The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth

Boyd shows why he’s so often compared to Graham Greene…. brilliant and bewitching collection of stories * Financial Times *Like stealing badges, like shucking oysters, once you have one of these stories you can’t stop. Lights out was after midnight * Times *Clever and, yes, cinematic * Observer *The stories, as is often the case with Boyd, are packed with characters whose lives are upended by random upheavals * Sunday Times *Unfailingly amusing and clever * Guardian *In a 2008 essay, Boyd explained that writing short stories gives him a welcome chance “to change habits, to experiment, to take risks, to try out different voices”. And in the best stories here, it’s a chance he takes full advantage of, serving up an impressive variety of settings and protagonists * Daily Telegraph *Highly entertaining * Mail on Sunday *Boyd is dependably a master of what’s most true: an always elegant realist whose characters will get under your skin * GQ *No one charts the highs and lows of the human condition like Boyd * Red *A riveting short story collection from one of the best * Woman & Home *

William Boyd was born in 1952 in Accra, Ghana, and grew up there and in Nigeria. His first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), won the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Somerset Maugham Prize. His other bestselling novels include Any Human Heart, Restless and Sweet Caress. He is married and divides his time between London and south-west France.