We were delighted to learn that the bookies’ favorite took the Booker: contributor Julian Barnes won the prize last night for his novel The Sense of an Ending. Barnes, in his 2000 ParisReviewinterview, describes writing literature as “producing grand, beautiful, well-ordered lies that tell more truth than any assemblage of facts.” But it was in 1998, when he fielded our questions about British literature, that he shed some light on the prize itself. When we asked Barnes whether the Booker ever got it right, he replied, “Yes, in that it is always awarded to a novel of serious intent.” Indeed.