William Boyd has 7 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 16 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 30 ratings. The most-rated is Restless.
Restless
Summary
It is the summer of 1976 in Oxfordshire, England, and someone is trying to kill Sally Gilmartin. The only person she can trust is her daughter, Ruth, a young single mother struggling with her own demons. Now Sally must tell her daughter the truth: she is actually Eva Delectorskaya, a Russian émigré recruited for the British Secret Service in 1939. Sally has buried many secrets along with the name Eva Delectorskaya, including her work manipulating the press in order to shift public sentiment toward U.S. involvement in the Second World War and her dangerous love affair with another spy. As the truth comes out, Ruth is drawn deeper and deeper into the astonishing events of her mother's past. Restless is a tour de force from William Boyd. Full of tension and drama, and based on a remarkable chapter of Anglo-American history, this is storytelling at its finest.
©2006 William Boyd (P)2006 Audio Renaissance, a divison of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC
Love Is Blind
Summary
When he is hired as the personal piano tuner for a brilliant pianist, Brodie Moncur suddenly finds himself swept up into a life of luxury that he could never have imagined. But while accompanying his new employer on tours from Paris to St. Petersburg, Brodie falls madly in love with the Russian soprano, Lika Blum: beautiful, worldly, seductive - and forbidden. Though seemingly doomed from the start, Brodie’s passion for Lika only grows as their lives become increasingly more intertwined, more secretive, and, finally, more dangerous. A tale of dizzying passion and brutal revenge; of artistic endeavor and the illusions it can create; of the possibilities that life offers and the cruel speed with which they can be snatched away, Love Is Blind is a dazzling work of historical fiction that unfolds across fin de siècle Europe.
©2018 William Boyd (P)2018 Random House Audio
Solo
Summary
1969. A veteran secret agent. A single mission. A licence to kill. James Bond returns. It's 1969, and, having just celebrated his 45th birthday, James Bond - British special agent 007 - is summoned to headquarters to receive an unusual assignment. Zanzarim, a troubled West African nation, is being ravaged by a bitter civil war, and M directs Bond to quash the rebels threatening the established regime. Bond's arrival in Africa marks the start of a feverish mission to discover the forces behind this brutal war - and he soon realizes the situation is far from straightforward. Piece by piece, Bond uncovers the real cause of the violence in Zanzarim, revealing a twisting conspiracy that extends further than he ever imagined. Moving from rebel battlefields in West Africa to the closed doors of intelligence offices in London and Washington, this novel is at once a gripping thriller, a tensely plotted story full of memorable characters and breathtaking twists, and a masterful study of power and how it is wielded - a brilliant addition to the James Bond canon.
©2013 William Boyd (P)2013 HarperCollins Canada
Any Human Heart
Summary
Best-selling author William Boyd—the novelist who has been called a “master storyteller” (Chicago Tribune) and “a gutsy writer who is good company to keep” (Time)—here gives us his most entertaining, sly, and compelling novel to date. The novel evokes the tumult, events, and iconic faces of our time as it tells the story of Logan Mountstuart—writer, lover, and man of the world—through his intimate journals. It covers the “riotous and disorganized reality” of Mountstuart’s 85 years in all their extraordinary, tragic, and humorous aspects. The journals begin with his boyhood in Montevideo, Uruguay, then move to Oxford in the 1920s and the publication of his first book, then on to Paris where he meets Joyce, Picasso, Hemingway, et al., and to Spain, where he covers the civil war. During World War II, we see him as an agent for naval intelligence, becoming embroiled in a murder scandal that involves the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The postwar years bring him to New York as an art dealer in the world of 1950s abstract expressionism, then on to West Africa, to London where he has a run-in with the Baader-Meinhof Gang, and, finally, to France where, in his old age, he acquires a measure of hard-won serenity. This is a moving, ambitious, and richly conceived novel that summons up the heroics and follies of 20th-century life.
