num_pages: 243
description: Two years after the best-selling Arthur &amp; George Julian Barnes gives us a memoir on mortality that touches on faith and science and family as well as a rich array of exemplary figures who over the centuries have confronted the same questions he now poses about the most basic fact of life: its inevitable extinction.If the fear of death is the most rational thing in the world how does one contend with it? An atheist at twenty an agnostic at sixty Barnes looks into the various arguments for and against and with God and at the bloodline whose archivist following his parents death he has becomeanother realm of mystery wherein a drawer of mementos and his own memories (not to mention those of his philosopher brother) often fail to connect. There are other ancestors too: the writersmost of them dead and quite a few of them Frenchwho are his daily companions supplemented by composers and theologians and scientists whose similar explorations are woven into this account with an exhilarating breadth of intellect and felicity of spirit.Deadly serious masterfully playful and surprisingly hilarious Nothing to Be Frightened Of is a riveting display of how this supremely gifted writer goes about his business and a highly personal tour of the human condition and what might follow the final diagnosis.
language: English
title: Nothing to Be Frightened Of
publisher: Knopf