The Sense of an Ending  by Julian Barnes 

This very well written book  is the story of a man on the long  side of middle age who is looking back on his life. He is reflecting  from the perspective a a guy who is divorced has one child and achieved moderate success in his career. Most important are his memories of his childhood friends and of his first girl friend which in retrospect was his true special love but it didn’t work out. You get the feeling that he is comfortable with his memories although he understands that it is fair to say  they may not be completely accurate. Then circumstances have it that he is notified that his old girl friends’ mother died and left him the diary of his old high school buddy who committed suicide. It turns out that his friend  had a relationship with his old girl friend. The narrator  doesn’t get to see the diary but he does get to see a letter that he himself wrote a long time ago about their relationship. He also get a chance to have a few meetings with his old girl friend. There is a little more to the story than I have told  but the main value of the book would seem to be a reflection on how we remember things . It also raises the question of how we may inadvertently hurt people with what we say and what we write. A good book will stimulate your personal thinking and memories. The above scenario did that with this writer and brought back painful memories which allowed us to identify with the book’s narrator in a very real manner. This reflects the success of this book