The Book Show returns to its third season tonight with a visit to the London home of award winning writer, Julien Barnes.
Barnes, whose novels include Arthur & George, Flaubert’s Parrot and The Sense of an Ending, is due to publish his latest novel The Noise of Time, on the composer Dmitiri Shostakovich.
Set in Communist Russia it tells the story of how the composer was forced to negotiate between his art and the authorities who were keeping a watchful eye on him. Barnes reads an extract from his new novel and discusses the life of Shostakovich with Sinéad.
Touring his home, Sinéad gets a close look at the writer’s study and discusses his book collection with him. Barnes also collects photographs of his favourite writers and composers and his walls are lined with these. We get to hear his typewriter and hear, also, why he still uses one!
In 2008 Julian Barnes’ wife of 30 years died. Pat Kavanagh was also his agent and Barnes tells us about his enormous loss and how his grief brought him to read authors such as CS Lewis, Joyce Carol Oates and Joan Didion. Eventually, in 2013, he published a collection of essays and memoir called Levels of Life, in which he reveals the depth of his grief for Pat.
Julian Barnes’ The Noise of Time is published by Jonathan Cape January 28th 2016.
