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  • Published: 30 September 2021
  • ISBN: 9780241483732
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 448

Odd Boy Out

The 'hilarious, eye-popping, unforgettable' Sunday Times bestseller




The long-awaited autobiography from the man who's been at the heart of the entertainment establishment for 50 years

'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.

  • Published: 30 September 2021
  • ISBN: 9780241483732
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 448

About the author

Gyles Brandreth

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.

Also by Gyles Brandreth

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Praise for Odd Boy Out

Brilliant pen portraits of his father and myriad friends present a framework for Gyles's contemplation of his extraordinary life. Light-hearted and dark events alike are described with his customary deceptively jaunty style, making them funny, moving, and sometimes deeply shocking

Sheila Hancock

Staggeringly brilliant, funny and touching, I loved it

Joanna Lumley

A hilarious and revealing account of growing up and coming of age in an apparently well-to-do but always strapped-for-cash middle-class English family

Eastern Daily Press

He's cheery, fun and has a fabulous grasp of the English language, so Gyles Brandreth's autobiography makes for a scintillating read. His hilarious - and sometimes moving - account of his life from early childhood days through to the adult world of politics and television is candid. It is also a story around his everyday family life, and about happiness, ambition and love. It offers a fascinating insight into a portrait of Britain, too

People's Friend Magazine

Hilarious, ribald, eye-popping, unforgettable, will make you laugh out loud

Daily Mail

Warm, witty, charming. A moving and very affectionate family history. An enthusiast for life

The Times

A magnificent raconteur. A witty account of a most unusual life

Independent

A fabulous raconteur with a great many tricks up his sleeve. His infectious zest for life means he has a story for almost every well-known person you can think of

Daily Telegraph

Hugely enjoyable. Engaging

Choice Magazine

A whirlwind of witticisms and of funny tales, both short and tall . . . 'I feel I have lived my life in a magic garden where the sun is always shining' he writes, and in Odd Boy Out he offers us yet another glimpse of that bright, shining sun

Mail on Sunday
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