"Christopher Wallace was born 1962, in Germany. His father was an RAF pilot and Christopher spent some of his childhood there and also in Singapore, before he began his schooling in Glasgow. Christopher later attended the University of Stirling (1979-1982) which was then a radical hotbed of sex, drugs and dodgy haircuts. Despite this he managed to get a Degree in Management Science. After university he followed a career in Marketing, including a spell as Brand Manager for Whyte and Mackay Whisky, and moved into Advertising and is now an Account Director at Barkers, a top five Scottish agency. Current personal clients include The Scottish Office and Greater Glasgow Tourist Board. Christopher now lives and works in Edinburgh, the most beautiful city in the world. Christopher became a Writer around 1992, when the urge to express something on a page eventually overcame a natural indolence. His ambition was to develop a style which would marry the panache of William Burroughs to a compelling narrative of John Fowles. His work is often inspired by music, for example the initial idea behind The Pied Piper’s Poison came whilst listening to ‘The Low Symphony’ by Philip Glass (the rest was a result of too many long night mulling over a page with malt Whisky in the other hand). ‘The Pied Piper’s Poison’ was his first book, mixing a Polish plague in with the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and his second, ‘The Resurrection Club’, is based entirely in Edinburgh and combines the macabre past (Grave robbing/Burke & Hare) with the macabre present (strange goings on in the avant-theatre of the Festival). Most recently Christopher has written ‘The Pirate’."
<p>"An exuberant biography of the life of the iconic photographer and naturalist Peter Beard, whose life and work captured the cultural imagination </p><p>Peter Beard lived an astonishing life. The artist, wildlife photographer, and bon vivant enthralled and inspired both because of his work and his legendary lifestyle. A scion of American industry turned explorer of Africa and environmental advocate, Beard embodied the extremes of his time: grand adventurer and sexually voracious partier, friend of everyone from the Rolling Stones to Jackie Onassis to Andy Warhol to Karen Blixen. And Beard had a passion—probably more like an obsession—with the faults of the entire human experiment, with the ways in which our consumption of the world’s resources have come to consume us all.</p><p>Beard’s outsize life and character—his death-defying documentation of both the endangered wildlife of Africa, and, closer to home, some of the world’s most beautiful women for a range of fashion magazines—animate this lively but authoritative biography. The journalist Christopher Wallace, long fascinated by Beard’s artistic legacy, adventurous spirit, and hard-partying persona, came to know him well later in Beard’s life. Capturing the varied social and cultural scenes that Beard moved through with glamorous ease over five decades, Wallace also makes a powerful case for the lasting impact of his work.</p><p>In Twentieth-Century Man, Wallace has rendered this towering figure in all of his contradictions and complexities—a deeply romantic and idiosyncratic personality, beloved by so many, whose sensibilities nonetheless remained firmly rooted in an era characterized by racist and colonialist attitudes. Stirring and visceral, Twentieth-Century Man is the definitive portrait of Peter Beard."</p>
