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The Romantic

A new “whole life” novel from William Boyd, the author of Any Human Heart. Set in the 19th century, the novel follows the roller-coaster fortunes of a man as he tries to negotiate the random stages, adventures and vicissitudes of his life. He is variously a soldier, a lover, a husband, a father, a bankrupt, a friend of famous poets, a writer, a jailbird, a farmer, an African explorer – and many other manifestations – before, finally, he becomes a minor diplomat, a consul based in Trieste (then in Austria-Hungary) where he thinks he will see out the end of his days in well-deserved tranquillity. This will not come to pass.

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Trio

A producer. A novelist. An actress. 

It is summer in 1968, the year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. While the world is reeling our trio is involved in making a rackety Swingin’ Sixties British movie in sunny Brighton. All are leading secret lives.

 

As the film is shot, with its usual drastic ups and downs, so does our trio’s private, secret world begin to take over their public one. Pressures build inexorably – someone’s going to crack. Or maybe they all will.

 

From one of Britain’s bestselling and best loved writers comes an exhilarating, tender novel that asks the vital questions: what makes life worth living? And what do you do if you find it isn’t?

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The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth

A philandering art dealer tries to give up casual love affairs – seeking only passionate kisses as a substitute. A man recounts his personal history through the things he has stolen from others throughout his life. A couple chart the journey of their five year relationship backwards, from awkward reunion to lovelorn first encounter. And, at the heart of the book, a 24-year old young woman, Bethany Mellmoth, embarks on a year-long journey of wishful and tentative self-discovery.

The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth depicts the random encounters that bring the past bubbling to the surface; the impulsive decisions that irrevocably shape a life; and the endless hesitations and loss-of-nerve that wickedly complicate it. These funny, surprising and moving stories are a resounding confirmation of Boyd’s powers as one of our most original and compelling storytellers.

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The Argument

It was supposed to be a fun night out at the cinema for Meredith and Pip. But Meredith hated the film and Pip didn’t. Now it’s turned into an argument – the perfect opportunity to share their differences.

With their marriage at breaking point, they turn to their respective friends, Jane and Tony. But maybe Jane likes Pip a little too much and maybe Tony doesn’t like Meredith enough.

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Good and Bad at Games

Set both in 1973 and in London in the early 1980s, the focus is Cox, a bitter outsider bullied for his lack of sporting skill at school and now a left wing investigative journalist. Catching up with his former tormentors, army officer Mount and salesman Niles, Cox is determined to avenge the unhappiness he suffered as a kid. His chance comes, appropriately, at an old boy’s cricket match.

Starring Anton Lesser, Martyn Stanbridge & Rupert Graves

Currently unavailable to buy.

Dutch Girls

English public school boys go on a school hockey trip to the Netherlands. However they are much more interested in the Dutch girls than they are in hockey. Led by their dour but clueless games teacher Mr Mole (Bill Patterson), they manage to try smoking, drinking, and their luck with the ladies with differing success.

Starring Bill Patterson, Colin Firth, Timothy Spall & James Wilby.

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Scoop

This 1987 television play, adapted from Evelyn Waugh’s barbed comic novel, centres on a naïve young newspaper columnist, William Boot, who is caught up in an unfortunate case of mistaken identity. Each week, Boot writes a nature column for The Daily Beast entitled ‘Lush Places’, featuring detailed observations from the depths of his country estate. All is fine until the paper’s foreign editor confuses him with a war reporter, and the bewildered Boot is dispatched to the East African republic of Ishmaelia to cover a major political crisis. Once there, he encounters the manipulative power of the world’s press, tangles with big business, and falls hopelessly in love for the first time. Inspired by Evelyn Waugh’s own experience as a war reporter, Scoop aims a satirical spear at an array of Fleet Street archetypes

Starring Denholm Eliot, Donald Pleasence & Michael Maloney.

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Mister Johnson

Winner of The Silver Bear (for Maynard Eziashi) at Berlin International Film Festival 1991

British East Africa, 1923. Harry Rudbeck, an ambitious army officer, wants to build a road to bring the outside world to the backwater town where he is posted. Struggling to find ways around Foreign Service bureaucracy, he relies on his resourceful African clerk, Mr. Johnson. But when Johnson’s can-do attitude runs afoul of British law, Rudbeck must make a painful decision.

