Julian Barnes, delighting visitors to the Edinburgh Book festival, was particularly eloquent on the crushing influence of his elder brother Jonathan, the philosopher, who always wears 18th-century costume: breeches, waistcoat, buckled shoes. ("He wears it coming out of Tufnell Park tube station, looking like some goth gone wrong," he said.) On the prospect of an afterlife, Julian added: "As long as I was never again reviewed by Hilary Spurling, I think I could enjoy it." She had called his book Nothing to Be Frightened Of "dry and two-dimensional", noting that he depicted inanimate objects more tenderly than members of his family.