Any Human Heart

If you have the time and you are looking for a summer assignment, go to the book store and purchase William Boyd's library. Read them in any order you like. But if you are looking for one excellent example of this writer's genius, then Any Human Heart is a great place to start. I cannot recommend any book more highly.


culmination of boyd's awesome career   February 17, 2003
john (los angeles, ca)
17 out of 18 found this review helpful

this novel is so brilliant, so swiftly paced and poetically composed, i can hardly do it justice. i have read (and taught in university courses) Boyd's books over and over again down the years (a fav is The New Confessions) and Any Human Heart rates right up there with the best work he's done. there's a real melancholia evident here--so those who are looking for the hilarity of such early works as A Good Man in Africa or On the Yankee Station are gonna be puzzled a tad. Logan Mountstuart is a great creation...so pleased, especially as i didn't like Armadillo and The Blue Afternoon--despite the fact that, with Ian McEwan, Wm Boyd is my favorite contemporary novelist. get this as soon as you can...


Simply Perfect   July 2, 2003
Mark Diamond (Sydney, NSW Australia)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

Gee the reviewers of this book are sparing in their praise. "Quite affecting..." and "All is not wonderful..." What's a poor novelist got to do to please these guys? This book is flat out perfect. I got lost in the story almost from page one and by the time I reached the end I really KNEW Logan Mountstuart. I cried at the end because I didn't want him to leave. His story gave so much and had so much more to give. See! I'm doing it to myself again... What really comes through in this brilliant novel is the courage of the author to have Mountstuart make some dramatically bad life decisions, yet he is still guided by a strong sense of integrity and truth. It makes you want to follow those same guiding principles in your own life. Only the greatest books make you think about how you live your life. This is such a book.


Terrific   April 18, 2003
Elizabeth Hendry (New Jersey USA)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

In Any Human Heart, William Boyd manages to create a not entirely likeable character, Logan Mountstuart, who nonetheless is an entirely sympathetic protagonist. Logan is not the nicest person in the world. He manipulates friends for his own amusement, sleeps with one of his closests friend's fiance, and commits a number of other, minor atrocities. Yet for all Logan's badness, I missed him when I finished the novel and throughout, I found myself rooting for his finding some semblance of happiness. Logan is entirely human in the sense that his story indeed could be the story of any human heart--any British heart is probably more like it. He manages to come in contact with quite a few notables from the twentieth century and reinvents himself and his career many times over. Perhaps no one lives a life as rich as Logan, maybe so. But that still does not take away from the fact that Any Human Heart is a terrific novel, excellent storytelling. Enjoy.


A wonderful read   April 9, 2005
A. H. Mitchell (grosse pointe farms, mi USA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

I can't add much beyond the (clearly more capable than I)reviewers who've commented on this book. It's a real novel. Captivating, intriguing, insightful. Like any great novel, it posits a world and lets you live there for a while. I regretted having it come to a close