One on One

101 chance meetings, juxtaposing the famous and the infamous, the artistic and the philistine, the pompous and the comical, the snobbish and the vulgar, told by Britain’s funniest writer.
Life is made up of individuals meeting one another. They speak, or don’t speak. They get on, or don’t get on. They make agreements, which they either hold to or ignore. They laugh, they cry, they are excited, they are indifferent, they share secrets, they say “how do you do?” Often it is the most fleeting of meetings that, in the fullness of time, turn out to be the most noteworthy.

‘One on One’ examines the curious nature of different types of meeting, from the oddity of meetings with the Royal Family (who start giggling during a recital by TS Eliot) to those often perilous meetings between old and young (Gladstone terrifies the teenage Bertrand Russell) and between young and old (the 23 year old Sarah Miles has her leg squeezed by the nonagenarian Bertrand Russell), and our contemporary random encounters on television (George Galloway meets Michael Barrymore on Celebrity Big Brother).

All human life is here, dancing in a circle. Ingenious in its construction, witty in its narration, panoramic in its breadth, ‘One on One’ is a wholly original book.

“Praise for 'One on One': 'These wonderfully gossipy but penetratingly truthful accounts don't always show human nature at its best or most compassionate. But those who find gossip not only highly entertaining but also highly revealing about the most complex thing we know of in nature- ourselves- will relish One On One form the first chapter to the 101st' Sunday Times 'For those who know Brown as a parodist, this book will come as a surprise. Though often very funny, it's a work of straight non-fiction whose great virtue is not excess but restraint… A hugely enjoyable book that looks with affection and melancholy on the whirring roundabouts of history and celebrity, and reminds us that the paths to glory lead, handshake by handshake, pratfall by pratfall, to the grave' Sam Leith, GUARDIAN 'The book describes real encounters. Truth being stranger than fiction, many of them are every bit as bizarre as Brown could have invented, and some are as funny… This is much more than a comedy book' SPECTATOR 'It is partly a huge karmic parlour game, partly a dance to the music of chaos and only the genius of Craig Brown could have produced it' EVENING STANDARD 'Marvelously inventive and witty … it's hard to imagine anyone who could do it better. He has an acutely attuned comic ear, an unmatched eye for spotting the absurdities of human behaviour and a bloodhound-grade nose for sniffing out phoniness and pretension. You couldn't wish for a finer exponent of this literary parlour game' MAIL ON SUNDAY”

Praise for ‘One on One’:

‘These wonderfully gossipy but penetratingly truthful accounts don’t always show human nature at its best or most compassionate. But those who find gossip not only highly entertaining but also highly revealing about the most complex thing we know of in nature- ourselves- will relish One On One form the first chapter to the 101st’ Sunday Times

‘For those who know Brown as a parodist, this book will come as a surprise. Though often very funny, it’s a work of straight non-fiction whose great virtue is not excess but restraint… A hugely enjoyable book that looks with affection and melancholy on the whirring roundabouts of history and celebrity, and reminds us that the paths to glory lead, handshake by handshake, pratfall by pratfall, to the grave’ Sam Leith, GUARDIAN

‘The book describes real encounters. Truth being stranger than fiction, many of them are every bit as bizarre as Brown could have invented, and some are as funny… This is much more than a comedy book’ SPECTATOR

‘It is partly a huge karmic parlour game, partly a dance to the music of chaos – and only the genius of Craig Brown could have produced it’ EVENING STANDARD

‘Marvelously inventive and witty … it’s hard to imagine anyone who could do it better. He has an acutely attuned comic ear, an unmatched eye for spotting the absurdities of human behaviour and a bloodhound-grade nose for sniffing out phoniness and pretension. You couldn’t wish for a finer exponent of this literary parlour game’ MAIL ON SUNDAY

Craig Brown has been writing the Private Eye celebrity diary since 1989. He has also written parodies for many other publications, including The Daily Telegraph, Vanity Fair, The Times and The Guardian. He is the author of several books, most recently ‘The Lost Diaries’ and ‘One on One’.

101 chance meetings, juxtaposing the famous and the infamous, the artistic and the philistine, the pompous and the comical, the snobbish and the vulgar, told by Britain's funniest writer. Life is made up of humans meeting one another. They speak, or don't speak. They get on, or fall out. They laugh, they cry, are excited, are indifferent. One on One is a chain of 101 extraordinary but true encounters, from Tolstoy rumbling Tchaikovsky in 1876 to George Galloway baiting Michael Barrymore in 2006. The Royal Family giggle at T.S. Eliot, Walter Sickert draws the curtains on the carol-singing Edward Heath, Youssoupoff assassinates Rasputin, Marilyn Monroe commissions Frank Lloyd Wright. Circular in its construction, panoramic in its breadth, One on One is a book like no other. 'Brown's glorious book is an original and a complete delight'Miranda Seymour, Sunday Times, Books of the Year

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