William Boyd on his latest novel: "I don’t have any sense of slowing down or running out of ideas"

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William Boyd: ‘A bad ending can ruin a good novel’

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The impulse decision that changed my life

The Predicament

Britain's most beloved storyteller returns with a twisting adventure of obsessive love and elegant espionage . . . 
 
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‘Extravagantly enjoyable' THE TIMES 
 
‘William Boyd once again brings to the spy novel his particular storytelling genius’ MICK HERRON 
 
‘Boyd is one of my favourite authors – he never disappoints’ KATE ATKINSON 
 
‘The Predicament is ingenious, thrilling and wonderfully entertaining’ JOHN BANVILLE 
 
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Gabriel Dax, travel writer and accidental spy, is back in the shadows. Unable to resist the allure of his MI6 handler, Faith Green, he has returned to a life of secrets and subterfuge. Dax is sent to Guatemala under the guise of covering a tinderbox presidential election, where the ruthless decisions of the Mafia provoke pitch-black warfare in collusion with the CIA. 
 
As political turmoil erupts, Gabriel's reluctant involvement deepens. His escape plan leads him to West Berlin, where he uncovers a chilling realisation: there is a plot to assassinate magnetic young President John F. Kennedy. In a race against time, Gabriel must navigate deceit and danger, knowing that the stakes have never been higher . . . 
 
In The Predicament, the second novel starring accidental spy Gabriel Dax, William Boyd weaves yet another masterful tale of suspense, loyalty, love and the dark temptations of spy craft.

Boyd raises the stakes with his second Cold War novel featuring reluctant spy Gabriel Dax . . . a deft mix of espionage, desire, and moral compromise

A faultless evocation of 1960s England, masterful, old-fashioned storytelling. The second novel in a trilogy that’ll leave you wanting more

Beautifully crafted, with echoes of le Carré, Greene and Forsyth, this is a superb evocation of a vanished world, seen through the eyes of a relatably hapless accidental hero

Boyd writes elegant prose and tells a convincing story, as he has been doing now for nearly 45 years

William Boyd was born in 1952 in Accra, Ghana, and grew up there and in Nigeria. He is the author of sixteen highly acclaimed, bestselling novels and five collections of stories. Any Human Heart was longlisted for the Booker Prize and adapted into a TV series with Channel 4. In 2005, Boyd was awarded the CBE. He is married and divides his time between London and south-west France.

Gabriel Dax, travel writer and accidental spy, is back in the shadows. Unable to resist the allure of his MI6 handler, Faith Green, he has returned to a life of secrets and subterfuge. Dax is sent to Guatemala under the guise of covering a tinderbox presidential election, where the ruthless decisions of the Mafia provoke pitch-black warfare in collusion with the CIA. 
 
As political turmoil erupts, Gabriel's reluctant involvement deepens. His escape plan leads him to West Berlin, where he uncovers a chilling realisation: there is a plot to assassinate magnetic young President John F. Kennedy. In a race against time, Gabriel must navigate deceit and danger, knowing that the stakes have never been higher. 
 
The Predicament, the second novel in the bestselling espionage trilogy starring Gabriel Dax, William Boyd weaves a masterful tale of suspense, loyalty, love and the dark temptations of spy craft.

Gabriel's Moon

In his most exhilarating novel yet, William Boyd transports you to the vibrant streets of sixties London, as an accidental spy is drawn into the shadows of espionage and obsession . . . 
 
‘William Boyd once again brings to the spy novel his particular storytelling genius. The result is brilliant fun’ MICK HERRON 
 
‘Wonderfully ambiguous with notions of twisted reality and uncertain memory’ ANN CLEEVES 
 
‘A wonderfully intricate novel of espionage and elegant skulduggery’ JOHN BANVILLE 
 
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An accidental spy. A web of betrayals. A mystery that will take you around the world . . . 
 
Gabriel Dax is a young man haunted by the memories of a tragedy: every night, when sleep finally comes, he dreams about his childhood home in flames. His days are spent on the move as an acclaimed travel writer, capturing changing landscapes in the grip of the Cold War. When he’s offered the chance to interview a political figure, his ambition leads him unwittingly into the shadows of espionage. 
 
As Gabriel’s reluctant initiation takes hold, he is drawn deeper into duplicity. Falling under the spell of Faith Green, an enigmatic and ruthless MI6 handler, he becomes ‘her spy’, unable to resist her demands. But amid the peril, paranoia and passion consuming Gabriel’s new covert life, it will be the revelations closer to home that change the rest of his story . . . 
 
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In his most exhilarating novel yet, William Boyd transports you from the vibrant streets of sixties London to the sun-soaked cobbles of Cadiz and the frosty squares of Warsaw in this thrilling adventure. 
 
‘Engaging, intelligent and deeply satisfying. I rate him one of our greatest living novelists’ PETER JAMES 
 
‘I enjoyed it hugely. Boyd is one of my favourite authors – he never disappoints’ KATE ATKINSON 
 
‘Beautifully crafted and pleasingly unpredictable, the work of a man who knows what he is doing and makes it look effortless’ JAMES RUNCIE 
 
‘Simply the best realistic storyteller of his generation’ SEBASTIAN FAULKS 
 
‘There are few reading pleasures as great as giving in to a William Boyd novel’ SUNDAY TIMES

Gabriel Dax is a young man haunted by the memories of a tragedy: every night, when sleep finally comes, he dreams about his childhood home in flames. His days are spent on the move as an acclaimed travel writer, capturing changing landscapes in the grip of the Cold War. When he’s offered the chance to interview a political figure, his ambition leads him unwittingly into a web of duplicities and betrayals. 
 
