boyd

At the beginning of The Romantic, William Boyd asks: “What do we leave behind us when we die?” Posterity – and legacy – are questions that have preoccupied him for decades. There are few writers today as obsessed by the biographical – or faux-biographical – form. Over the course of his career, Boyd has specialised in examining the fictitious lives of his characters with wit and authority. He has now returned to life writing with this account of Cashel Greville Ross, the self-described “bastard son of an Anglo-Irish…

First modelling shoot by Anthony Norris, 1962Boyd’s archive features photographs from her early career, from Vogue to Vanity Fair, and marks fashion’s major shift from black and white postwar demure to wide-eyed, mini-skirted psychedelia, with Boyd’s place at the heart of 60s culture. ‘It was like a zeitgeist, we were no longer twin sets and pearls; we were forging ahead, going through the tunnel knowing there’s something at the other end’…

The protagonist of William Boyd’s new novel claims he is “not a gregarious traveller”. But like his creator – the author of 16 previous novels, five short-story collections, some nonfiction and several stage plays – Cashel Greville Ross covers great distances. His inclinations towards aloneness mingle with his restless, romantic nature to send him from his birth in County Cork, Ireland, in 1799 to Oxford, London, Brussels and Zanzibar. As part of the East Indian Army in Sri Lanka, Cashel finds himself questioning his own…

William Boyd, 70, is the author of 26 books, including Any Human Heart (2002) – adapted for television in 2010 with three actors playing the lead role of Logan Mountstuart – and Restless, the Costa novel of the year in 2006. His new book, The Romantic, is set in the 19th century and presents itself as a biographical fiction inspired by the personal papers of one Cashel Greville Ross, a Scots-born Irishman who fought at Waterloo, met Shelley, smuggled Greek antiquities and set out in search of the source of the Nile, among…

Astronauts lose decades' worth of bone mass in space that many do not recover even after a year back on Earth, researchers said Thursday, warning that it could be a "big concern" for future missions to Mars.  Previous research has shown astronauts lose between 1 to 2 percent of bone density for every month spent in space, as the lack of gravity takes the pressure off their legs when it comes to standing and walking.To find out how astronauts recover once their feet are back on the ground, a new study scanned the wrists…