Boyd Books

When this arrived from Amazon, it managed to displace everything else in my reading queue. It felt like Christmas in March: 500 pages of essays and reviews by William Boyd, one of my favorite authors, ever since I stumbled across "An Ice-Cream War", way back when.

As the book contains close to 100 different essays, listing them by name isn't really practical. But to give an idea, sorted into categories, the frequencies are roughly as follows (counts are approximate):

LIFE (autobiographical pieces, mainly about his African childhood, schooldays in Scotland, and time at Oxford; 10 essays)
LITERATURE (book reviews, for the most part, with essays on the short story, keeping a diary, war in fiction, and an introduction to Dickens and Evelyn Waugh; 30 essays)
ART (15 essays on artists as diverse as George Grosz, Pierre Bonnard, Edward Hopper, and Graham Sutherland)
AFRICA (7 pieces, including 3 on Nigerian writer Ken saro-Wiwa, a personal friend of Boyd)
FILM AND TELEVISION (16 pieces, covering Boyd's experience in adapting works for television and film, and as a screenwriter)
PEOPLE AND PLACES (17 pieces, including essays on Charlie Chaplin, Charles Lindbergh, Ian Fleming, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, among other subjects)

Boyd is, I think, a more charitable critic than, say, Anthony Lane or Martin Amis, so there are fewer verbal pyrotechnics. But the book has considerable appeal - he writes fluidly, and with considerable insight on a huge variety of subjects. There are so many wonderful pieces in the collection that it's impossible to do it justice in a review, so I'll just mention three which I enjoyed particularly:

1. Boyd's essay on the short story, in which he provides a useful taxonomy of the form: the event-plot story (everything before Chekhov), the Chekhovian, the "modernist", the cryptic/ludic, the mini-novel, the biographical, and the poetic/mythic.

2. The essay "War in Fiction" in which he pinpoints the central flaw in almost all fictionalized treatment of war with remarkable astuteness:

"Any one man's experience of war or battle .... has to be an exclusively subjective, quirky and highly personal affair...... And yet one's reading of any account suggests that the experience is instead fundamentally a common one; a moderately varied but essentially repetitive parade of stock attitudes and conclusions. Furthermore, the basic judgement of nearly all war novels runs along these sort of lines: 'war is hell/shocking/depraved/inhuman but it provides intense and compensatory moments of comradeship/joy/vivacity/emotion or excitement.'
What appears most damaging is not so much the fatuity of the idea but that this formula represents an orthodoxy in the fictional treatment of war that - with few exceptions - is only paralleled in the pulpier forms of modern romance writing."

3. His thoughts on being translated. An excerpt:

"My Norwegian translator, for example, actually concluded one of his letters to me thus: 'Hey listen, man, if you're ever in Oslo and short of bread you can crash in my pad anytime'. aFter I stopped laughing I started frowning. ... I conjured up images of a superannuated hippie sitting cross-legged on a mattress in an Oslo squat blithely grabbing at the wrong end of every textual stick in my novel."

His bemusement that his three novels "A Good Man in Africa", "An Ice-Cream War", and "Stars and Bars" had titles translated respectively as "Gewoon een Beste Kerel", "Gewoon een Oorlogie", and "Sterren, Strepen en een Gewoon Englesman": 'What was this "Gewoon" business, for heaven's sake?'

Boyd is incredibly erudite, but never condescending, is a shrewd but generous critic, and has led a varied and interesting life. All of which combine to make this a terrific collection.

I highly recommend "Bamboo".

Ever since I stumbled across Boyd's novel The Blue Afternoon, he has been among my favorite writers. The mark of this is that I haven't actually read all of his books, but tend to "save" them as yearly treats for myself. I was delighted to see that this collection of his nonfiction work was finally available in the U.S., some two years after its British publication. However, I'm doubtful that it will find much of an audience, as American readers are unlikely to rush out to buy a 500+ page collection of essays and reviews mostly written for a British audience. That's a shame, because the book not only confirms Boyd's mastery of prose, but reveals him to be a thoughtful essayist of the highest order and an incredibly insightful critic. It should be noted that this book is not comprehensive, by Boyd's own estimation it only collects roughly 30% of his nonfiction output from the last 25 years. This is divided into six areas, of which, different readers will have their own favorites: 85 pages on his own life, 130 on literature, about 90 on art (primarily modern painters), 35 on Africa, 70 on film and television, and another 85 on "people and places."

I generally don't care for memoir or biography, but the essays on his childhood in Africa and subsequent years at Scottish boarding were completely compelling. Also notable in the opening section are pieces on World War I and an 11-year legal battle to get the royalties due him from an underhanded French publisher. I dipped in and out of the literature section and quite enjoyed pretty much every piece I read. Especially notable are: a piece on Raymond Carver in which he discusses the problem of a writer becoming wedded to a style, his introduction to a new edition of Frederic Manning's Her Privates We, his introduction to a new edition of Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit, in which he does not hesitate to point out the novel's flaws and failures, an essay on journal-keeping, a taxonomy of short stories, a scathing review of the posthumous Hemmingway "novel" True At First Light, and a piece about the general deficiency of war in fiction.

