Odd Boy Out

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

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

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.

© Gyles Brandreth 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Critics Review

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

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

The Times
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
A magnificent raconteur. A witty account of a most unusual life
Independent
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
Brandreth has been an expert cheerer-upper for more than 60 years . . . Ebullient. Full of fun, famous names and sparkling facts
Daily Mail
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

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