Lawrence Osborne

A Novel

On Java Road

"On a summer break on the Greek island of Hydra, two girls make a startling discovery: a young Arab man washed up on shore, a migrant from Syria and a casualty of the crisis raging against across the sea. When a simple plan to help the stranger goes horrifically wrong, all must face the consequences they have set in motion"--

Beautiful Animals

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE * A tense, stunningly well-observed novel of a young American on the run, from Lawrence Osborne, "an heir to Graham Greene" (The New York Times Book Review) "Bangkok is the star of this accomplished novel. Its denizens are aliens to themselves, glittering on the horizon of their own lives, moving--restless and rootless and afraid--though a cityscape that has more stories than they know."--Hilary Mantel, Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies Escaping New York for the anonymity of Bangkok, Sarah Mullins arrives in Thailand on the lam with nothing more than a suitcase of purloined money. Her plan is to lie low and map out her next move in a high-end apartment complex called the Kingdom, whose glass-fronted façade boasts views of the bustling city and glimpses into the vast honeycomb of lives within. It is not long before she meets the alluring Mali doing laps in the apartment pool, a fellow tenant determined to bring the quiet American out of her shell. An invitation to Mali's weekly poker nights follows, and--fueled by shots of yadong, good food, and gossip--Sarah soon falls in with the Kingdom's glamorous circle of ex-pat women. But as political chaos erupts on the streets below and attempted uprisings wrack the city, tensions tighten within the gilded compound. When the violence outside begins to invade the Kingdom in a series of strange disappearances, the residents are thrown into suspicion: both of the world beyond their windows and of one another. And under the constant surveillance of the building's watchful inhabitants, Sarah's safe haven begins to feel like a snare. From a master of atmosphere and mood, The Glass Kingdom is a brilliantly unsettling story of civil and psychological unrest, and an enthralling study of karma and human greed.

The Glass Kingdom

A couple in a deteriorating relationship are involved in a fatal car accident on their way to an annual wild party at a friend's house deep in the Moroccan desert and must deal with the repercussions. 20,000 first printing.

The Forgiven

What is taste? Is it individual or imposed on us from the outside? Why are so many of us so intimidated when presented with the wine list at a restaurant? In The Accidental Connoisseur, journalist Lawrence Osborne takes off on a personal voyage through a little-known world in pursuit of some answers. Weaving together a fantastic cast of eccentrics and obsessives, industry magnates and small farmers, the author explores the way technological change, opinionated critics, consumer trends, wheelers and dealers, trade wars, and mass market tastes have made the elixir we drink today entirely different from the wine drunk by our grandparents. In his search for wine that is a true expression of the place that produced it, Osborne takes the reader from the high-tech present to the primitive past. From a lavish lunch with wine tsar Robert Mondavi to the cellars of Marquis Piero Antinori in Florence, from the tasting rooms of Chateau Lafite to the humble vineyards of northern Lazio, Osborne winds his way through Renaissance palaces, $27 million wineries, tin shacks and garages, opulent restaurants, world-famous chais and vineyards, renowned villages and obscure landscapes, as well as the great cities which are the temples of wine consumption: New York, San Francisco, Paris, Florence, and Rome. On the way, we will be shown the vast tapestry of this much-desired, little-understood drink: who produces it and why, who consumes it, who critiques it? Enchanting, delightful, entertaining, and, above all, down to earth, this is a wine book like no other.

An Irreverent Journey Through the Wine World

The Accidental Connoisseur

"Lawrence Osborne brings one of literature's most enduring detectives back to life - as Private Investigator Philip Marlowe returns for one last adventure. The year is 1988. The place, Baja California. And Philip Marlowe - now in his seventy-second year - is living out his retirement in the terrace bar of the La Fonda hotel. Sipping margaritas, playing cards, his silver-tipped cane at the ready. When in saunter two men dressed like undertakers, with a case that has his name written all over it. For Marlowe, this is his last roll of the dice, his swan song. His mission is to investigate the death of Donald Zinn - supposedly drowned off his yacht, and leaving behind a much younger and now very rich wife. But is Zinn actually alive? Are the pair living off the spoils? Set between the border and badlands of Mexico and California, Lawrence Osborne's resurrection of the iconic Marlowe is an unforgettable addition to the Raymond Chandler canon"--

Only to sleep

In order to escape his boring English life, Robert, a twenty-eight-year-old teacher, re-imagines himself in Cambodia where he befriends an unstable American, falls in love with a wealthy young woman, and is threatened by the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge.

