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  • Published: 30 September 2021
  • ISBN: 9780241483749
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $26.00

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

There are few people Gyles Brandreth doesn't know or hasn't met - from the Queen to the Sex Pistols, Mandela and Marlene Dietrich to TS Eliot, he's the celebrities' celebrity, as familiar and welcome to us on radio and screens as biscuits are to a cup of tea.

Now a grandparent, looking back on his remarkable life, he traces his steps back to being a three-year-old tearing around 1950s London on his tricycle, to boarding school where he had an appendix removed simply to get out of football, to Bedales, where he met Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (and became intimate with a matron), to balancing his growing love of theatre with his love for educating, the 'woolly jumper years', the stint as an MP, the years of close friendship with the Queen, to becoming a septuagenarian Twitter star and stalwart fixture in British entertainment.

Throughout it all, there are lessons to be learned as Gyles derives wisdom and wit from his extraordinary encounters. Full of stories and full of heart, this is Gyles as you don't yet know him.

  • Published: 30 September 2021
  • ISBN: 9780241483749
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $26.00

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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