As Gabriel’s reluctant initiation takes hold, he is drawn deeper into the shadows. Falling under the spell of Faith Green, an enigmatic and ruthless MI6 handler, he becomes ‘her spy’, unable to resist her demands. But amid the peril, paranoia and passion consuming Gabriel’s new covert life, it will be the revelations closer to home that change the rest of his story. . .

The Mirror and the Road: Conversations with William Boyd

'One of Britain's most celebrated contemporary novelists' Sunday Times 
 
In 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 are a deep-dive into film, art, theatre, literature and the life of a writer. This is one of Britain's most beloved authors on what it is to write in a variety of forms. 
 
'William Boyd has probably written more classic books than any of his contemporaries' Daily Telegraph 
 
 'Arguably one of Britain's finest living writers' Sunday Express

William Boyd has probably written more classic books than any of his contemporaries

One of Britain's most celebrated contemporary novelists

Arguably one of Britain's finest living writers

Boyd is back on a form few of his contemporaries can match. This fine, touching and clever book is the best thing he's written since [Any Human Heart] and deserves similar adulation

A finely judged performance: a deft and resonant alchemy of fact and fiction, of literary myth and imagination

Boyd on form is the ultimate in immersive fiction, and Love is Blind is Boyd at the top of his game . . . magnificent

Alistair Owen (Author) Alistair Owen is the author of five acclaimed books of interviews with British writers, including two Guardian and Observer books of the year. He has written screenplays, stage plays and arts journalism, and chaired writer Q&amp;As at events, festivals and online. His first novel, The Vetting Officer, is available on Kindle and in paperback. William Boyd (Author) William Boyd was born in 1952 in Accra, Ghana, and grew up there and in Nigeria. He is the author of sixteen highly acclaimed, bestselling novels and five collections of stories. Any Human Heart was longlisted for the Booker Prize and adapted into a TV series with Channel 4. In 2005, Boyd was awarded the CBE. He is married and divides his time between London and south-west France.

In 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 are a deep-dive into film, art, theatre, literature and the life of a writer. This is one of Britain's most beloved authors on what it is to write in a variety of forms.

The Romantic

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 Zanzibar, Cashel seeks his fortune across continents in war and in peace. He faces a terrible moral choice in a village in Sri Lanka as part of the East Indian Army. He enters the world of the Romantic Poets in Pisa. In Ravenna he meets a woman who will live in his heart for the rest of his days. As he travels the world as a soldier, a farmer, a felon, a writer, a father, a lover, he experiences all the vicissitudes of life and, through the accelerating turbulence of the nineteenth century, he discovers who he truly is. This is the romance of life itself, and the beating heart of The Romantic. 
 
From one of Britain's best-loved and bestselling writers comes an intimate yet panoramic novel set across the nineteenth century. 
 
'Picaresque, big-hearted and moving, this is Boyd at the top of his game' Guardian 
 
'There are few reading pleasures as great as giving in to a William Boyd novel' Sunday Times 
 
'One of our best contemporary storytellers' Spectator 
 
'Simply the best realistic storyteller of his generation' Sebastian Faulks

The Romantic by William Boyd was the novel I enjoyed most this year. It's incredibly ambitious, its hero moving from Co Cork to London, then from Waterloo to Zanzibar, and at one point even joining the East Indian Army, but it was such an easy, indulgent read

[One of the] most enjoyable new novels I read this year . . . [it] offers deep pleasure to those who love novels, instruction to anyone setting out to write one

Boyd is as magically readable as ever, and, as always with his whole life novels, there is an invigorating air of spontaneity

William Boyd's The Romantic is disguised a an historical biography - The Real Life of Cashel Greville Ross - but is actually an utterly engrossing adventure story . . . Cashel, we understand, is searching for himself, but in the process he provides romance, entertainment and enlightenment for his readers. How better to spend the relaxed days around Xmas than following his footsteps

Storytelling is what floats my boat and William Boyd's The Romantic, a return to his "whole-life" novels, has it in spades. Following our hero Cashel Greville Ross (Boyd is big on names) from Ireland to the Battle of Waterloo, then India, Italy, New England, Africa and beyond, it has enough engrossing variety to fill several books, not just the one

Cashel ultimately emerges as a one-off - an inimitable character, whether he knows it or not . . . what is often lost behind the sheer pleasure brought by [Boyd's] books is their layered Chekhovian subtleties: Boyd is abundantly talented at capturing life's disconnections . . . it is intoxicating to be in the company of a writer who seems to be having such fun

William Boyd's new novel is one of his best

A rambunctious, swashbuckling tale, told with panache by a master storyteller . . . Those who fall in love with The Romantic may wonder whether their own lives lack adventure. Surrender to this fine novel's spell, though, and it will vicariously supply more than enough thrills for anyone

Boyd's back, baby. The great writer of big, splashy (mostly) historical adventures has gone all guns blazing on this one . . . The pages brim with famous names and exotic locations - with Florentine palazzos, debtors' prisons, scandalous love affairs, Byron and the Battle of Waterloo . . . pure, joyful escapism

If it's true escapism you're after, William Boyd can always be relied upon to transport the reader from reality and his next offering, The Romantic, another epic that follows Cashel Greville Ross from 19th-century Country Cork to Zanzibar via Oxford and Sri Lanka, offers a wonderful literary getaway as the nights draw in

Vogue, A Most Promising Page-Turner of the Season

Packed with passion, adventure, suspense, comic interludes and a range of colourful characters . . . the rollicking work of a masterful storyteller, The Romantic is both a vivid portrait of a life and a sweeping panorama of an age

The Romantic is certainly a crowd-pleaser . . . Boyd knows how to time the hights and lows, how to blend triumphs and tragedies, personal and historical . . . genuinely poignant and wise

