William Boyd

Throughout his career as a novelist, William Boyd has never stopped writing non-fiction, providing a fascinating counterpoint to the world of his novels. Bamboo gathers together Boyd's writing on literature, art, the movie business, television, people he has met, places he has visited and autobiographical reflections on his African childhood...

A NovelIn this extraordinary novel, William Boyd presents the autobiography of John James Todd, whose uncanny and exhilarating life as one of the most unappreciated geniuses of the twentieth century is equal parts Laurence Stern, Charles Dickens, Robertson Davies, and Saul Bellow, and a hundred percent William Boyd.From his birth in 1899, Todd was...

A NovelSharply observed and brilliantly plotted, Stars and Bars is an uproarious portrait of culture clash deep in the heart of the American South, by one of contemporary literatures most imaginative novelists.A recent transfer to Manhattan has inspired art assessor Henderson Dores to shed his British reserve and aspire to the impulsive and breezy...

StoriesWiliam Boyd, winner of the Whitbread and Somerset Maugham Awards, introduces unlikely heroes desperate to redeem their unsatisfying lives.From California poolsides to the battlegrounds of Vietnam, here is a world populated by weary souls who turn to fantasy as their sole escape from life's inequities. Stranded in an African hotel...

A NovelRich in character and incident, An Ice-Cream War fulfills the ambition of the historical novel at its best. --The New York Times Book ReviewBooker Prize FinalistBoyd has more than fulfilled the bright promise of [his] first novel. . . . He is capable not only of some very funny satire but also of seriousness and compassion.--Michiko...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERVienna, 1913. Lysander Rief, a young English actor, sits in the waiting room of the citys 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...