The Sound Of No Hands Clapping: A Memoir - Softcover

Young, Toby

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349118515 ISBN 13: 9780349118512

Publisher: Abacus, 2006

Synopsis

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, 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.

About this title

Review:

'As a chronicle of ambition run amok it has no peer'
-- Sunday Tribune

'I liked it so much I sent Toby Young an e-mail congratulating
him' -- Telegraph

'Toby regales us with delicious drubbings, past and present,
delighting us with tales of his uproarious ineptitude ... unbelievably
humorous' -- Spectator

'Very funny ... we would all love to be as successful a failure as
he is' -- Sunday Express

'Young remains a solid comic writer with a winning awareness of
his own absurdity. I couldn't put it down' -- Time Out

`A fun and - if true - rather insightful account of the bitchy,
self-serving world of the London media set'
-- Metro

`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

`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

Book Description:

* After the international success of HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS & ALIENATE PEOPLE Toby Young returns with another hilarious memoir about social and professional failure

About this edition

• Publisher: Abacus
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0349118515
• ISBN 13: 9780349118512
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288