Hunters in the Dark

Escaping prosecution in Macau where he watches his fortune rise and fall in the region's dangerous casinos, a corrupt English lawyer falls into depression before meeting an enigmatic Chinese woman and confronting his past misdeeds. By the best-selling author of The Forgiven. 10,000 first printing.

The Ballad of a Small Player

Cacciatori nel buio

A PASSIONATE, AFFECTIONATE RECORD OF ADVENTURES AND MISADVENTURES IN THE WORLD’S HOTTEST METROPOLIS Tourists come to Bangkok for many reasons—a sex change operation, a night with two prostitutes dressed as nuns, a stay in a luxury hotel. Lawrence Osborne comes for the cheap dentistry. Broke (but no longer in pain), he finds that he can live in Bangkok on a few dollars a day. And so the restless exile stays. Osborne’s is a visceral experience of Bangkok, whether he’s wandering the canals that fill the old city; dining at the No Hands Restaurant, where his waitress feeds him like a baby; or launching his own notably unsuccessful career as a gigolo. A guide without inhibitions, Osborne takes us to a feverish place where a strange blend of ancient Buddhist practice and new sexual mores has created a version of modernity only superficially indebted to the West. Bangkok Days is a love letter to the city that revived Osborne’s faith in adventure and the world.

Bangkok Days

An exploration of "man's love of drink and [a] ... meditation on the meaning of alcohol consumption across cultures worldwide"--Dust jacket flap.

a drinker's journey

The wet and the dry

American Normal

The Kingdom

Welch schöne Tiere wir sind

Since the days of the Early Fathers, sex and death have formed a theological equation known as sexual pessimism--an aversion to the carnal which consequently elevates the virginal and the chaste. Here, Osborne gives a bracing account of how we imagine one of the most intimate aspects of our lives.

A Brief History of Sexual Pessimism

The Poisoned Embrace

From the theme resorts of Dubai to the jungles of Papua New Guinea, a disturbing but hilarious tour of the exotic east—and of the tour itself Sick of producing the bromides of the professional travel writer, Lawrence Osborne decided to explore the psychological underpinnings of tourism itself. He took a six-month journey across the so-called Asian Highway—a swathe of Southeast Asia that, since the Victorian era, has seduced generations of tourists with its manufactured dreams of the exotic Orient. And like many a lost soul on this same route, he ended up in the harrowing forests of Papua, searching for a people who have never seen a tourist. What, Osborne asks, are millions of affluent itinerants looking for in these endless resorts, hotels, cosmetic-surgery packages, spas, spiritual retreats, sex clubs, and "back to nature" trips? What does tourism, the world's single largest business, have to sell? A travelogue into that heart of darkness known as the Western mind, The Naked Tourist is the most mordant and ambitious work to date from the author of The Accidental Connoisseur, praised by The New York Times Book Review as "smart, generous, perceptive, funny, sensible."

In Search of Adventure and Beauty in the Age of the Airport Mall

The Naked Tourist

A couple in a deteriorating relationship are involved in a fatal car accident on their way to an annual wild party at a friend's house deep in the Moroccan desert and must deal with the repercussions.

"Let’s not mince words. This is a great book. Truly difficult to put down... sophisticated, smart and uncomfortable, and the story is cracking." – Lionel Shriver, Washington Post "Startlingly good...Osborne has been described as an heir to Graham Greene, and he shares with Greene an interest in what might be called the moral thriller.” – Katie Kitamura, New York Times Book Review "A seductively menacing new thriller by Lawrence Osborne...who unites Graham Greene’s fondness for foreign soil with Patricia Highsmith’s fascination with the nastier coils of the human psyche.” –NPR’s “Fresh Air" FINANCIAL TIMES SUMMER PICK 2017 GUARDIAN BEST HOLIDAY READS 2017 On a hike during a white-hot summer break on the Greek island of Hydra, Naomi and Samantha make a startling discovery: a man named Faoud, sleeping heavily, exposed to the elements, but still alive. Naomi, the daughter of a wealthy British art collector who has owned a villa in the exclusive hills for decades, convinces Sam, a younger American girl on vacation with her family, to help this stranger. As the two women learn more about the man, a migrant from Syria and a casualty of the crisis raging across the Aegean Sea, their own burgeoning friendship intensifies. But when their seemingly simple plan to help Faoud unravels all must face the horrific consequences they have set in motion. In this brilliant psychological study of manipulation and greed, Lawrence Osborne explores the dark heart of friendship, and shows just how often the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions.

Lawrence Osborne

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