When William Boyd published his biography of New York modern artist Nat Tate, a huge reception of critics and artists arrived for the launch party, hosted by David Bowie, to toast the late artist's life. Little did they know that the painter Nat Tate, a depressive genius who burned almost all his output before his suicide, never existed. The book was a hoax, and the art world had fallen for it.
Nat Tate is a work of art unto itself-an investigation of the blurry line between the invented and the authentic, and a thoughtful tour through the spirited and occasionally ludicrous American art scene of the 1950s.
William Boyd is the author of nine novels, including A Good Man in Africa, winner of the Whitbread Award and the Somerset Maugham Award; An Ice-Cream War, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize and shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Brazzaville Beach, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; and Restless, winner of the Costa Novel of the Year Award.
Praise for *Nat Tate:
"William Boyd's description of Tate's working procedure is so vivid that it convinces me that the small oil I picked up on Prince Street, New York, in the late '60s must indeed be one of the lost Third Panel Triptychs. The great sadness of this quiet and moving monograph is that the artist's most profound dread-that God will make you an artist but only a mediocre artist-did not in retrospect apply to Nat Tate."-*David Bowie
"A moving account of an artist too well understood by his time."-Gore Vidal** Views: 943
Francis Joseph Cassavant is 18. He has just returned home from the Second World War, and he has no face. He does have a gun and a mission: to murder his childhood hero.
Francis lost most of his face when he fell on a grenade in France. He received the Silver Star for bravery, but was it really an act of heroism? Now, having survived, he is looking for a man he once admired and respected, a man adored my many people, a man who also received a Silver Star for bravery. A man who destroyed Francis’s life. Views: 940
Spanning the years 1937-1943, the second volume of The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers, edited by Barbara Reynolds, covers the seven years in which the greatest detective novelist of the golden age turns away from mystery writing to become a playwright and, in turn, a controversial figure. As such, it bears little mention of Lord Peter but further illumination into the inspirations of his creator. There is some coverage of the Wimsey family papers and the play version of Busman's Honeymoon, but the bulk of this second volume deals with the groundbreaking set of religious plays that Sayers wrote for the BBC, including a fascinating contretemps over the BBC's attempts to edit her. This volume provides considerable insight into a formidable intellect and a sparkling writer. Views: 935
Plagued by nightmarish memories of the trenches where he saw his brother die, Nick's grandfather Gordie lays dying as Nick struggles to keep the peace in his increasingly fractious home. As Nick's suburban family loses control over their world, Nick begins to learn his grandfather's buried secrets and comes to understand the power of old wounds to leak into the present. As a study of the power of memory and loss, Another World conveys with extraordinary intensity the ways in which the violent past returns to haunt and distort the present. Views: 935
The Aldens find evidence that the stories about a monster in Lake Lucille might be real. Views: 934
Suitable only for persons of strong constitution.
Contains:
Drug use
Perversion
Murder
Corruption
Sexism
Racism
Law Enforcement
And a tapeworm Views: 934
Bound by chains, the vampire had slept for 100 years, locked in pain and hunger, until the scent of one woman\'s blood recalled him to life. Lost in darkness, Grigori finds new sustenance in the light of Marisa\'s love, and new purpose in his life. Only he can protect her from the evil that stalks the night. Grigori vows to show Marisa that not all the undead are monsters, and that somewhere between the black and white of damnation and desire lay infinite shades of gray. Views: 933
Spelling bee winner Hank is set to square off against the best speller from Mr. Berger's class. When the boys in Ms. Colman's class bet money that Hank will win, they risk ruining the contest. Views: 933
'In the first shop they bought a packet of dogseed, because Doreen had always wanted to grow her own dog...'
Pixel Juice is the collected outpourings of an overactive mind. A selection of fifty stories from Jeff Noon's head, each one strange, telling, disturbing, or sometimes just plain wierd.
From the breakdown zones of the mediasphere and the margins of music culture, Jeff Noon samples the image mix. Product recalls, adverts for mad gadjets, dubcut prose remixes, urban fairytales, instructions for lost machines, almost-true tales, dreamy one-pagers, word-dizzy roller coasters. With new stories from the Vurt cycle and other revelations, including the discovery of an 'off' switch for the human body this newly revised edition marks the first time that Pixel Juice has been made available digitally. Views: 930
Once, Evan Tanner was known as the thief who couldn't sleep, carrying out his dangerous duties for a super-secret intelligence agency. Then someone put him on ice -- for about twenty-five years. Returning to the world (and trying to catch up with a quarter century's worth of current events), Tanner is about to embark on a new covert assignment that will take him to the exotic Far East, where mystery and menace are a way of life . . . . Now, whether he's dodging double crosses or disguising himself as a monk, Tanner is learning that when it comes to power games, pretty women, and political wrangling, some things never change. And he's making up for lost time -- with a vengeance. Views: 924
Stumbling on an old diary full of secret clues, Nancy uncovers a mystery that begins with one little old book and ends with a big new surprise. Views: 923
Others. They walk among us. Observing.
Set in contemporary Moscow, where shape shifters, vampires, and street-sorcerers linger in the shadows, Night Watch is the first book of the hyper-imaginative fantasy pentalogy from best-selling Russian author Sergei Lukyanenko.
This epic saga chronicles the eternal war of the “Others,” an ancient race of humans with supernatural powers who must swear allegiance to either the Dark or the Light. The agents of the Dark – the Night Watch – oversee nocturnal activity, while the agents of the Light keep watch over the day. For a thousand years both sides have maintained a precarious balance of power, but an ancient prophecy has decreed that a supreme Other will one day emerge, threatening to tip the scales. Now, that day has arrived. When a mid-level Night Watch agent named Anton stumbles upon a cursed young woman – an uninitiated Other with magnificent potential – both sides prepare for a battle that could lay waste to the entire city, possible the world. With language that throbs like darkly humorous hard-rock lyrics about blood and power, freedom and responsibility, Night Watch is a chilling, cutting-edge thriller, a pulse-pounding ride of fusion fiction that will leave you breathless for the next instalment. Views: 920
Hidden within the rituals of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary is a fascinating mystery. Professor James Murray was the distinguished editor of the OED project. Dr. William Chester Minor, an American surgeon who had served in the Civil War, was one of the most prolific contributors to the dictionary, sending thousands of neat, hand-written quotations from his home. After numerous refusals from Minor to visit his home in Oxford, Murray set out to find him. It was then that Murray would finally learn the truth about Minor - that, in addition to being a masterly wordsmith, he was also an insane murderer locked up in Broadmoor, England's harshest asylum for criminal lunatics. The Professor and the Madman is the unforgettable story of the madness and genius that contributed to one of the greatest literary achievements in the history of English letters. Views: 918
Chronicles the endeavors of the Licht family--a clan of cheats, murderers, and con men--from the late eighteenth century through the 1930s, and details the moral consequences of their crimes and transgressions. Views: 916