A satisfyingly meaty novel in the rich vein of his earlier classics The New Confessions and Any Human Heart. As we have come to expect, here is exceptional storytelling - pristine, immersive, and intoxicating. The elegant prose is characteristically detailed and precise . . . It has the expansiveness of many classic 19th century novels. There's a Dickensian warmth and verve, an epic scale, a spirited sense of chance and adventure. Boyd as ever stresses period detail, and the novel is as informative as it is entertaining . . . It is bravura, high octane stuff, eventful and sometimes on the edge of chaos

A panoramic and deeply satisfying narrative from an author on top form

It's tremendously entertaining and, as always with Boyd, virtually impossible to stop reading

A globe-trotting adventure through the 19th century

Boyd's pile-up of set piece escapades offers a huge amount of fun

Boyd's books are so enjoyable that it's hard for us to resent the tricks being played on us, even as we find ourselves constantly reaching for Google, wanting to know what is and isn't real

There's a cornucopia of fine things here . . . The Romantic, always enjoyable, ranks with two of his best: The New Confessions and Any Human Heart. Both were intelligent and engrossing, novels you lived with. Both told a fine story very well. The Romantic does just that

A ripping yarn. And as such, it is pretty much faultless: as moreish as good chocolate, terrifically entertaining, and deeply humane

One of our best contemporary storytellers

A narrative that Charles Dickens or Jane Austen would surely have been happy to claim as their own . . . there's a joy to Boyd's storytelling throughout and his hero is one to cheer for

A wonderful tale that spans a life of adventure, this is storytelling at its very best

Crammed with incident, the novel has the wonderfully freewheeling quality that one associates with the great 19th-century novelists. As with most of Boyd's works, it manages to be warm-hearted and deliciously sardonic at the same time

William Boyd taps into the classic novel tradition with this sweeping tale of one man's century-spanning life

There is no doubt that Boyd is a masterful storyteller . . . this is a book to get totally, utterly and delightfully lost in

A new novel by William Boyd is always a treat and in his picaresque latest, The Romantic, his hero is Cashel Greville Ross, born in 1799, a soldier, lover, friend of poets, bankrupt and adventurer who is swept into many of the most important episodes of the 19th century

This highly entertaining, engrossing page-turner is the fictionalised biography of Cashel Greville Ross, who was born in 1799 in Scotland and brought up in Cork. Such is William Boyd's mastery as a storyteller, one begins to believe that all of the events are entirely real

The Romantic is a rollicking read that will delight his many fans

A wild ride across the 19th century on the back of a narrative that never pauses for breath . . . this breakneck pace seems to be a function of Boyd's exceptional imaginative facility, which sees him just as irresistibly drawn to new ideas as his hero is

What could be more reassuring in troubling times than a new William Boyd novel? Trio is immensely readable, its descriptions full of light and colour, its humour spot on, its mood a perfect mix of frolicsome and melancholy

Reading William Boyd's Trio is like shrugging on a worn leather jacket on the first brisk morning of autumn: cosy but cool . . . He has enormous fun with the worlds - and egos - of page and screen

Breakneck pace seems to be a function of Boyd's exceptional imaginative facility, which sees him just as irresistibly drawn to new ideas as his hero is . . . there's something irresistible about that energy . . . if a whole-life novel is intended to represent the span of a unique existence, then The Romantic gets it right

The Romantic is a whole-life novel, a form in which Boyd excels . . . a terrific read

Front inside cover printing 
 
'Pure, joyful escapism' The Times, Best Fiction Books of 2022 
 
'The rollicking work of a masterful storyteller, The Romantic is both a vivid portrait of a life and a sweeping panorama of an age' The Economist 
 
'Boyd is as magically readable as ever and, as always with his whole-life novels, there is an invigorating air of spontaneity' Telegraph 
 
'Pretty much faultless: as moreish as good chocolate, terrifically entertaining, and deeply humane' i 
'It is intoxicating to be in the company of a writer who seems to be having such fun' Guardian 
 
'A panoramic and deeply satisfying narrative from an author on top form' Mail on Sunday

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 Zanzibar, Cashel seeks his fortune across continents in war and in peace. He faces a terrible moral choice in a village in Sri Lanka as part of the East Indian Army. He enters the world of the Romantic Poets in Pisa. In Ravenna he meets a woman who will live in his heart for the rest of his days. As he travels the world as a soldier, a farmer, a felon, a writer, a father, a lover, he experiences all the vicissitudes of life and, through the accelerating turbulence of the nineteenth century, he discovers who he truly is. This is the romance of life itself, and the beating heart of The Romantic.

Fascination

Fascination is master storyteller William Boyd's third volume of short stories 
 
Described as "the finest storyteller of his generation", and following his acclaimed collections On the Yankee Station and The Destiny of Nathalie X, in Fascination Boyd shows his brilliance of the form as these stories range widely through time and space. In a dazzling array of styles and narratives we move from 1930s Germany to Los Angeles in the Second World War, from contemporary Oxford to 19th century Russia. Whether in London or Amsterdam. Eastbourne or a Normandy village these stories explore and expose the fraught, funny, absurd, poignant and lovelorn lives of their many and varied characters. 
 
Fascination will be loved by fans of Any Human Heart, as well as readers of William Trevor, Sebastian Faulks, Nick Hornby and Hilary Mantel. 
 
'The stories here are perfect . . . suffused with an understanding of love, desire and emotional incompetence' Guardian 
 
'Perfectly formed snapshots of life at its most mystifying' Daily Mail 
 
'Consistently entertaining' Literary Review 
 
'Boyd achieves his best writing, observing tiny moments of love, lust and epiphany with extraordinary sensitivity' Spectator

The stories here are perfect . . . suffused with an understanding of love, desire and emotional incompetence

Perfectly formed snapshots of life at its most mystifying

Boyd achieves his best writing, observing tiny moments of love, lust and epiphany with extraordinary sensitivity

Sixteen brilliant short stories from one of today's most original storytellers. Wide-ranging in style and subject matter, the collection moves from 19th century Russia to Second World War Los Angeles to modern-day Eastbourne. First published in Penguin in 2005 to great acclaim, now reissued with a striking new cover image.

