The Sound Of No Hands Clapping: A Memoir

(Paperback)

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Now in B Format.

When even his friends refer to him as 'a balding, bug-eyed opportunist with the looks of a beach ball, the charisma of a glove-puppet and an ego the size of a Hercules supply plane', the odds of Toby Young scoring - in any sense - appear to be slim. But then HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE, his memoir about failing to take Manhattan, becomes an international bestseller. Now Tinseltown beckons. After receiving a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity from a Hollywood producer, Toby sets his sights anew on a high-flying career, this time on the West Coast. But it doesn't take long for Toby's self-sabotaging instincts to reassert themselves. On the home front, though, things are looking up: Toby persuades his girlfriend to marry him and move to Los Angeles - but then she decides to abandon her promising legal career in order to become a full-time housewife...and mother. Toby's hapless attempts to pursue a glamorous showbiz career while buried in nappies will strike a chord with all modern fathers struggling to find the right work/life balance...and with their exasperated wives. Failure - and fatherhood - have never been funnier.

Reviews

** 'Toby regales us with delicious drubbings, past and present, delighting us with tales of his uproarious ineptitude ... unbelievably humorous' SPECTATOR ** 'Side-splittingly funny. I laughed out loud several times in every chapter' DAILY MAIL ** 'The doyen of Loser Lit is back, as bumptious as ever. And still very, very funny' SUNDAY TIMES 'I liked it so much I sent Toby Young an e-mail congratulating him' TELEGRAPH 'Young remains a solid comic writer with a winning awareness of his own absurdity. I couldn't put it down' TIME OUT 'If you like your reading to have a certain voyeurism, this is probably a must' OBSERVER 'Only Young could have failed so spectacularly and turned the experience into such a funny and addictively readable story' EVENING STANDARD 'A fun and - if true - rather insightful account of the bitchy, self-serving world of the London media set' METRO 'Very funny ... we would all love to be as successful a failure as he is' SUNDAY EXPRESS 'As a chronicle of ambition run amok it has no peer' SUNDAY TRIBUNE

Author Bio

Toby Young has been fired from a succession of prestigious newspapers and magazines, including THE TIMES, VANITY FAIR and the MAIL ON SUNDAY. He currently works as a freelance writer.

Author Location: London, UK

HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE (978 0 349 11485 9)