroscuro, their flashes of illumination too fascinating, their connections too interesting for a cursory reading. * Independent *It’s a readable, riveting, informed work with sharp, marvelous anecdotes and observations. In this beautifully illustrated book you’re in great company. Barnes is a sane and steady guide… Wonderful stuff. * Irish Independent *Extremely rewarding, informative, attentive, thoughtful, entertaining essays. * Evening Standard *This is an erudite, entertaining and highly personal collection of essays from the Booker Prize-winning novelist. * Tatler *For their insights all these essays are worth reading. * Oldie *Barnes’s essays abound in verbal images that are pictorially vivid. * Observer *This magnificent survey draws its strength from its intensely personal focus, each piece reverberating off others despite the long span of their composition. It’s a stream of thinking, over years, rather than a set of disparate essays… [A] fascinating and brilliant book. * Financial Times *The pieces show Barnes to be a sympathetic and enthusiastic critic, with a tremendous ability to convey the visceral impact of a painting. * Sunday Times *

Julian Barnes is the author of fourteen novels, including The Sense of an Ending, which won the 2011 Booker Prize, and Sunday Times bestsellers The Noise of Time and The Only Story. He has also written three books of short stories, four collections of essays and five works of non-fiction, including Nothing to Be Frightened Of and the Sunday Times number one bestseller Levels of Life. He was awarded the David Cohen Prize for lifetime contribution to literature in 2011, and the Legion d’honneur in 2017.

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