Trio

'An elating read' Sunday Times 
 
A producer. A novelist. An actress. 
 
It is summer in 1968, the year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. There are riots in Paris and the Vietnam War is out of control. While the world is reeling our three characters are involved in making a Swingin' Sixties movie in sunny Brighton. 
 
All are leading secret lives. Elfrida is drowning her writer's block in vodka; Talbot, coping with the daily dysfunction of making a film, is hiding something in a secret apartment; and the glamorous Anny is wondering why the CIA is suddenly so interested in her. 
 
But the show must go on and, as it does, the trio's private worlds begin to take over their public ones. Pressures build inexorably - someone's going to crack. Or maybe they all will. 
 
From one of Britain's best loved writers comes an exhilarating, tender novel that asks the vital questions: what makes life worth living? And what do you do if you find it isn't? 
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PRAISE FOR WILLIAM BOYD 
 
'The ultimate in immersive fiction . . . magnificent' Sunday Times 
 
'A finely judged performance: a deft and resonant alchemy of fact and fiction, of literary myth and imagination' Guardian on Love is Blind 
 
'William Boyd has probably written more classic books than any of his contemporaries' Daily Telegraph 
 
'Simply the best realistic storyteller of his generation' Sebastian Faulks

A middle-aged film producer, a novelist with writer's block and a glamorous young actress come together to make a Swinging Sixties movie in this jaunty page-turner. But everyone is living a double life. Even names can't be taken on trust. Full of neat phrases and quirkily funny scenes, it's an elating read

An absorbing novel about lives spiralling out of control and the drastic measures required to right them

The characters are wonderfully written and I loved escaping to the gossipy world of the film set

Boyd keeps the plot racing along, yet for all the twists, the real delight is in William Boyd's wry portrait of a bygone age . . . Boyd's usual sure touch is evident throughout this tender, gently comic work

One of our best contemporary storytellers. . . Trio embraces comedy, tragedy and redemption. It succeeds impressively because of its dramatic, often sensational, revelations

I am a huge fan of William Boyd and the tender way he writes about the flaws and frailties of his characters. Trio is his best novel in years

Reading William Boyd's Trio is like shrugging on a worn leather jacket on the first brisk morning of autumn: cosy but cool . . . He has enormous fun with the worlds - and egos - of page and screen

Enormous fun . . . Boyd's characters are vibrant, his prose elegant, comedy excellent: the result is a book that's compassionate and compelling

Boyd's writing is as fluent as ever but it's the ideas pulsing beneath the surface that distinguish Trio

Trio is an intricate set of variations on the idea of alternative selves, well beyond the title's trio, unobtrusively elegant in its formal beauty

Sending an affably satiric shimmer over the ceaseless rewrites, grotesque miscastings and behind-the-scenes chicanery, William Boyd simultaneously explores deeper issues of duplicity and divided personality

Sunday Times, Best Fiction Books of the Year

A producer. A novelist. An actress. 
 
It is summer in 1968, the year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. While the world is reeling our trio is involved in making a rackety Swingin' Sixties British movie in sunny Brighton. All are leading secret lives. As the film is shot, with its usual drastic ups and downs, so does our trio's private, secret world begin to take over their public one. Pressures build inexorably - someone's going to crack. Or maybe they all will. 
 
From one of Britain's best loved writers comes an exhilarating, tender novel that asks the vital questions: what makes life worth living? And what do you do if you find it isn't?

Waiting for Sunrise

Brought to you by Penguin. 
 
Vienna, 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 enigmatic, intensely beautiful Hettie Bull walks in, Lysander is immediately drawn to her, unaware of how destructive the consequences of their subsequent affair will be. One year later, home in London, Lysander finds himself entangled in the dangerous web of wartime intelligence - a world of sex, scandal and spies that is slowly, steadily, permeating every corner of his life... 
 
© William Boyd 2012 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Vienna, 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 enigmatic, intensely beautiful Hettie Bull walks in, Lysander is immediately drawn to her, unaware of how destructive the consequences of their subsequent affair will be. One year later, home in London, Lysander finds himself entangled in the dangerous web of wartime intelligence - a world of sex, scandal and spies that is slowly, steadily, permeating every corner of his life...

Sweet Caress

Brought to you by Penguin. 
 
Amory's first memory is of her father doing a handstand. She has memories of him returning on leave during the First World War. But his absences, both actual and emotional, are what she chiefly remembers. It is her photographer uncle Greville who supplies the emotional bond she needs, and, when he gives her a camera and some rudimentary lessons in photography, unleashes a passion that will irrevocably shape her future. 
 
A spell at boarding school ends abruptly and Amory begins an apprenticeship with Greville in London, living in his flat in Kensington, earning two pounds a week photographing socialites for fashionable magazines. But Amory is hungry for more and her search for life, love and artistic expression will take her to the demi monde of Berlin of the late 1920s, to New York of the 1930s, to the Blackshirt riots in London and to France in the Second World War where she becomes one of the first women war photographers. Her desire for experience will lead Amory to further wars, to lovers, husbands and children as she continues to pursue her dreams and battle her demons. 
 
In this enthralling story of a life fully lived, William Boyd has created a sweeping panorama of some of the most defining moments of modern history, told through the camera lens of one unforgettable woman, Amory Clay. It is his greatest achievement to date. 
 