I barely touched the art section, since the majority of it concerned modern painters (Boyd is an amateur painter himself), of which I knew nothing, and without supporting material such as color reproductions, would have little to connect with. However, there is a short gem in there about his creation of a fictional painter named Nat Tate at the request of the editor of Modern Painters. Also quite good is an essay titled "Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Photograph," which is his introduction to a book called Anonymous: Enigmatic Images from Unknown Photographers. Africa is the next section, and I wish it had been bigger -- although to be fair, Africa figures a good deal in the first section of the book. About half the section is devoted to Boyd's friend, the Nigerian writer, publisher, and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed by the Nigerian military after a sham show trial in 1995. After reading this section, I immediately added his novel Sozaboy to my wishlist.

A great deal of the pieces in the "Film and Television" concern Boyd's own experiences as a screenwriter. Again, most of his work, while critically well-received, has never done much business in America. Some of it, I wasn't even aware of, and am grateful to be able to add The Trench and Sword of Honor to my Netflix queue (now if only someone would release Armadillo on DVD...). His best writing in this section concerns the process of filmaking, and he is especially cogent on the process of adaptation. The final section is a mish-mash of topics, ranging from particularly Londoncentric ones (minicabs, caffs, Newham), to profiles (Ian Fleming, Charlie Chaplin, The Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, the Duke & Duchess of Windsor), to places such as Montevideo. Most intriguing of all is an essay about the long-forgotten Galapagos Affair, which immediately had me seeking out further reading on the topic.

Overall, this is a fantastic collection with enough variety to meet all moods and for every reader to find something they can connect with. While it is helpful to be familiar with Boyd's fiction, since many of the essays touch upon aspects of its creation, it is not essential (although you're missing a treat if you haven't tried him). The only quibble I would have is that while each piece has the original publication date appended, I would have liked to know what publication each appeared in. It would have also been nice to have a complete bibliography of all his nonfiction as an appendix, so that those who wish to do so, could track down the 70% not represented here.

I have three children and I find myself continually picking this book up at the public library. Over the years, my children never seem to get tired of this book (and Mom doesn't get tired of reading it either). They love guessing and knowing the correct answer of the animal on the next page. We love it!

As a Children's Specialist in a public library, I use this book constantly in storyhour. It has become such a favorite that I have had at least 10 moms ask me where they could buy it. The library copy stays checked out and it is most unfortunate that it is no longer available. It is simple, colorful and has great potential for "join-in" fun.

Ben Jonson requires effort. His allusions to topical events tend to be obscure today, his penchant for having some characters quote Latin phrases can be a barrier (some characters misquote Latin, and we, the alert audience, are supposed to chuckle), and his use of unfamiliar colloquialisms and bawdy comments is yet another challenge.

Despite these difficulties, Jonson's humor has weathered four centuries and most readers - with a little persistence - will enjoy Jonson's better known plays like Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair.

In some ways I found Bartholomew Fair to be more difficult than either Volpone or The Alchemist. Even with a second reading, I still needed to refer to the cast listing to keep track of the multitude of characters (thirty-five or so) that come and go. To make matters worse some characters insist on wearing disguises and changing their names.

The dialogue, as I alluded earlier, nearly overwhelmed me at times, but I was rescued by the excellent footnotes by G. R. Hibbard in the New Mermaid edition to unravel obscure comments. Thanks in part to Hibbard's footnotes, not only did I survive, I have actually developed a liking for Bartholomew Fair's fortune hunters, country bumpkins, foolish gentry, zealous Puritans, bawdy lower class elements, a pompous judge, purse snatchers and con men.

Bartholomew Fair has a rather unusual introduction in which Ben Jonson cautions his audience that the author is sensitive to criticism and it would be best that they behave. Jonson had not forgotten the acrimonious reception for his most recent play, a tragedy titled Catiline, and he had no intention of having this play suffer likewise. Incredibly, Jonson had stagehands read a contractual agreement between the playwright and the audience defining rules for a proper and appropriate method of criticism. Fortunately for all, Bartholomew Fair proved to be popular. It remained so for many years.

I have also used the inexpensive Oxford World Classics edition titled The Alchemist and Other Plays and its footnotes are quite helpful. My preference is the New Mermaids edition published by A & C Black/W W Norton. The introduction is more extensive, the font larger, and the paper quality better, but it is a little more expensive.

