Having just ploughed my way through a lengthy tome that left me screaming in frustration at the long winded prose, this latest book by William Boyd restored my faith in reading. The precision of his writing is a joy. Why sit at a PC and type fifty words when what you want to say can be done succinctly in ten ? This is made possible by the narrator, Amory Clay who calls a spade a spade. Whilst she suffers from the usual torments of relationships that most of us mere mortals go through in a lifetime, there is no messing with her. Every moment in Amory's life that she describes, in what is ultimately her memoir, Mr Boyd gets on to the page without preamble. From the misery of war to the contrasting isolation and beauty of the west coast of Scotland, the reader will feel this book. Some comments I have read bemoan a lack of depth for the issues of the times but to me, the very fact that Amory spares us pages and pages of political opinion is what makes this book so great.What did rather take me by surprise - compared to previous much loved novels by William Boyd - was the importance (if not graphically described, then certainly the mention) of sex. Not in the sex, drugs and rock'n roll sense but in the place it has for her in her life, as much as does alcohol and tobacco. But then that is at is as it should be because the vast majority smoked in those times, drank and gleefully joined in a sexual freedom that in artistic circles was a precursor of things to come. By her own admission, Amory is frequently drunk yet springs back the next day as though nothing happened. Lucky girl..... Nothing though is spurious, from Amory's fascination with the nightlife of Berlin to the kiss from a girl at school, everything has its place. Whilst photography is what propels Amory, it is she who is centre stage, WB giving us just the right amount of detail of the profession to maintain the relevance of it as well as the importance in her life. When I finished reading this book, I felt as though a completely new person had come into my life, though at the same time, glad that I never went out drinking with this remarkable woman.This is novel writing at its finest, the author clearly at the top of his game.