© William Boyd 2015 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Amory's first memory is of her father doing a handstand. She has memories of him returning on leave during the First World War. But his absences, both actual and emotional, are what she chiefly remembers. It is her photographer uncle Greville who supplies the emotional bond she needs, and, when he gives her a camera and some rudimentary lessons in photography, unleashes a passion that will irrevocably shape her future. 
A spell at boarding school ends abruptly and Amory begins an apprenticeship with Greville in London, living in his flat in Kensington, earning two pounds a week photographing socialites for fashionable magazines. But Amory is hungry for more and her search for life, love and artistic expression will take her to the demi monde of Berlin of the late 1920s, to New York of the 1930s, to the Blackshirt riots in London and to France in the Second World War where she becomes one of the first women war photographers. Her desire for experience will lead Amory to further wars, to lovers, husbands and children as she continues to pursue her dreams and battle her demons. 
In this enthralling story of a life fully lived, William Boyd has created a sweeping panorama of some of the most defining moments of modern history, told through the camera lens of one unforgettable woman, Amory Clay. It is his greatest achievement to date.

Ordinary Thunderstorms

Brought to you by Penguin. 
 
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 and a hit man in merciless pursuit, Adam has no choice but to go underground, joining the ranks of the disappeared, struggling to understand how his life has unravelled so spectacularly. His journey of discovery will take him along the Thames from Chelsea to the sink estates of the East End. On the way he encounters aristocrats, priests, prostitutes and a policewoman - but will he ever find himself again? 
 
© William Boyd 2009 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

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 and a hit man in merciless pursuit, Adam has no choice but to go underground, joining the ranks of the disappeared, struggling to understand how his life has unravelled so spectacularly. His journey of discovery will take him along the Thames from Chelsea to the sink estates of the East End. On the way he encounters aristocrats, priests, prostitutes and a policewoman - but will he ever find himself again?

An American Artist 1928-1960

Nat Tate

The infamous literary hoax that fooled the art world 
 
On 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 published his biography of Abstract Expressionist Nat Tate, tributes poured in from a whole host of artists and critics in the New York art world. They toasted the troubled genius in a Manhattan launch party attended by David Bowie and Gore Vidal. 
 
But Nat Tate never existed. The book was a hoax. 
 
Will Boyd's biography of a fake artist is a brilliant probe into the politics of authenticity and reputation in the modern art scene. It is a playful and intelligent insight into the fascinating, often cryptic world of modern art.

On 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 published his biography of Abstract Expressionist Nat Tate, tributes poured in from a whole host of artists and critics in the New York art world. They toasted the troubled genius in a Manhattan launch party attended by David Bowie and Gore Vidal. 
 
But Nat Tate never existed. The book was a hoax. 
 
Will Boyd's biography of a fake artist is a brilliant probe into the politics of authenticity and reputation in the modern art scene. It is a playful and intelligent insight into the fascinating, often cryptic world of modern art.

Armadillo

'Marvellously paced and ingeniously plotted. A real page-turner' Observer 
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One winter morning, Lorimer Black - young, good-looking, but with a somewhat troubled expression - goes to keep a perfectly routine business appointment and finds a hanged man. A bad start to the day, by anyone's standards, and an ominous portent. 
 
For Lorimer works in the only-slightly corrupt business of financial adjusting, and he is about to learn that it is much uglier - and even more crooked - than he ever imagined. Suddenly, he's being unfairly blamed for all kinds of irregularities. Next, his life is threatened. And, lastly, he's coming to realise that the life he has led till now - the one someone wants to rub out - is one big fat lie . . . 
 
_________________________ 
 
'A joy to read: easy to get into, addictively plotted and beautifully written' Daily Mail 
 
'A novel that is truly comic, and, like all true comedy, also disturbing' Scotsman 
 
'A pleasure to read' Independent on Sunday

Lorimer Black - young, good-looking, but with a somewhat troubled expression - does not understand why his world is being torn apart, though he does know that for the most part it is made up of bluster and hypocrisy. His business, trying to keep insurance companies from paying out the money they've promised, is a con game run with the protection of the law. 
 
One winter's morning, Lorimer goes to keep a perfectly routine business appointment and finds a hanged man. A bad start to the day, by any standards, and an ominous portent of things to come.

The Blue Afternoon

WINNER OF THE SUNDAY EXPRESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 
 
'Achingly memorable' The Times 
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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 confronted, he explains that his name is Salvador Carriscant - and that he is her father. 
 
In a matter of weeks Kay will join Salvador on an extraordinary journey as they delve back into his past to not only learn the truth behind her own birth, but also to discover the whereabouts of a woman long thought dead - and to uncover the identity of a killer. 
 
________________________________ 
 
'The finest storyteller of his generation' Daily Telegraph 
 
'An extraordinary story' John Mortimer, Sunday Telegraph, Books of the Year 
 
'Terrific' Jeremy Paxman, Independent, Books of the Year 
 
'Richly entertaining' Independent 
 
'A brilliant achievement' Time Out

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 confronted, he explains that his name is Salvador Carriscant - and that he is her father. 
 
In a matter of weeks Kay will join Salvador on an extraordinary journey as they delve back into his past to not only learn the truth behind her own birth, but also to discover the whereabouts of a woman long thought dead - and to uncover the identity of a killer.

