One on One by Craig Brown

One on One by Craig Brown

101 chance meetings, juxtaposing the famous and the infamous, the artistic and the philistine, the pompous and the comical, the snobbish and the vulgar, each 1,001 words long, and with a time span stretching from the 19th century to the 21st.

‘The book describes real encountersTruth being stranger than fiction, many of them are every bit as bazaar as Brown could have invented, and some are as funny… This is much more than a comedy book’ Beavis Hillier, Spectator

Marvellously inventive and witty book … it’s hard to imagine anyone could do it better. He has an acutely attuned comic ear, an unmatched eye for spotting the absurdities of human behaviour and a bloodhound-grade nose for sniffing out phoniness and pretension. You couldn’t wish for a finer exponent of this literary parlour game’ FIVE STARS Mail on Sunday

‘For those who know Brown as a parodist, this book will come as a surprise. Though often very funny, it’s a work of straight non-fiction whose great virtue is not excess but restraint… A hugely enjoyable book that looks with affection and melancholy on the whirring roundabouts of history and celebrity, and reminds us that the paths to glory lead, handshake by handshake, pratfall by pratfall, to the grave’ Sam Leith, Guardian

‘It is partly a huge karmic parlour game, partly a dance to the music of chaos – and only the genius of Craig Brown could have produced it’ Evening Standard

‘One on One is entirely a work of non-fiction, and very thoroughly researched one, too, while still as funny and perspective as anything else Brown has given us…Those who find gossip not only highly entertaining but also highly revealing about the most complex things we know of in nature will relish One On One from first chapter to 101st.’ Sunday Times

"wistful and moving, as well as howlingly funny". AN Wilson Books of the Year

Philip Hensher, Books of the Year, Spectator:
"a beautifully original and gripping approach to biography."

‘The reader is made to feel like the most priviledged fly on the wall, not wanting to miss a word’ David Robson, Sunday Telegraph

Craig Brown has been writing the Private Eye celebrity diary since 1989. He has also written parodies for many other publications, including The Daily Telegraph, Vanity Fair, The Times and The Guardian. He is the author of several books, most recently ‘The Lost Diaries’ and ‘One on One’.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780007360628
ISBN 10	0007360622
Title	One on One
Author	Craig Brown
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	HarperCollins Publishers
Year published	2011-09-22
Number of pages	400
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.