Boyd, William

William Boyd’s masterful new novel tells, in a series of intimate journals, the story of Logan Mountstuart—writer, lover, art dealer, spy—as he makes his often precarious way through the twentieth century.

A Novel

Any Human Heart

sina (she/her) 

That's all your life amounts to in the end: the aggregate of all the good luck and the bad luck you experience. Everything is explained by that simple formula. 

I'm humbled by the uncomplicated welcome I've received here and I wonder would an elderly Frenchman be the recipient of similar friendliness should he decide to retire to Wiltshire or Yorkshire or Morayshire? Perhaps. Perhaps people are kinder everywhere than maps of the world would lead you to believe.

Well, look at me, I said, beginning to list my misfortunes. Who gives a shit about you? she said. You'll be fine, you always have been. It's me I'm worried about. 

Is that a good definition of marking the ageing watershed? That moment when you realize - quite rationally, quite unemotionally - that the world in the not-so-far-distant future will not contain you: that the trees you planted will continue growing but you will not be there to see them.

Why do politicians love uniforms? - all these funny little men in Europe in their pantomime costumes.

Are our lives just the aggregate of the lies we've told? ('Lives' - the 'v' is silent.) Is it possible to live reasonably without lying? Do lies form the natural foundation of all human relationships, the thread that stitches our individual selves together?

The Christmas tree must surely be the saddest and most vulgar object invented by mankind. 

Are there aspects of our lives things we do, feel and think - that we daren't confess, even to ourselves, even in the absolute privacy of our private record?

Somehow I expected more. Like a lot more. Like more than a white dude from a well-off family with lots of luck, friends in high places, complaining constantly. 

a novel

Any human heart

Melody Izard

Any Human Heart is fictional journal that feels very real. There’s an unidentified editor who plugs in footnotes and other notes such as why there might be gaps in the timeline, or what was happening with Logan’s family or the books that he had written. The footnotes mostly identify the actual writer, or historian, or wartime event, or city, or artist our man, Logan Mountstuart, happens to mention in his account of his life. All the footnotes that I checked are accurate. It’s very easy to be swept up in a feeling that you are being allowed to read someone’s personal journal rather than just a fictional depiction of one. 

We’re taken from 1923 until his death in 1991 and the reader experiences, through Logan’s memories, his rollercoaster life of intense love, lust and loss as well as the many changes that happened during this portion of the 20th century. This man, (and even though I know that it’s really Boyd who has created this character – he still feels real to me) who is not a perfect man, but who knows his faults, knows his weaknesses, and sometimes overlooks his strengths, reveals his life in a very compelling fashion. This is a delight to read.

I.m. ruzz

I got about half way through and wondered why I was making other books I really wanted to read wait while I trudged on through page after page of what seemed a fairly average story. I wasn't engaged in the characters, and must have missed it if there was a plot; so i decided to put it down.

Mark Phillips

Madelyn

Yasmin

Steve Parks

Will Vunderink

William Boyd

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 PaxmanWilliam Boyd was born in Ghana, where his father was a doctor, and was educated there and in Scotland. His first novel A Good Man in Africa won both the Whitbread First Novel and Somerset Maugham Prizes, and his subsequent novels have gone onto win many awards. His books include: On the Yankee Station and Other Stories, An Ice-Cream War, Stars and Bars, School Ties, The New Confessions, Brazzaville Beach, The Blue Afternoon, The Destiny of Natalie 'X' and Other Stories, Armadillo, Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-1960, Any Human Heart, Restless, The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth, Ordinary Thunderstorms, Fascination, Bamboo and Waiting for Sunrise. He divides his time between London and south-west France.

Daniel Gynn

Juliana

Lola

Elizabeth Clement

ANY HUMAN HEART is an ambitious, all-encompassing novel. Through the intimate journals of Logan Mounstuart we travel from Uruguay to Oxford, on to Paris, the Bahamas, New York and West Africa, and meet his three wives, his family, his friends and colleagues, his rivals, enemies and lovers, including notables such as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf.

Charles McNeilll

Patrick Baumann

Every 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 averyhuman heart.

Any Human Heart A Novel

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