Synopses & Reviews
On the heels of Boyds Costa (formerly Whitbread) Award winner, Restless, an erudite and entertaining collection of essays and opinions from one of our generations most talented writers.
Plant one bamboo shootcut bamboo for the rest of your life.” William Boyds prolific, fruitful career is a testament to this old Chinese saying. Boyd penned his first book review in 1978the proverbial bamboo shootand weve been reaping the rewards ever since. Beginning with the Whitbread Awardwinning A Good Man in Africa, William Boyd has written consistently artful, intelligent fiction and firmly established himself as an international man of letters. He has done nearly thirty years of research and writing for projects as diverse as a novel about an ecologist studying chimpanzees (Brazzaville Beach), an adapted screenplay about the emotional lives of soldiers (The Trench, which he also directed), and a fictional biography of an American painter (Nat Tate). All the while, Boyd has been accruing facts and wisdomand publishing it in the form of articles, essays, and reviews.
Now available for the first time in the United States, Bamboo gathers together Boyds writing on literature, art, the movie business, television, people he has met, places he has visited and autobiographical reflections on his African childhood, his years at boarding school, and the profession of novelist. From Pablo Picasso to the Cannes Film Festival, from Charles Dickens to Catherine Deneuve, from mini-cabs to Cecil Rhodes, this collection is a fascinating and surprisingly revealing companion to the work of one of Britain's leading novelists. William Boyd is the author of eight other novels, three collections of short stories, and thirteen screenplays that have been made into films. He was given the Costa Novel Award for his most recent novel, Restless. He has received several other awards, including the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction. William Boyd lives with his wife in London and southwest France. Beginning with the Whitbread Awardwinning A Good Man in Africa, William Boyd has written consistently artful, intelligent fiction and established himself internationally as a man of letters. He has done nearly thirty years of research and writing for projects as diverse as a novel about an ecologist studying chimpanzees, an adapted screenplay about the emotional lives of soldiers, and a fictional biography of an American painter. In the process, Boyd has accrued facts and wisdom and published them in the form of articles, essays, and reviews. Now available for the first time in the United States, Bamboo gathers together Boyds writing on literature, art, the movie business, television, the people he has met, the places he has visited, his African childhood, his years at boarding school, and the profession of novelist. From Pablo Picasso to the Cannes Film Festival, from Charles Dickens to Catherine Deneuve, from mini-cabs to Cecil Rhodes, this collection is a revealing companion to the work of one of Britain's leading novelists. "Theres hardly a writer around whose work offers more pleasure and satisfaction.”The Washington Post
"[Boyd is] a daring craftsman, a writer who allows the scope of his work to expand to the point of bursting."Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Boyd is regularly compared to Conrad and Maugham: wrongly, I think, in both cases. Hes more straightforward than the first and far less platitudinously class-bound than the second. His technical expertise suggests rather a kind of Electronic Age Kipling, while the sad virtuosity of the countless sexual encounters he chronicles carries an odd mingled flavor of those two very different Catholic novelists, Greene and Anthony Burgess . . . [he has] an exceptional ability to tell a really compelling story, in dense imaginative detail, about characters with complex, and convincing, emotional lives."Peter Green, Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Essays and reviews by Whitbread Award-winning Boyd showcase an itinerant sensibility and imagination. The British author cover[s] 25 years and 'seven broad subjects: Life, Literature, Art, Africa, Film, Television and People and Places' . . . Under the heading 'Life,' we find . . . a lively account of 'The Eleven-Year War' between the author and a borderline-unscrupulous publisher. Moving on to 'Literature,' Boyd deflates reputations he considers undeserved (Muriel Spark, Richard Yates) and applauds such favorites as William Golding, W.H. Auden and Evelyn Waugh . . . 'Art,' the most interesting section, offers informative examinations of once-famous British painter Graham Sutherland and French masters Braque and Monet, as well as a nifty report on the farcical 'Nat Tate' hoax perpetrated by Boyd himself . . . Boyd sparkles in a knowledgeable assessment of the biopic Basquiat, whose eponymous subject seems to him 'a sort of latter-day, low grade, Manhattan Faust.' The essays on art and artists are distinctive."Kirkus Reviews "This noteworthy compendium of British writer Boyd's nonfiction work of the last 25 years is a cornucopia of critical opinion, memoir and social commentary. In addition to their insights on contemporary culture, many of these pieces illuminate aspects of Boyd's novels and short stories. In fact, Boyd expresses surprise about how much autobiographical material has 'crept into' his work . . . his critical essays on such icons as Woody Allen, Toni Morrison and Kurt Vonnegut, his reflections on the New York scene, American art and a Georgia town called Tallapoosa are refreshing opinions from a foreigner's perspective. He owns up to enjoying the hoax he perpetrated by inventing and assessing the paintings of a fictitious artist called Nat Tate, and there are lively accounts of how the duke and duchess of Windsor became characters in his novel Any Human Heart . . . this volume is . . . to be read for sustained excellence of observation and lucidity of prose."Publishers Weekly
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"Boyd has a fearless capacity to take on any topic." San Francisco Chronicle
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"Bamboo will appeal more to Boyd completists than Boyd novices." Seattle Times
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"This far-roaming collections primary draw is for devoted fans of Boyd's fiction, but essay lovers will find that that he is a knowledgeable and cheerfully acerbic practitioner." Booklist
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"A daring craftsman, a writer who allows the scope of his work to expand to the point of bursting." Los Angeles Times Book Review
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"A gutsy writer....William Boyd is good company to keep." Time
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"The essays on art and artists are distinctive and interesting." Kirkus Reviews
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"There may not be a more sensible set of literary reviews published this year than those in Bamboo, the first collection of such pieces...from the British novelist William Boyd. The author of nine novels, three story collections and many screenplays, Boyd is unfailingly judicious..." David Haglund, The New York Times (read the entire New York Times review)
Synopsis
On the heels of Boyd's Costa (formerly Whitbread) Award winner,
Restless, an erudite and entertaining collection of essays and opinions from one of our generation's most talented writers.
"Plant one bamboo shoot cut bamboo for the rest of your life." William Boyd's prolific, fruitful career is a testament to this old Chinese saying. Boyd penned his first book review in 1978 the proverbial bamboo shoot and we've been reaping the rewards ever since. Beginning with the Whitbread Award-winning A Good Man in Africa, William Boyd has written consistently artful, intelligent fiction and firmly established himself as an international man of letters. He has done nearly thirty years of research and writing for projects as diverse as a novel about an ecologist studying chimpanzees (Brazzaville Beach), an adapted screenplay about the emotional lives of soldiers (The Trench, which he also directed), and a fictional biography of an American painter (Nat Tate). All the while, Boyd has been accruing facts and wisdom and publishing it in the form of articles, essays, and reviews.
Now available for the first time in the United States, 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, his years at boarding school, and the profession of novelist. From Pablo Picasso to the Cannes Film Festival, from Charles Dickens to Catherine Deneuve, from mini-cabs to Cecil Rhodes, this collection is a fascinating and surprisingly revealing companion to the work of one of Britain's leading novelists.
About the Author
William Boyd was given the Costa Novel Award for his most recent novel, Restless. He is also the author of eight other novels, three collections of short stories, and thirteen screenplays that have been made into films. He has received several other awards, including the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction. William Boyd lives with his wife in London and southwest France.