Author: Lawrence OsbornePublisher: Penguin Group
ISBN: 9780140113105
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
Ania Malina
Author: Lawrence OsbornePublisher: Penguin Group
ISBN: 9780140113105
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
The Accidental Connoisseur
Author: Lawrence OsbornePublisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429935111
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
“Witty, sometimes withering, learned and often loopy musings on the world of fine wine . . . an excellent drinking companion.” —Adam Sachs, Newsday What is taste? Is it individual or imposed on us from the outside? Why are so many of us so intimidated when presented with the wine list at a restaurant? In The Accidental Connoisseur, journalist Lawrence Osborne takes off on a personal voyage through a little-known world in pursuit of some answers. Weaving together a fantastic cast of eccentrics and obsessives, industry magnates and small farmers, the author explores the way technological change, opinionated critics, consumer trends, wheelers and dealers, trade wars, and mass market tastes have made the elixir we drink today entirely different from the wine drunk by our grandparents. In his search for wine that is a true expression of the place that produced it, Osborne takes the reader from the high-tech present to the primitive past. From a lavish lunch with wine tsar Robert Mondavi to the cellars of Marquis Piero Antinori in Florence, from the tasting rooms of Chateau Lafite to the humble vineyards of northern Lazio, Osborne winds his way through Renaissance palaces, $27 million wineries, tin shacks and garages, opulent restaurants, world-famous chais and vineyards, renowned villages and obscure landscapes, as well as the great cities which are the temples of wine consumption: New York, San Francisco, Paris, Florence, and Rome. On the way, we will be shown the vast tapestry of this much-desired, little-understood drink: who produces it and why, who consumes it, who critiques it? Enchanting, delightful, entertaining, and, above all, down to earth, this is a wine book like no other.
Only to Sleep
Author: Lawrence OsbornePublisher: Hogarth
ISBN: 1524759627
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Lawrence Osborne brings one of literature’s most enduring detectives back to life—as Private Investigator Philip Marlowe returns for one last adventure. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND NPR • NOMINATED FOR THE EDGAR AND SHAMUS AWARDS The year is 1988. The place, Baja California. And Philip Marlowe—now in his seventy-second year—is living out his retirement in the terrace bar of the La Fonda hotel. Sipping margaritas, playing cards, his silver-tipped cane at the ready. When in saunter two men dressed like undertakers, with a case that has his name written all over it. For Marlowe, this is his last roll of the dice, his swan song. His mission is to investigate the death of Donald Zinn—supposedly drowned off his yacht, and leaving behind a much younger and now very rich wife. But is Zinn actually alive? Are the pair living off the spoils? Set between the border and badlands of Mexico and California, Lawrence Osborne’s resurrection of the iconic Marlowe is an unforgettable addition to the Raymond Chandler canon. Praise for Only to Sleep “A new case for Philip Marlowe and—have a smell from the barrel, all you gunsels and able grables —it crackles.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) “Brilliant. Osborne and Chandler are a perfect match.”—William Boyd, author of Any Human Heart “A Marlowe we at once know, but have never met before. As much a meditation on aging and memory as it is a crime thriller.”—Los Angeles Times “It’s the kind of book where, when you read it, it turns the world to black and white for a half-hour afterward. It leaves you with the taste of rum and blood in your mouth. It hangs with you like a scar.”—NPR
The Forgiven
Author: Lawrence OsbornePublisher: Hogarth
ISBN: 030788905X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JESSICA CHASTAIN AND RALPH FIENNES • A haunting novel exploring the reverberations of a random accident on the lives of Moroccan Muslims and Western visitors who converge on a luxurious desert villa for a decadent weekend-long party. “Surprising and dark and excellent . . . a sinister and streamlined entertainment.”—The New York Times NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Economist • The Guardian • Library Journal David and Jo Henniger, a doctor and a children's book author, in search of an escape from their less than happy lives in London, accept an invitation to attend a bacchanal at their old friends' home, deep in the Moroccan desert. But as a groggy David navigates the dark desert roads, two young men spring from the roadside, the car swerves . . . and one boy is left dead. When David and Jo arrive at the party, the Moroccan staff, already disgusted by the rich, hedonistic foreigners in their midst, soon learn of David's unforgivable act. Then the boy's irate Berber father appears, and events begin to spin beyond anyone's control. With spare, evocative prose, searing sensuality, and a gift for the unexpected, Lawrence Osborne memorably portrays the privileged guests wrestling with their secrets amid the remoteness and beauty of the desert landscape. He gradually reveals the jolting backstory of the young man who was killed and leaves David’s fate in the balance as the novel builds to a shattering conclusion.
