A new collection of stories by the internationally acclaimed author of Any Human Heart (“the finest storyteller of his generation” –Chicago Tribune). In “Notebook No. 9,” a film director’s journal becomes an unintentional record of his obsessive love for his leading lady and the slow destruction of their relationship. In “Beulah Berlin, an A—Z,” a performance artist, longing for stability and order, reveals the details of her chaotic life through her comments on such varied subjects as angst, hay fever, photography, baby names, sonnets, and tobacco. In “Fantasia on a Favorite Waltz,” a prostitute finds an unexpected friend in a young man who plays piano in a brothel. In “Adult Video,” we see a man’s life in film format–rewinding to his years as a struggling student at Oxford, fast-forwarding to his dreams of success as a writer, and watching the present unfold as he proposes to his future wife for all the wrong reasons. Exploring the ways a life can be dominated by a need for love and the torments that arise when love is misplaced or denied, these stories confirm William Boyd’s reputation as a master of the art.