While it has become commonplace to discount British novelist Kingsley Amis as a "naive realist," a mere comedic novelist, even a misogynist and failed moralist, Andrew James argues that Amis was seriously concerned with the role of the artist in society and explored this subject in many of his novels. Throughout the first twenty years of his career, Amis used bad artists as whimsical characters, or antimodels, that helped identify his artistic preferences and fictional techniques. He became convinced that the relationship between an artist and his audience was reciprocal and that both the...

Bandol is more than just an idyllic tourist town on the French Riviera. It is a French wine appellation, and the only one where the Mourvedre grape is dominant. Andrew James spent two years in Bandol studying this magical grape, visiting cellars and interviewing winemakers. He tells the stories of celebrity residents from D.H. Lawrence to Katherine Mansfield, pristine beaches, peacocks in the vineyards, post-harvest parties and 20-year old bottles of rose. More than 50 wine producers, big and small, are introduced with detailed tasting notes and reports on how the wines are made. The author's...