Starring Pierce Brosnan, Maynard Eziashi, Edward Woodward & Beatie Edney

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Tune In Tomorrow

When radio reporter Martin falls for his sexy aunt Julia, the station’s zany soap opera writer Pedro decides to use them as inspiration for his show – and broadcast the details! Courtship soon turns to chaos with Martin’s love life in shambles, Julia in disgrace and irate listeners rioting in the streets. Everyone will have to tune in tomorrow to discover how it all turns out!

Starring Keanu Reeves, Peter Falk, Barbara Hershey & Patricia Clarkson

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Chaplin

Nominated for three Oscars and three BAFTA’s and Winner of Best Actor BAFTA award (Robert Downey Jr.)

The elderly Chaplin recollects moments from his life during a conversation with the editor of his autobiography. From his formative years in England to his highest successes in America, Charlie’s life, work, and loves are followed. While his screen characters were extremely hilarious, the man behind “The Little Tramp” was constantly haunted by a sense of loss.

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Geraldine Chaplin, Anthony Hopkins,
Dan Akroyd & Kevin Kline

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A Good Man in Africa

Morgan Leafy is a British diplomat who, for the past three years, has been assigned to the British High Commission of Ninjana, an African nation slowly divesting itself of colonial rule. Leafy is an arrogant and frequently confused alcoholic romantically involved with an African woman named Hazel. Arthur Fanshawe, a new High Commission appointee who wants nothing more than to be moved out of Africa, brings some interesting news to Leafy: massive reserves of oil have been discovered in Ninjana, and so the British will want to stay on the good side of Sam Adekunle, the next president of Ninjana.

However, something of a diplomatic crisis has come up; a native woman was struck by lightning in the courtyard of the High Commission’s compound, and the locals insist that she cannot be moved until certain time-honored rituals have been performed. At a loss for advice, Leafy turns to Dr. Alex Murray, a Scottish doctor and one of the few people equally at ease with both the British colonials and the natives. But Leafy’s romantic problems are about to get even more complicated…

Starring Sean Connery, Diana Rigg, John Lithgow, Louis Gossett Jr. & Colin Friels

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The Trench

Nominated for two British Independent Film Awards including Best Actor (Daniel Craig)

The Trench, set 24hrs before the Battle of the Somme, takes us through the soldiers’ emotional experience in the confines of the trenches; from boredom to fear, panic to restlessness. Billy MacFarlane, 17, and his older brother, Eddie, have volunteered for service and their squad depend on the war-hardened Sergeant Winter and the scholarly Lieutenant Hart for their survival. Then word comes they’re to be in the first wave of attacks…

Starring Daniel Craig, Julain Rhind-Tutt, Paul Nicholls and Cillian Murphy

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Sword of Honour

Winner of three Royal Television Society awards 2001, including Best Original Score

Based on Evelyn Waugh’s semi-autobiographical World War II epic.

Thirty-five-year-old Englishman Guy Crouchback returns home from Italy at the start of the war determined to fight the good fight. Horrified by Nazi barbarism and emotionally shattered by a painful divorce, Crouchback eagerly accepts a post with the elite Royal Corps of Halberdiers. But nothing has prepared him for the absurd reality of life in the British army or the return of his alluring ex-wife.

Starring Daniel Craig, Megan Dodds, Richard Coyle & Leslie Phillips

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Armadillo

Adapted by William Boyd from his highly acclaimed best-selling novel.

“Loss adjusters are noble men who frustrate and negate the bland promises of insurance. We act out of the great unbending principles in life: nothing is sure, nothing is certain, nothing is free, nothing is forever. It is a noble calling.”

One winter’s morning, loss adjuster Lorimer Black – handsome, intelligent, insomniac – keeps a routine business appointment, only to discover that his client has hanged himself. It’s a bad start to the day by any standards and the beginning of a sinister chain of events that turns Lorimer’s world upside down and inside out in ways he could never have foreseen.

Starring James Frain, Catherine McCormack, Stephen Rea, James Fox, Hugh Bonneville and Neil Pearson.

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Any Human Heart

Every life is both ordinary and extraordinary, and Logan Mountstuart’s — lived from the beginning to the end of the twentieth century — is a rich tapestry of both. As a writer who finds inspiration in Paris and London, as a spy betrayed in the war and as an art-dealer in ’60s New York, Logan mixes with the men and women who shape 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.

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