Jonson was a wonderfully satirical dramatist of the Renaissance. Bartholomew Fair is a satire of religious justice and legal justice. He uses humorous, over-the-top characters to drive his point home. You will laugh with (not at) Ursula as the snobby, looking-down-their-noses characters realize that they are truly no better than she is. Jonson keeps asking us if his play is fair or foul. Who can judge what is fair or foul? Everyone or only the elite few? The central thing to remember while reading this play is: Fair and foul are near of kin.

The poems in this book are wonderful. Reading them makes me remember my own childhood.

Donald Graves' poetry book, "Baseball, Snakes, and Summer Squash" recants the follies and joys about growing up. While simple in thier construction, the poems express adequately all the dimensions of being a kid; from school to hating squash. Graves claims he wrote some of the poems specifically for boys to identify with, but don't be fooled, this gem is applicable to all. VERY usuable in the classroom and with children - a must read.

Excellent read about behind the glitter and money of professional basketball from the perspective of black ball players.

I personally thought this book was great. It was great because it told about how the NBA was so plain and simple back then but now its something else. So as you know this book was all about the NBA. So if you really like the NBA then you should buy this book. One of the best books I have ever read.

I had the pleasure of meeting Doug, the author and photographer of this book while deep in the Amazon. We asked to see his book over dinner and wine. The entire group surrounded the table in awe while looking at his book "Bizarre Bugs." It is fascinating, creative and truly enjoyable. The book is a wonderful way to explore these spectacular little creatures. His passion for the rain forest and nature flows onto the pages with his work. I would recommend this book to anyone - if you dare to be Bizarre.

Bizzare bugs has pictures that are incredible and you will learn tons from the text. You would have to be bizarre not to enjoy it.

When Leah and Jeff end up on a blockade runner during the Civil War, they never dreamed that it could be so exciting and frightning. They end up being on the same ship as Belle Boyd, The Famous Rebel Spy! But will she come to fall for someone on the enemy side? And will Jeff and Leah be able to resolve their friendship before it's too late?

Jeff and Leah are going through a rough time in there frindship sturgleing with jelouses.They find out what true friendship is while on a blockade ship. Spies, Adventure, and more that you would never think of.

Stephen Swinburne's informative survey of the bobcat may present only 32 pages of detail, but the information is packed in along with color photos and provides enough natural history coverage to prove suitable for reports. The color photos throughout are interesting and educational.

I loved the author's book Coyote. I was hoping that this guy would write other books about other animals. I really felt like I was looking for the bobcat myself. I love learning about the bobcat's habits, what it eats, how it lives, and the history of the bobcat. The photographs by Susan Morse were amazing. Wow. I learned how hard it was to even see a bobcat. How did she ever get pictures like this? Well, she did! This makes me want to be a park ranger. Can't wait for the next book.

This book provides practical information available on cattle disease and production. It involves a the concentration of effort by large number of different experts into one volume. A working guiding rather than a reference book and it is a particular help to those at the 'sharp end' of the veterinary profession. Inevitably there are some areas of subject-overlap as might be expected with skin conditions and ectoparasites and 'downer cow', etc. Each author provides his/her own perspective on the subject. There is a section about alternative medicine for to cattle therapy.

just read my title it say's it all

I AGREE WITH THE OTHER REVIEWERS, THIS IS A MUST HAVE BOOK THAT WILL GIVE YOU HOURS AND HOURS OF INFORMATION AND HUMOR. DID YOU KNOW THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE ENDS ITS EVERY WORD EITHER WITH A VOWEL OR THE LETTER N? AND THAT THE MAGIC WORD "ABRACADABRA" IS ACTUALLY A NAME OF A SYRIAN GODDESS? ALL THESE AND MORE FROM L.M. BOYDS BOOK OF ODD FACTS. I POSSESS A 1979 STERLING PUBLISHING HARDCOVER FIRST EDITION OF THE BOOK THAT I TREASURE VERY MUCH. I READ AND READ IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AS ONE REVIEWER WROTE, "I AIN'T GONNA SELL IT!" HOWEVER, THERE IS STILL ANOTHER BOYD BOOK CALLED BOYD'S CURIOSITY SHOP FROM OLYMPIC HOUSE PUBLISHING, FIRST EDITION 1986, IT COULD STILL BE IN THE MARKET. VERY SIMILAR IN CONTENT. I HAVE ONE MYSELF. GOOD LUCK!!!!!

So the book is out of print and hard to find. It's understandable. If anyone came asking me to sell my copy, I'd flatly refuse (don't come looking for me, Amazon, when someone reads this and orders the book). The book is an invaluable list of hundreds of little known facts, interlaced with bits of Mr. Boyd's humor.

Because it was published about 20 years ago, some of the "Odd Facts" aren't so obscure anymore. Still, there are enough to go around. I guarantee that reading this book WILL raise your spirits and make you wiser and healthier.

Even better, visit his web site at http://www.lmboyd.com, to get your dose of three odd facts a day delivered straight to your online mailbox.