Richard Beard - Author
About the Author
Richard Beard is the author of five critically acclaimed novels: X20, Damascus, The Cartoonist, Dry Bones, and Lazarus is Dead, and three works of non-fiction: Muddied Oafs, How To Beat the Australians and Becoming Drusilla. He is Director of the National Academy of Writing in London.
Featured books by Richard Beard
Acts of the Assassins
Gallio does counter-insurgency. But the theft of a body he's supposed to be guarding ruins his career. Bizarre rumours of the walking dead are swirling, there is panic in the air, and it's his job to straighten out the conspiracy. He blows the case. Years later, the file is reopened when a second body appears. Gallio is called back by headquarters and ordered to track down everyone involved the first time round. The only problem is they keep dying, in ever more grotesque and violent ways. How can Gallio stay ahead of the game when the game keeps changing? Acts of the Assassins is about one man's struggle to confront forces beyond his understanding. And about how lonely a turbulent world can be.
Other books by Richard Beard
Parent Education
Parent Education was first published in 1927. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.This volume, containing papers read before the Northwest Conference on Child Health and Parent Education in 1927, includes a foreword by Lotus D. Coffman, President of the University of Minnesota. Parents who realize that instinct is insufficient equipment for fulfilling their responsibilities toward their children, and all others interested in the welfare of children will fund much valuable assistance in this collection of twenty-two papers.The contributors include such nationally known experts as: Henry F. Helmholz, Mayo Clinic; George Draper, Columbia University; Lydia J. Roberts, University of Chicago; Bird T. Baldwin, University of Iowa; Smiley Blanton, Vassar College; and Max Seham, Richard E. Scammon, and John E. Anderson, of the University of Minnesota.
Sad Little Men
'The most important book I've read this year...the writing is magnetic' Adam Rutherford In 1975, as a child, Richard Beard was sent away from his home to sleep in a dormitory. So were David Cameron and Boris Johnson. In those days a private boys' boarding school education was largely the same experience as it had been for generations: a training for the challenges of Empire. He didn't enjoy it. But the first and most important lesson was to not let that show. Being separated from the people who love you is traumatic. How did that feel at the time, and what sort of adult does it mould? This is a story about England, and a portrait of a type of boy, trained to lead, who becomes a certain type of man. As clearly as an X-ray, it reveals the make-up of those who seek power - what makes them tick, and why. Sad Little Men addresses debates about privilege head-on; clearly and unforgettably, it shows the problem with putting a succession of men from boarding schools into positions of influence, including 10 Downing Street. Is this who we want in charge, especially at a time of crisis? It is a passionate, tender reckoning - with one individual's past, but also with a national bad habit. 'Insanely readable and enjoyable' - TOM HOLLAND, author of Dominion
The Day That Went Missing
*WINNER OF THE PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE 2018* My younger brother's name is Nicholas Beard. He was nine years old, and I was with him in the water when he drowned. Life changes in an instant. On a family holiday in Cornwall in 1978, Richard and Nicholas are in the sea, jumping the waves. Suddenly and inexplicably Nicholas is out of his depth and then, shockingly, so is Richard. Only one of the brothers returns to the shore. Richard does not attend Nicholas's funeral and afterwards the family return to Cornwall to continue the holiday. Soon they stop speaking of that day at the beach altogether. Years later, haunted by grief, Richard sets out to piece together the story. Who was Nicholas? What really happened that day? And why did the family never speak of it again? SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2018 SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE 2018 'This captivating book, both heart-rending and jaw-dropping, unfolds like a detective story' Daily Mail 'A memoir of real truth and heartbreaking emotional heft' Sunday Times
Apostle Killer
A wildly inventive, darkly suspenseful novel that pits Christ's ';Passion as police procedural' (The Guardian).Set in a hazy Middle East that seems at once ancient and modern,The Apostle Killerfeatures Gallio, an aging, hardboiled investigator who has one last chance to save his career: He's got to prove Christ's resurrection was a hoax.To uncover the conspiracy behind the so-called resurrection, Gallio figures all he needs is for oneof the apostles to crack. The only problem is that one by one, the apostles keep dyingand in ever more grotesque waysjust before Gallio gets to them.Racing to save both his case and the witnesses he needs to solve it, Gallio begins to suspect he's become the unwitting pawn in the plot to kill the apostles . . . but who's behind it? And to what end? As Gallio realizes even his own superiors are not to be trusted,The Apostle Killertransforms from a dazzling literary experiment into a moving, haunting work of art.
