Author of the Month: William Boyd
Selected by the Bookshop
Our Author of the Month for September is the Scottish novelist and screenwriter William Boyd.
Born in Accra in what is now Ghana in 1952, Boyd wrote his first novel A Good Man in Africa (1981) while lecturing in English at St Hilda’s College, Oxford and in 1983 was included in Granta’s first selection of Best of Young British Novelists alongside such now familiar names as Rose Tremain, Ian McEwan, Pat Barker, Martin Amis and Kazuo Ishiguro. His latest novel Gabriel’s Moon, his 18th, is published this month.
As a writer, Boyd has often been compared to Graham Greene, with whom he shares both a mastery of narrative style and a voracious interest in everything, from espionage to art to evolutionary history. Start with Any Human Heart (‘A work of astonishing ventriloquistic virtuosity’ – Sunday Telegraph), and follow it with everything else!
From the publisher:
In his most exhilarating novel yet, Britain’s greatest storyteller transports you from the vibrant streets of sixties London, as an accidental spy is drawn into the shadows of espionage and obsession . . .** FROM THE WORLDWIDE…
From the publisher:
'Superb, wonderful, enjoyable' Guardian'Full of delights' The Times_____________________________Every life is both ordinary and extraordinary, and Logan Mountstuart's - stretching across the twentieth century - is a rich tapestry of both.…
From the publisher:
Soldier. Farmer. Felon. Writer. Father. Lover.One man, many lives.Born in 1799, Cashel Greville Ross experiences myriad lives: joyous and devastating, years of luck and unexpected loss. Moving from County Cork to London, from Waterloo to…
From the publisher:
'A wartime thriller featuring a resourceful woman in grave danger... a great read' – HRH The Duchess of CornwallIt is 1939. Eva Delectorskaya is a beautiful 28-year-old Russian émigrée living in Paris. As war breaks out…
From the publisher:
'One of Britain's most celebrated contemporary novelists' Sunday TimesIn this probing series of exclusive interviews, Alistair Owen talks to William Boyd about his works and the life which has inspired them. The conversations which emerge…
From the publisher:
From the bestselling author comes a transporting new novel about the secret lives of a film crew in Brighton, 1968'An elating read' Sunday TimesA producer. A novelist. An actress.It is summer in 1968, the year of the assassinations of…
From the publisher:
Fascination is master storyteller William Boyd's third volume of short storiesDescribed as "the finest storyteller of his generation", and following his acclaimed collections On the Yankee Station and The Destiny of…
From the publisher:
'The ultimate in immersive fiction . . . magnificent' Sunday Times'Highly readable, entirely engaging and frequently funny' Observer'Perfectly pitched . . . A deft and resonant alchemy of fact and fiction, of literary myth and imagination'…
From the publisher:
WINNER OF THE WHITBREAD FIRST NOVEL AWARDWINNER OF THE SOMERSET MAUGHAM AWARD'Uproariously funny' Observer_____Overweight, oversexed and over there . . .Morgan Leafy is hardly the most respectable of Her Majesty's representatives in…
From the publisher:
The infamous literary hoax that fooled the art worldOn January 8 1960, artist Nat Tate set out to burn his entire life's work. Four days later he jumped off a Staten Island ferry, killing himself. His body was never found. When William Boyd…
From the publisher:
A philandering art dealer tries to give up casual love affairs - seeking only passionate kisses as a substitute. A man recounts his personal history through the things he has stolen from others throughout his life. A couple chart the…
From the publisher:
Funny, moving and sharply observed, these stories are confirmation of Boyd's status as one of English fiction's finest writers. Here are twenty-four gripping tales told in bold, distinct voices from Brazil to Africa and from Nice to…
From the publisher:
WINNER OF THE SUNDAY EXPRESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD'Achingly memorable' The Times_____A quest for secrets in the blue afternoon . . .Los Angeles, 1936. Kay Fischer, a young and ambitious architect, is being followed by an old man. When…
From the publisher:
'One of the comic masterpieces' Daily Telegraph ______________________________________Henderson Dores is an Englishman in New York - and completely out of his depth.He should be concentrating on his job as an art assessor, but his…
From the publisher:
'Brilliant. A Citizen Kane of a novel' Daily Telegraph_____Meet John James Todd:Scotsman, auteur, Rousseau-fanatic - and 'subversive element'Born in 1899, John James Todd is one of the great, failed geniuses of the last…
From the publisher:
'As ambitious as it is remarkable. Balances on seesaws of innocence and violence, sanity and lunacy, hilarity and horror' The Times_____________________________'We will all melt like ice-cream in the sun!'British soldier, East Africa,…
From the publisher:
One May evening in London, as a result of a chance encounter and a split-second decision, the young climatologist Adam Kindred loses everything - home, job, reputation, passport, credit cards, money - never to get them back.With the police…
From the publisher:
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERVienna, 1913. Lysander Rief, a young English actor, sits in the waiting room of the city's preeminent psychiatrist as he anxiously ponders the particularly intimate nature of his neurosis. When the…
From the publisher:
'Marvellously paced and ingeniously plotted. A real page-turner' Observer_____One winter morning, Lorimer Black - young, good-looking, but with a somewhat troubled expression - goes to keep a perfectly routine business appointment and…
From the publisher:
WINNER OF THE JAMES TAIT BLACK MEMORIAL PRIZE 'A brilliant storyteller . . . a book which stretches, tantalizes and delights' Financial Times_____________________________________On Brazzaville Beach, on the edge of Africa, Hope Clearwater…
From the publisher:
*The Sunday Times Bestseller*It is 1969 and James Bond is about to go solo, recklessly motivated by revenge.A seasoned veteran of the service, 007 is sent to single-handedly stop a civil war in the small West African nation of…
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