Odd Boy Out: The ‘hilarious, eye-popping, unforgettable’ Sunday Times bestseller 2021 - Softcover

Brandreth, Gyles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241483727 ISBN 13: 9780241483725

Publisher: Michael Joseph, 2021

Synopsis

Pre-order the long-awaited autobiography from beloved star of Just a Minute, QI, Have I Got News For You and Celebrity Gogglebox.
___________________

'I am what my childhood made me.'

But what is that exactly, Gyles?
Who are you? And why?

In Odd Boy Out Gyles Brandreth provides an extraordinarily revealing account of growing up and coming of age in an apparently well-to-do but always strapped-for-cash middle-class English family.

It is a story about the ordinary things - family life, happiness, ambition, and love, but it is also about adventures - meeting princes and presidents, visiting Death Row in America, exploring the sex clubs of Copenhagen. It is a story of a boy blessed with wit and what he got up to and the people he met growing up in the most wonderful city in all the world in those extraordinary years after the Second World War.

For Odd Boy Out is about more than Gyles and his exploits: it is also a kaleidoscopic portrait of Britain from the 1950s onwards, featuring a cast drawn from politics, the media, swinging London, stage and screen, from Laurence Olivier to Twiggy.

By turns hilarious and moving, and chock full of unforgettable stories, Odd Boy Out is the unexpected and candid autobiography of one of the country's most unlikely personalities. Yet at root it is a powerful and passionate exploration of childhood - how our heritage, our parents and our upbringing make us who we are.

About this title

About the Author

Gyles Brandreth is a writer, broadcaster, veteran of Just A Minute, QI and The One Show, former MP and Government Whip, now Chancellor of the University of Chester and founder of the 'Poetry Together' project bringing schoolchildren and older people together to learn poetry by heart. His many books include the best-selling poetry anthology, Dancing by the Light of the Moon, and the international best-seller about spelling and punctuation, Have You Eaten Grandma? With Susie Dent, the lexicographer from Countdown, he co-hosts the award-winning podcast, Something Rhymes With Purple. With Dame Sheila Hancock he presents Great Canal Journeys on Channel 4. With Dame Maureen Lipman he is a regular on Celebrity Gogglebox.

Gyles is married to writer and publisher Michèle Brown and has three children, seven grandchildren, and lives in London with his wife, his jumpers, and Nala, the neighbour's cat.

Edition details

• Publisher: Michael Joseph
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0241483727
• ISBN 13: 9780241483725
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448