Outsider II: Always Almost: Never Quite - Hardcover

Brian Sewell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0704372916 ISBN 13: 9780704372917

Publisher: Quartet Books, 2012

Synopsis

The first volume of Brian Sewell's scandalous and haunting memoir was met by riotous applause in the press. 'Outsider is a delicious read ... I want more - much more,' wrote Rachel Cooke in the Guardian. 'This book records an extraordinary life and will, I hope, soon be continued,' added Lynn Barber in the Sunday Times. Outsider II will certainly not disappoint. With the first instalment ending tantalisingly in 1967 - after exploring Sewell's childhood, adolescence and early adulthood - this next chapter charts his path to becoming, as the Spectator noted, 'Surely the funniest art critic of our time.'

About this title

Review:

'There are a few books, only a few, which make one wish to know the author in order to explore his thoughts and personality further. This is such a book - by the outstanding, most outspoken art critic of our time' --Daily Mail

'Waspish, indiscreet, comical and utterly outrageous ... a rare breed: someone who says what he thinks and doesn't care who knows it' --Sunday Express

'He never spares others, but he never spares himself either, and we must admire him for that' --Lynn Barber, Sunday Times

'Brian Sewell is the connoisseur with a flame thrower ... a remarkable memoir' --Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

'He is the gift that keeps on giving - a wonderful writer, a caustic and pungent phrase-maker with a love of bitchy put-downs and wrecking-ball denunciations, the details of whose extraordinary life are matched only by the vividness and glee with which he relates them' --John Walsh, Independent

'Filthy, snobbish and tremendously enjoyable ... lewd, very funny, not very likeable but possessed of a festival turn of abuse ... And even if you can't bear the notion of Brian Sewell, his opinions and his duchessy persona, then there is something irresistible about his memoirs. It's how well they are written' --Philip Hensher, Guardian

The two volumes of Outsider are a major accomplishment. They provide a compelling account of the razzamatazz of the European art world that will be quoted for centuries. Supremely, though, they are a self-portrait of a prickly, fearless, honest man who provided loving loyalty à outrance' -- TLS

About the Author:

Addicted to art, Brian Sewell has been the art critic of the London Evening Standard since 1984 - the sad end of a once promising career, the Orwell, Hawthornden and other prizes scant consolation to a man who once enjoyed life as a scholar gypsy.

About this edition

• Publisher: Quartet Books
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0704372916
• ISBN 13: 9780704372917
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 300