Julian Barnes Books In Order

Publication Order of Talking It Over Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Standalone Plays

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Julian Patrick Barnes is an award-winning British from London best known for his post-modernist literature and crime fiction novels. His most prestigious awards include a Man Booker Prize Award in 2011, and three shortlists for the same in 2005, 1998, and 1984. He is also the winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the Commandeur of L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He typically writes his crime fiction under the moniker of Dan Kavanagh. He has also written numerous essays, short stories, and novels under his real name. Julian translated one of Alphonse Daudet’s novels and a German cartoon collection by Volker Kriegel into English. For the most part, his novels deal with the themes of love, truth, reality, and history.

Julian grew up in the suburbs of London to French teachers though he was born and lived in Leicester for about six weeks after he was born. He went to the City of London School, and by the time he was ten his mother had told him his imagination ran too wild. In the mid 1950s, the family upped and moved to Northwood in the midlands, which is the inspiration for the setting for his first novel Metroland. He studied Modern Languages at the Magdalen College, before going on to take a job as an Oxford English Dictionary lexicographer where he spent much of three years. He would then go on to work for the New Review and the New Statesman as a literary editor and reviewer. Barnes then graduated to television critic, working for The Observer and the New Statesman.

With regard to his personal life, Julian Barnes maintains a high level of privacy only giving out snippets of his personal life when he gives the rare interview. He was married to literary agent Pat Kavanagh who was deceased in 2008 from a brain tumor and was memorialized in an essay that appeared in Barnes novel “Levels of Life”. He campaigns and raises funds for a variety of charitable organizations including Dignity in Dying and Freedom from Torture.

Julian Barnes debuted into the literary world with the 1980 published title “Metroland”, a novel that chronicles the life and times of Christopher, a Londoner who travels to Paris for his postgraduate studies. The novel dealt with issues of sexual fidelity and idealism, and established the three part structure that has become the hallmark of Barnes works for much of his literary career. He followed it up with a darker story of a jealous historian who embarks on a quest for revenge after learning of his wife’s checkered past in the novel “Before She Met Me”. Barnes had his big break with the publishing of the 1984 novel “Flaubert’s Parrot” that adopted a fragmented bibliographical literary style rather than a linear structure common to his earlier works. The novel tells the story of Braithwaite Geoffrey an elderly physician obsessed with Gustave Flaubert, who is also one of Barnes’s biggest influences. The novel was very well-received receiving much critical acclaim and establishing Julian as one of the best literary fiction writers in a generation. He shifted gears and wrote two contemporary romance that involved a love triangle in 1991 and 2000.

It was in 2005 that Julian Barnes finally became a mainstream author with the publication of “Arthur and George”. The novel is a fictional account of a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle investigation into a historical crime. It was the first time for the seasoned author to make it into the bestseller lists of the New York Times. In 2013, he pivoted to anthology type writing with “Levels of Life”. The first part of the book is a description of Gaspard-Felix Tournachon works, including his aerial photography and ballooning. The second part follows the same structure by describing the works of Sarah Bernhadt the French actor and Fred Burnaby, both of whom were ballooning enthusiasts. The third part of the book is in memory of Pat Kavanagh his wife of thirty years. It is a deeply emotional and moving narrative that so resonates for what it describes, rather than says about the love and relationship Barnes had with Kavanagh, and the grief he experienced from her decease.

“Metroland” is Julian Barnes debut novel. It tells the story of Christopher Lloyd, a young man growing up in London which is aptly named the Metro-land. It also tells of his sojourn into Paris where he was a student undertaking his masters studies, and the years after he comes back to London to get married. Christopher and his best friend Toni had always despised the bourgeois class of England. However, when Chris comes back to England he becomes one of the elite class much to the chagrin of his friend. He gets a cushy secure job with a publishing firm, buys a house, marries, and has a child. While Christopher acknowledges that his life is banal and not what he would have wanted it to be, he is content and loves his wife, even if she is not Annick, the bold and worldly girlfriend he had in Paris. The novel was adapted into a movie by the same name in 1997 that had Emily Watson and Christian Bale as the leads, with Phillip Saville in the director’s chair.

“Before She Met Me” is another of Julian Barnes best works. The novel is a dark comedy that laughs at the reawakening of jealousy of a once sensible college professor, who is suddenly very much interested in the past life of his wife. Graham Hedrick had been in a fifteen-year marriage with a spiteful and nagging woman and finally filed for divorce after he could no longer take the abuse. He is now married to the woman of dreams, the former actress and very beautiful Ann. It is all flowers and roses in the early days as he congratulates himself on landing such a great wife. However, over time he comes to learn of some imperfections in his wife, which fuels his obsession to learn even more about her past. He is seemingly unable to take the fact that Ann has a life before they became husband and wife, and is now deeply hurt by her previous romantic relationships. He now lives a life full of wild imaginations where he is humiliated and starts concocting revenge plans on Ann’s exes. His weird behavior is beginning to get to his friend Jack and his wife, and it is not long before he thinks his friend might be two-timing him.