Stars and Bars

'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 complicated personal life keeps intruding. And that's before we even get to his sense of alienation, of being a fish out of water. For Henderson is a shy man lost in a country of extraverts and weirdos. Subway poets, loony millionaires, Bible-bashers and sharp-suited hoods stalk him wherever he goes. But it is only when he's sent to America's deep South to examine a rare collection of paintings that matters take a life-threatening turn. Still, if it doesn't kill you, they say it can only make you stronger . . . 
______________________________________ 
 
 
'Boyd's humour, timed to a tee, always raps out the truth' Mail on Sunday 
 
'Extremely funny. Boyd does not pass up a single comic turn' Sunday Telegraph 
 
'Splittlingly shrewd and engaging' Guardian 
 
'The wry laughter never stops . . . the shrewdest pages yet from a master of witty manipulation' Observer

All Henderson Dores dreams of is fitting in. But America, land of the loony millionaire and the subway poet, down-home Bible-basher and sharp-suited hood, of paralysing personal frankness and surreally fantasized facilities, is hard enough for an Englishman to fit in to. Henderson could never shed enough inhibitions to become just another weirdo. Or could he? 
 
This hilarious fish-out-of-water comedy, which Boyd also adapted for screen for the 1980s film starring Daniel Day Lewis, was described in the Guardian as, 'Splittingly shrewd and engaging ... with an extra and uneasy little something fretting away at the ribald content'.

An Ice-cream War

'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, 1914 
 
On the Western Front millions are being slaughtered. But in East Africa a ridiculous and utterly ignored campaign is being waged - one that continues after the Armistice because no one bothers to tell the participants to stop. 
 
As the conflict sweeps up Africans and colonials, so those left at home and those fighting abroad find themselves unable to escape the tide of history bearing down on them. 
 
_____________________________ 
 
'A towering achievement' John Carey 
 
'Compulsively readable' Blake Morrison, Observer 
 
'Funny, assured, a seriocomic romp. A study of people caught in the side pockets of calamity that dramatizes their plights with humour, detail and grit' Harper's

William Boyd was born in 1952 in Accra, Ghana and grew up there and in Nigeria. His first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), won the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Somerset Maugham Prize. His other novels include An Ice Cream War (1982, shortlisted for the 1982 Booker Prize and winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), Stars and Bars (1984), The New Confessions (1987), Brazzaville Beach (1990, winner of the McVitie Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize), The Blue Afternoon (1993, winner of the 1993 Sunday Express Book of the Year Award), Armadillo (1998), Any Human Heart (2002, winner of the Prix Jean Monnet) and Restless (2006, winner of the Costa Novel of the Year Award). His latest novel is Sweet Caress (2015). Some seventeen of his screenplays have been filmed, including The Trench (1999), which he also directed, and he is also the author of four collections of short stories: On the Yankee Station (1981), The Destiny of Nathalie 'X' (1995), Fascination (2004) and The Dream Lover (2008). He is married and divides his time between London and South West France.

An Ice-Cream War was the debut novel of William Boyd who would go on to be recognized as 'the finest storyteller of his generation' (Sebastian Faulks). It follows the fortunes of several wildly different characters - including an expat farmer and a young English aristocrat - as they are swept up in the fighting in German East Africa during the First World War, their lives converging amid battle, betrayal, love, comedy and tragedy.

A BBC Two Between the Covers pick

Any Human Heart

DISCOVER THE BOOKER PRIZE LONGLISTED NOVEL ABOUT ONE HEART'S LOVES AND LOSSES FROM ICONIC STORYTELLER WILLIAM BOYD 
 
'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. As a writer who finds inspiration with Hemingway in Paris and Virginia Woolf in London, as a spy recruited by Ian Fleming and betrayed in the war, and as an art-dealer in '60s New York, Logan mixes with the men and women who shape his times. But as a son, friend, lover and husband, he makes the same mistakes we all do in our search for happiness. Here, then, is the story of a life lived to the full - and a journey deep into a very human heart. 
 
'One of the things this book does so brilliantly, is it so authentically recreates historical characters' Ben Miller, on BBC 2's Between The Covers 
 
____________________________ 
 
'Astonishing, touching, extremely funny. A brilliant evocation of a past era and an immensely readable story' Sunday Telegraph 
 
'Superb, wonderful, enjoyable' Guardian 
 
'Generous, witty, sneakily profound' Evening Standard 
 
Any Human Heart was adapted for a Channel 4 drama starring Kim Cattrall, Gillian Anderson, Matthew Macfadyen and Jim Broadbent and is perfect for readers of Sebastian Faulks and Hilary Mantel.

Every life is both ordinary and extraordinary, but Logan Mountstuart's - lived from the beginning to the end of the twentieth century - contains more than its fair share of both. As a writer who finds inspiration with Hemingway in Paris and Virginia Woolf in London, as a spy recruited by Ian Fleming and betrayed in the war and as an art-dealer in '60s New York, Logan mixes with the movers and shakers of his times. But as a son, friend, lover and husband, he makes the same mistakes we all do in our search for happiness. Here, then, is the story of a life lived to the full - and a journey deep into a very human heart.

A rich exploration into one man’s life from the bestselling author of Any Human Heart

The New Confessions

'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 century. His reminiscences, collected in The New Confessions, take us from Edinburgh to the Western Front, the Berlin film-world in the Twenties to Hollywood in the Thirties, Forties and beyond. 
 
Suffering imprisonment, shooting, marriage, fatherhood, divorce and McCarthyism, Todd is a hostage to good fortune, ill-judgement, bad luck, the vast sweep of history and the cruel, cruel hand of fate . . . 
 
__________________________________ 
 
'A magnificent feat of storytelling and panoramic reconstruction' Observer 
 
'Paced and plotted with sinewy, unfailing skill . . . Boyd has given us a work of rich, ripe and immensely enjoyable entertainment' Sunday Times 
 
'Simply the best realistic storyteller of his generation' Independent

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 century. His reminiscences, collected in The New Confessions, take us from Edinburgh to the Western Front, the Berlin film-world in the Twenties to Hollywood in the Thirties, Forties and beyond. 
 