©2002 William Boyd (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Trio
Summary
From the award-winning, best-selling author comes a rollicking novel with a dark undertow, set around three unforgettable individuals and a doomed movie set. A producer. A novelist. An actress. It's summer 1968 - a time of war and assassinations, protests, and riots. While the world is reeling, our trio is involved in making a disaster-plagued, Swingin' Sixties British movie in sunny Brighton. All are leading secret lives. As the movie shoot zigs and zags, these layers of secrets become increasingly more untenable. Pressures build inexorably. The FBI and CIA get involved. Someone is going to crack - or maybe they all will. From one of Britain's best loved writers comes an exhilarating, tender novel - by turns hilarious and heartbreaking - that asks the vital questions: What makes life worth living? And what do you do if you find it isn't?
©2021 William Boyd (P)2021 Random House Audio
Sweet Caress
Summary
Born into Edwardian England, Amory's first memory is of her father standing on his head. She has memories of him returning on leave during the First World War. But his absences, both actual and emotional, are what she chiefly remembers. It is her photographer uncle Greville who supplies the emotional bond she needs, who, when he gives her a camera and some rudimentary lessons in photography, unleashes a passion that will irrevocably shape her future. A spell at boarding school ends abruptly, and Amory begins an apprenticeship with Greville in London, photographing socialites for the magazine Beau Monde. But Amory is hungry for more, and her search for life, love, and artistic expression will take her to the demimonde of Berlin of the late '20s, to New York of the '30s, to the blackshirt riots in London, and to France in the Second World War, where she becomes one of the first women war photographers. Her desire for experience will lead Amory to further wars, to lovers, husbands, and children as she continues to pursue her dreams and battle her demons. In this enthralling story of a life fully lived, William Boyd has created a sweeping panorama of some of the most defining moments of modern history, told through the camera lens of one unforgettable woman, Amory Clay. It is his greatest achievement to date.
©2015 William Boyd (P)2015 Recorded Books
One for the Trouble
Summary
One for the Trouble: Book Slam, Volume One is the first release from the UK’s premier literary event. Eighteen Book Slam alumni, from household names like Irvine Welsh and William Boyd to newcomers like Kate Tempest and Sophie Woolley, were approached to take a song title for inspiration for a new short story or poem. Some took this literally (Jon McGregor’s moving reimagining of A House’s 'Endless Art', for example); others suggestively (who’d have thought Grandmaster Flash's 'The Message' would have lead Paul Murray to a heartbreaking tale of schoolboy rugby?). The resulting collection is unique, diverse, and thoroughly entertaining. With most contributions read by the authors’ themselves, others by some of our best-loved actors, One for the Trouble provides a perfect snapshot of the very best contemporary British writing, including: 1. 'Grave Architecture' (Pavement, 1995) by Richard Milward (read by author) 2. 'New Gold Dream' (Simple Minds, 1982 )by Hari Kunzru (read by author) 3. 'New Dawn Fades' (Joy Division, 1979) by Simon Armitage (read by author) 4. 'Comeback Girl' (Republic of Loose, 2005) by Irvine Welsh (read by Andrew Scott) 5. 'I'm Going Slightly Mad' (Queen, 1991) by Bernardine Evaristo (read by author) 6. 'The Bed's Too Big Without You' (Sheila Hylton, 1981) by Kate Tempest (read by author) 7. 'When I'm Sixty-Four' (The Beatles, 1967) by Joe Dunthorne (read by author) 8. 'Tears of a Clown' (Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, 1967) by William Boyd (read by Olivia Colman) 9. 'The Message' (Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, 1982) by Paul Murray (read by Chris O’Dowd) 10. 'Ascension' (John Coltrane, 1966) by Roger Robinson (read by author) 11. 'Violet Stars Happy Hunting!' (Janelle Monáe, 2007) by Helen Oyeyemi (read by author) 12. 'I Read My Sentence…' (Radka Toneff, 1986) by Don Paterson (read by author) 13. 'Let Me Entertain You' (Robbie Williams, 1998) by Patrick Ness (read by Mark Strong) 14. 'Bank Holiday' (Blur, 1994) by Luke Wright (read by author) 15. 'I Am the Walrus' (The Beatles, 1967) by Sophie Woolley (read by author) 16. 'That Summer Feeling' (Jonathan Richman, 1984) by Jon Ronson (read by author) 17. 'Underground' (Ben Folds Five, 1995)by Tim Key (read by author) 18. 'Endless Art' (A House, 1992) by Jon McGregor (read by author)
©2011 Patrick Neate (P)2011 Patrick Neate