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October 18, 2011

Julian Barnes Takes the Man Booker Prize

The fourth time is, apparently, the charm. With The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes wins the 2011 Man Booker Prize. The multifaceted writer has been shortlisted three times before, for three wildly different novels -- first in 1984 for his innovative Flaubert's Parrot; fourteen years later for  England, England; and then again for Arthur and George in 2005. In The Sense of an Ending, a man in late middle age finds that a secret from his childhood threatens to overturn the careful architecture of his comfortable life.

 

The other shortlisted titles were The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt, Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch, Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugya, Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman, and Snowdrops by A. D. Miller.

Daybook

May 22: The video game Pac-Man, featuring "the most iconic character from the golden age of arcade video games," was released on this day in 1980. Over the next decade, gamers spent over $2.5 billion in quarters…

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