Suffering imprisonment, shooting, marriage, fatherhood, divorce and McCarthyism, Todd is a hostage to good fortune, ill-judgement, bad luck, the vast sweep of history and the cruel, cruel hand of fate . . .

A Good Man in Africa

WINNER OF THE WHITBREAD FIRST NOVEL AWARD 
WINNER 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 the West African state of Kinjanja. For starters, he probably shouldn't have involved himself in wholesale bribery. Nor was it a good career move to go chasing after his boss's daughter; especially when his doctor banned him from horizontal pursuits. 
 
But life is about to change for young Morgan Leafy. Every betrayal and humiliation he has suffered at the hands of petty persecutors is suddenly put into perspective. For Morgan has a dead body on his hands - and somehow, some way he's going to have to get rid of it . . . 
 
_________________________ 
 
'If a widening grin is the test of a novel's entertainment value . . . A Good Man in Africa romps home' Guardian 
 
'Wickedly funny' The Times 
 
'A delight' Washington Post

If a widening grin is the test of a novel's entertainment value in retrospect, A Good Man in Africa romps home

Overweight, oversexed and over there . . . 
 
Morgan Leafy is hardly the most respectable of Her Majesty's representatives in the West African state of Kinjanja. For starters, he probably shouldn't have involved himself in wholesale bribery. Nor was it a good career move to go chasing after his boss's daughter; especially when his doctor banned him from horizontal pursuits. 
 
But life is about to change for young Morgan Leafy. Every betrayal and humiliation he has suffered at the hands of petty persecutors is suddenly put into perspective. For Morgan has a dead body on his hands - and somehow, some way he's going to have to get rid of it . . .

Brazzaville Beach

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 ponders the strange circumstances that led her to leave her husband John, and his mathematical obsessions, in England and venture to Africa to help world-renowned scientist Eugene Mallabar with his studies of wild chimps. 
 
But the more Hope studies Mallabar, the more she comes to believe that something isn't right. That behind Mallabar, and his obsessive work, there lies another, more sinister truth: one that might also help explain Hope's reasons for leaving England . . . 
 
_____________________________________ 
 
'A most extraordinary parable about mankind. Quite unlike anything else I have read' Sunday Express 
 
'Brilliant, daring. A gripping and compulsive story' Herald 
 
'Hilarious and edgy' Sunday Times

On Brazzaville Beach, on the edge of Africa, Hope Clearwater ponders the strange circumstances that led her to leave her husband John, and his mathematical obsessions, in England and venture to Africa to help world-renowned scientist Eugene Mallabar with his studies of wild chimps. 
 
But the more Hope studies Mallabar, the more she comes to believe that something isn't right. That behind Mallabar, and his obsessive work, there lies another, more sinister truth: one that might also help explain Hope's reasons for leaving England . . .

The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth

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 journey of their five year relationship backwards, from awkward reunion to lovelorn first encounter. And, at the heart of the book, a 24-year old young woman, Bethany Mellmoth, embarks on a year-long journey of wishful and tentative self-discovery. 
 
The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth depicts the random encounters that bring the past bubbling to the surface; the impulsive decisions that irrevocably shape a life; and the endless hesitations and loss-of-nerve that wickedly complicate it. These funny, surprising and moving stories are a resounding confirmation of Boyd's powers as one of our most original and compelling storytellers.

Boyd shows why he's so often compared to Graham Greene.... brilliant and bewitching collection of stories

Like stealing badges, like shucking oysters, once you have one of these stories you can't stop. Lights out was after midnight

The stories, as is often the case with Boyd, are packed with characters whose lives are upended by random upheavals

In a 2008 essay, Boyd explained that writing short stories gives him a welcome chance "to change habits, to experiment, to take risks, to try out different voices". And in the best stories here, it's a chance he takes full advantage of, serving up an impressive variety of settings and protagonists

Boyd is dependably a master of what's most true: an always elegant realist whose characters will get under your skin

No one charts the highs and lows of the human condition like Boyd

A riveting short story collection from one of the best

What Boyd does so mesmerisingly...is make the insignificant utterly significant...you are confronted by the full force of Boyd's undeniable talent for storytelling, as he inventively plays with time and form, and infuses his prose with themes of lust, love and emotional incompetence

William Boyd is arguably one of Britain's finest living writers...compelling and highly entertaining

He is a skilled and humorous storyteller, and his pleasure in exploring life's uncertainties is apparent

Boyd delights in themes of deceit and getting one over on the competition...such finely-honed prose

Quite brilliant. There has been no decline in the wit, the style, the precise observation

These stories, by one of Britain's most compelling authors about how the post is inescapable - from random encounters to impulsive acts - is funny and surprising

Boyd has always been eloquent, his narratives memorably stylish

William Boyd was born in 1952 in Accra, Ghana, and grew up there and in Nigeria. His first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), won the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Somerset Maugham Prize. His other bestselling novels include Any Human Heart, Restless and Sweet Caress. He is married and divides his time between London and south-west France.

A philandering art dealer tries to give up casual love affairs - seeking only stolen 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 journey of their five year relationship backwards, from awkward reunion to lovelorn first encounter. And, at the heart of the book, a 24-year old young woman, Bethany Mellmoth, embarks on a year-long journey of wishful and tentative self-discovery. 
The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth depicts the random encounters that bring the past bubbling to the surface; the impulsive decisions that irrevocably shape a life; and the endless hesitations and loss-of-nerve that wickedly complicate it. These funny, surprising and moving stories are a resounding confirmation of Boyd's powers as one of our most original and compelling storytellers.

A James Bond Novel

Solo

The bestselling new James Bond novel written by William Boyd (‘English fiction's master storyteller’ The Times)

This is well-plotted, exciting stuff and Boyd has a great sense of time and place. His boozy, maturer, more fallible Bond is totally believable. Mission accomplished, Mr Boyd.