Lazarus Is Dead
What would you do, given the second chance of a lifetime? Like most men in their thirties, Lazarus has plans that don't involve dying. He's busy. Life is good. But he can't cheat destiny. Lazarus dies. Jesus weeps. Lazarus returns to life. This part we all know. But as Lazarus is about to find out, returning from the dead isn't easy. He thinks he wants a second chance at life, but what will he do when he gets it?
Becoming Drusilla
'A brave and intelligent book' Daily Telegraph An unforgettable memoir about gender, journeys and enduring friendship For years Richard Beard would take spontaneous holidays with his motor-cycling friend Drew. They would spend a few days walking, camping, cycling, canoeing - outdoor, manly fun - before returning to everyday life: wives, children, jobs. Richard was writing novels. Drew was working in the engine-room of cross-channel passenger ferries. Then one year Drew phoned to announce a complication: he was planning to transition and begin living as a woman. This is the story of how Drew became Dru, of what happened to their friendship, and their adventures in wildest Wales the first time they went camping as man and woman. It is warm, sad, funny; an intimate tale of shared humanity.
X20
'Beard is as good on the sensuality of smoking as on the philosophy. This is an unusually intelligent, funny and readable first book' Sunday Times She offered me the cigarette like an apple. It was love and desire. It was knowledge and everything. 'Gregory Simpson is, after years of being paid to smoke a packet a day for research purposes, trying to give up. He decides to write to keep his hands busy and the resulting journal - combining memories of seduction, little-known facts about the tobacco industry and the comfortable camaraderie of the suicide club - is an elegant, witty and confident disquisition on smoking as desire and as a metaphor for desire' Observer 'Populated by a cast of well-drawn eccentrics-loaded with encyclopaedic detail on the history and iconography of smoking, this comic novel nevertheless aims at deep seriousness-Beard's writing can be breathtaking' Daily Telegraph 'Richard Beard's prose is dry, nonchalant and fluent-An accomplished first novel' Times Literary Supplement
The Cartoonist
By day Daniel Travers draws cartoon chickens and by night he is confused by Daphne. Her instinct for rebellion leads them to Yurayama theme-park to sabotage the character-acts. All that stands in their way is public opinion, Michael Miller, the melancholic park-supervisor, and a bang on the head.
X20: A Novel of (Not) Smoking
Gregory Simpson is thirty and trying to quit, keeping ten fingers glued to a keyboard in order to fight their incessant ache to hold a burning paper tube filled with dead leaves. In twenty entries in twenty days for twenty to a packone word for each cigarette inhaled over the course of ten smoke-filled yearshe examines his life in tense, withdrawal-induced fits and starts: the friendships cemented and defined by nicotine; the intimate relationships crushed or stifled; the acrid, immoral and rebellious satisfactions. But with strength of purpose and improved concentration comes the sobering revelation that his habit is more political than personal. Even if he kicks, Gregory realizes, he's still living in a tobacco world.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fictionnovels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.Gregory Simpson is thirty and trying to quit, keeping ten fingers glued to a keyboard in order to fight their incessant ache to hold a burning paper tube filled with dead leaves. In twenty entries in twenty days for twenty to a packone word for each cigarette inhaled over the course of ten smoke-filled yearshe examines his life in tense, withdrawal-induced fits and starts: the friendships cemented and defined by nicotine; the intimate relationships crushed or stifled; the acrid, immoral and rebellious satisfactions. But with strength of purpose and improved concentration comes the sobering revelation that his habit is more political than personal. Even if he kicks, Gregory realizes, he's still living in a tobacco world.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fictionnovels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
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