The Ballad of a Small Player
Author: Lawrence OsbornePublisher: Hogarth
ISBN: 0804137994
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
A “vivid and feverish portrait of a soul in self-inflicted purgatorio” (The New York Times Book Review) set in the alluring world of Macau’s casinos, by the celebrated author of Only to Sleep and The Forgiven. “Hypnotic . . . haunting . . . thrilling and terrifying.”—NPR’s All Things Considered In development as a Netflix film starring Tilda Swinton and Colin Farrell A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, NPR As night falls on Macau and the neon signs that line the rain-slick streets come alive, Doyle—“Lord Doyle” to his fellow players—descends into his casino of choice to try his luck at the baccarat tables that are the anchor of his current existence. A corrupt English lawyer who has escaped prosecution by fleeing to the East, Doyle spends his nights drinking and gambling and his days sleeping off his excesses, continually haunted by his past. Taking refuge in a series of louche and dimly lit hotels, he watches his fortune rise and fall as the cards decide his fate. In a moment of crisis he meets Dao-Ming, an enigmatic Chinese woman who appears to be a denizen of the casinos just like himself, and seems to offer him salvation in the form of both money and love. But as Doyle attempts to make a rare and true connection, all that he accepts as reality seems to be slipping from his grasp. Resonant of classics by Dostoevsky and Graham Greene, The Ballad of a Small Player is a timeless tale steeped in eerie suspense and rich atmosphere.
Hunters in the Dark
Author: Lawrence OsbornePublisher: Hogarth
ISBN: 0553447351
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
From the novelist the New York Times compares to Paul Bowles, Evelyn Waugh and Ian McEwan, an evocative new work of literary suspense Adrift in Cambodia and eager to side-step a life of quiet desperation as a small-town teacher, 28-year-old Englishman Robert Grieve decides to go missing. As he crosses the border from Thailand, he tests the threshold of a new future. And on that first night, a small windfall precipitates a chain of events-- involving a bag of “jinxed” money, a suave American, a trunk full of heroin, a hustler taxi driver, and a rich doctor’s daughter-- that changes Robert’s life forever. Hunters in the Dark is a sophisticated game of cat and mouse redolent of the nightmares of Patricia Highsmith, where identities are blurred, greed trumps kindness, and karma is ruthless. Filled with Hitchcockian twists and turns, suffused with the steamy heat and pervasive superstition of the Cambodian jungle, and unafraid to confront difficult questions about the machinations of fate, this is a masterful novel that confirms Lawrence Osborne’s reputation as one of our finest contemporary writers.
Bangkok Days
Author: Lawrence OsbornePublisher: North Point Press
ISBN: 1429957328
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
A PASSIONATE, AFFECTIONATE RECORD OF ADVENTURES AND MISADVENTURES IN THE WORLD'S HOTTEST METROPOLIS Tourists come to Bangkok for many reasons—a sex change operation, a night with two prostitutes dressed as nuns, a stay in a luxury hotel. Lawrence Osborne comes for the cheap dentistry. Broke (but no longer in pain), he finds that he can live in Bangkok on a few dollars a day. And so the restless exile stays. Osborne's is a visceral experience of Bangkok, whether he's wandering the canals that fill the old city; dining at the No Hands Restaurant, where his waitress feeds him like a baby; or launching his own notably unsuccessful career as a gigolo. A guide without inhibitions, Osborne takes us to a feverish place where a strange blend of ancient Buddhist practice and new sexual mores has created a version of modernity only superficially indebted to the West. Bangkok Days is a love letter to the city that revived Osborne's faith in adventure and the world.
Beautiful Animals
Author: Lawrence OsbornePublisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Incorporated
ISBN: 0553447378
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
"On a summer break on the Greek island of Hydra, two girls make a startling discovery: a young Arab man washed up on shore, a migrant from Syria and a casualty of the crisis raging against across the sea. When a simple plan to help the stranger goes horrifically wrong, all must face the consequences they have set in motion"--
The Wet and the Dry
Author: Lawrence OsbornePublisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
ISBN: 0770436889
Category : Drinking customs
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Book Description
An exploration of "man's love of drink and an insightful meditation on the meaning of alcohol consumption across cultures worldwide"--Dust jacket flap.
The Glass Kingdom
Author: Lawrence OsbornePublisher: Hogarth
ISBN: 1984824317
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A tense, stunningly well-observed novel of a young American on the run, from Lawrence Osborne, “an heir to Graham Greene” (The New York Times Book Review) “Bangkok is the star of this accomplished novel. Its denizens are aliens to themselves, glittering on the horizon of their own lives, moving—restless and rootless and afraid—though a cityscape that has more stories than they know.”—Hilary Mantel, Booker Prize–winning author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies Escaping New York for the anonymity of Bangkok, Sarah Mullins arrives in Thailand on the lam with nothing more than a suitcase of purloined money. Her plan is to lie low and map out her next move in a high-end apartment complex called the Kingdom, whose glass-fronted façade boasts views of the bustling city and glimpses into the vast honeycomb of lives within. It is not long before she meets the alluring Mali doing laps in the apartment pool, a fellow tenant determined to bring the quiet American out of her shell. An invitation to Mali’s weekly poker nights follows, and—fueled by shots of yadong, good food, and gossip—Sarah soon falls in with the Kingdom’s glamorous circle of ex-pat women. But as political chaos erupts on the streets below and attempted uprisings wrack the city, tensions tighten within the gilded compound. When the violence outside begins to invade the Kingdom in a series of strange disappearances, the residents are thrown into suspicion: both of the world beyond their windows and of one another. And under the constant surveillance of the building’s watchful inhabitants, Sarah’s safe haven begins to feel like a snare. From a master of atmosphere and mood, The Glass Kingdom is a brilliantly unsettling story of civil and psychological unrest, and an enthralling study of karma and human greed.