Boyd was a smart choice for a Bond thriller. The action clips along. There are welcome literary flourishes and a dense plot.

Written with aplomb, Boyd’s Bond novel is a terrific twisting thriller.

Anyone wishing this autumn to enjoy the Cold War with the assurance of a happy ending should seek out William Boyd’s new James Bond novel, Solo, in which 007 is dispatched to West Africa and the fictitious country of Zanzarim, where he finds himself in the midst of a civil war.

A fantastic read, which I ripped through in the time it would take to watch Skyfall, as it happens, and I found it significantly more enjoyable.

William Boyd brings back the real Bond, triumphantly

The late Ian Fleming would surely have approved

Keeps us on our toes until the closing pages

Exciting stuff… Mission accomplished, Mr Boyd

Manages to enrich and refresh a character we thought we knew too well. Solo is a terrific twisting thriller – just when you smugly think you have spotted a huge hole in the plot, Boyd turns it breathtakingly around.

Since the death of Ian Fleming, plenty of writers have tried their hand at perpetuating the career of James Bond, with mixed results. Boyd’s Solo is undoubtedly one of the best.

A triumphant thriller worthy of Bond’s creator Ian Fleming.

I found myself wondering if Boyd had outdone Fleming.

[Boyd is] an ideal writer of James Bond novels, and this one, his first, is very good

A brand new James Bond adventure combining all the glamour and excitement of Fleming’s original novels with the masterful storytelling of William Boyd

A very good piece of literary ventriloquism, with a great baddie

Fleming’s James Bond lives again in this perfectly judged homage

William Boyd is the author of one work of non-fiction, three collections of short stories and thirteen novels, including the bestselling historical spy thriller Restless – winner of the Costa Novel of the Year – and Any Human Heart, in which the character of Ian Fleming features. Among his other awards are the Whitbread First Novel Prize, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Prix Jean Monnet. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2005, he was awarded the CBE. 
 
Born in Ghana in 1952, William Boyd spent much of his early life in West Africa. He now divides his time between the south-west of France and Chelsea, where he lives a stone’s throw from James Bond’s London address.

*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 Zanzarim. Aided by a beautiful accomplice and hindered by the local militia, he undergoes a scarring experience which compels him to ignore M’s orders in pursuit of his own brand of justice. Bond’s renegade action leads him to Washington, D.C., where he discovers a web of intrigue and witnesses fresh horrors. 
 
 Even if Bond succeeds in exacting his revenge, a man with two faces will come to stalk his every waking moment.

William Boyd

Boyd on form is the ultimate in immersive fiction, and Love is Blind is Boyd at the top of his game . . . magnificent

Boyd is back on a form few of his contemporaries can match. This fine, touching and clever book is the best thing he's written since [Any Human Heart] and deserves similar adulation

The book begins and continues at a cracking pace - or perhaps a cinematic stride - with scenes, scenarios, set-pieces and minor characters aplenty, all of which and all of whom might easily detain another writer for an entire book . . . He makes it look easy: he's a pro

Boyd's talents as a rollicking storytelling [are] full on display in this historical blockbuster

A deft and resonant alchemy of fact and fiction, of literary myth and imagination

He has probably written more classic books than any of his contemporaries

William Boyd is arguably one of Britain's finest living writers

When Brodie Moncur, a young Scottish musician, is offered a job in Paris, he seizes the chance to flee Edinburgh and his tyrannical clergyman father and begin a wildly different new chapter in his life. In Paris, a fateful encounter with a famous pianist irrevocably changes his future - and sparks an obsessive love affair with a beautiful Russian soprano, Lika Blum. Moving from Paris to St Petersburg to Edinburgh and back again, Brodie's love for Lika and its dangerous consequences pursue him around Europe and beyond, during an era of overwhelming change as the 19th century becomes the 20th. 
 
Love is Blind is a tale of dizzying passion and brutal revenge; of all the possibilities that life can offer, and how cruelly they can be snatched away. At once an intimate portrait of one man's life and an expansive exploration of the beginning of the 20th century, Love is Blind is a heart-stopping new novel from one of Britain's greatest writers.

William Boyd

Praise for Love is Blind

Boyd on form is the ultimate in immersive fiction, and Love is Blind is Boyd at the top of his game . . . magnificent

Boyd is back on a form few of his contemporaries can match. This fine, touching and clever book is the best thing he's written since [Any Human Heart] and deserves similar adulation

The book begins and continues at a cracking pace - or perhaps a cinematic stride - with scenes, scenarios, set-pieces and minor characters aplenty, all of which and all of whom might easily detain another wri ...

Boyd on form is the ultimate in immersive fiction, and Love is Blind is Boyd at the top of his game . . . magnificent

Boyd is back on a form few of his contemporaries can match. This fine, touching and clever book is the best thing he's written since [Any Human Heart] and deserves similar adulation

The book begins and continues at a cracking pace - or perhaps a cinematic stride - with scenes, scenarios, set-pieces and minor characters aplenty, all of which and all of whom might easily detain another wri ...

Boyd on form is the ultimate in immersive fiction, and Love is Blind is Boyd at the top of his game . . . magnificent

Boyd is back on a form few of his contemporaries can match. This fine, touching and clever book is the best thing he's written since [Any Human Heart] and deserves similar adulation

The book begins and continues at a cracking pace - or perhaps a cinematic stride - with scenes, scenarios, set-pieces and minor characters aplenty, all of which and all of whom might easily detain another wri ...

Books by William Boyd

Series by William Boyd

James Bond 007

Articles featuring William Boyd

William Boyd: ‘A bad ending can ruin a good novel’

The impulse decision that changed my life

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