Bøker av William Boyd

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------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 . . .------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'For page-turning glamour, you can bank on a William Boyd novel to hit the spot' GUARDIAN'A gripping, must-read spy thriller. Boyd pulls out all the stops here for a gripping and galloping tale of murky espionage' iWilliam Boyd, The Bookseller bestseller, April 2023

Vienna, 1913. Lysander Rief, a young English actor in town seeking psychotherapy, is caught up in a feverish affair with a beautiful, enigmatic woman?until she goes to the police to press charges of rape. Only a frenzied getaway plotted by two mysterious British diplomats saves him from trial. But after Lysander returns to a London on the cusp of war, the traumatic ordeal haunts him at every turn. The men who coordinated his escape recruit him to carry out a brutal murder. His lover shows up at a party, ready to resume their liaison. Suddenly plunged into the dangerous theater of wartime intelligence?a murky world of sex, scandal, and spies?Lysander must unravel a secret that threatens Britain's safety.Moving from Vienna to London's West End, from the battlefields of France to hotel rooms in Geneva, Waiting for Sunrise is a mesmerizing journey into the human psyche, a beautifully observed portrait of wartime Europe, a plot-twisting thriller, and a literary tour de force.

One May evening in London, Adam Kindred, a young climatologist in town for a job interview, is feeling good about the future as he sits down for a meal at a little Italian bistro. He strikes up a conversation with a solitary diner at the next table, who leaves soon afterward. With horrifying speed, this chance encounter leads to a series of malign accidents, through which Adam loses everything--home, family, friends, job, reputation, passport, credit cards, cell phone--never to get them back.William Boyd's electrifying follow-up to the Costa Award-winning Restless, Ordinary Thunderstorms is a profound and gripping novel about the fragility of social identity, the corruption at the heart of big business, and the secrets that lie hidden in the seamy underbelly of every city.

In the heart of a civil war?torn African nation, primate researcher Hope Clearwater made a shocking discovery about apes and man. . . .Young, alone, and far from her family in Britain, Hope Clearwater contemplates the extraordinary events that left her washed up like driftwood on Brazzaville Beach. It is here, on the distant, lonely outskirts of Africa, where she must come to terms with the perplexing and troubling circumstances of her recent past. For Hope is a survivor of the devastating cruelties of apes and humans alike. And to move forward, she must first grasp some hard and elusive truths: about marriage and madness, about the greed and savagery of charlatan science, and about what compels seemingly benign creatures to kill for pleasure alone.

Britain's most prestigious literary magazine brings you prize-winning fiction, memoir, reportage, poetry and photography from around the world.From Nobel laureates to debut novelists, international translations to investigative journalism, each issue of Granta turns the attention of the world's best writers on to one aspect of the way we live now.

*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.

'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, 1914On 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

This is William Boyd's third volume of short stories following his acclaimed collections On the Yankee Station (1981) and The Destiny of Nathalie X (1995). Described as "e;the finest storyteller of his generation"e;, Boyd shows his mastery of the form as these stories range widely through time and space. In a brilliant 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.

'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

'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

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 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

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 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

A thrilling, plot-twisting novel from the author of the Richard & Judy bestseller Restless, winner of the Costa Novel of the Year

A diverse collection of non-fiction by the author of Richard and Judy bestseller, "Restless".

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

'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 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

Any Human Heart is William's Boyd's classic, bestselling novel - now a major Channel 4 dramaEvery 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.Any Human Heart will be enjoyed by readers of Sebastian Faulks, Nick Hornby and Hilary Mantel, as well as lovers of the finest British and historical fiction around the world. It was recently adapted for a major Channel 4 four-part drama series scripted by William Boyd and starring Kim Cattrall, Gillian Anderson, Jim Broadbent and Tom Hollander.'Astonishing, touching, extremely funny. A brilliant evocation of a past era and an immensely readable story' Sunday Telegraph'Superb, wonderful, enjoyable' Guardian'A terrific journey through the twentieth century. Thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable' Jeremy Paxman

This edition originally published in 1962. The problems of life and government which are still the central theme of the Republic are still with us but the views presented in it were the outcome of strenuous discussion and they come to the modern reader as a challenge. This book will help him on his way.