Product Description

In 1995, high-flying British journalist Toby Young left London for New York to become a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Other Brits had taken Manhattan - Alistair Cooke, Tina Brown, Anna Wintour - so why couldn't he? Surely, it would only be a matter of time before the Big Apple was in the palm of his hand. But things did not go according to plan. Within the space of two years he was fired from Vanity Fair, banned from the most fashionable bar in the city and couldn't get a date for love or money. Even the local AA group wanted nothing to do with him. How To Lose Friends & Alienate People is Toby Young's hilarious account of the five years he spent steadily working his way down the New York food chain, from glossy magazine editor to crash-test dummy for interactive sex toys. But it's not just a collection of self-deprecating anecdotes. It's also a seditious attack on the culture of celebrity from inside the belly of the beast. Not since Bonfire of the Vanities has the New York A-list been so mercilessly lampooned - and it all really happened!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17186 in Books
• Published on: 2002-07-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Toby Young--columnist and former co-editor (with Julie Burchill and Cosmo Landesman) of The Modern Review--portrays himself as a man pulled to the New York media set by twin desires: to trade one-liners with modern day Dorothy Parkers and Robert Benchleys over very dry martinis, and to drink Cristal from a supermodel's cleavage in the back of a limo. In the event, neither is fulfilled and desire shows itself up to be the snake that eats its own tail--endless and ultimately encircling a big fat zero.

How to Lose... is Young's own telling of his disastrous five-year career in New York journalism, initiated when he is offered a job at Vanity Fair, Conde Nast's flagship star-fest. Young may have been hired for his snappy prose, but his real genius turns out to be antagonising the rich and famous. He is the British bulldog in the Armani-clad china shop of the politically correct glossy posse. He hires a strip-o-gram on bring-your-daughter-to-work day, commits the cardinal sin of asking celebs about their religion and sexual orientation, gets blasted on coke while trying to do a photo shoot and spends less time pulling up his chair to the modern day equivalent of the Algonquin table than trying to blag his way past "clipboard Nazis" barring his way into showbiz parties. Oh, and he gets sued by Tina Brown and Harold Evans. This is the place, he soon discovers, where greatness is measured not in your prose stylings, but how far up the guest list you are for Vanity Fair's Oscar party. But two things raise this particular loser's story above the crowd. First is his spot-on outsider's inside observations on phenomena such as the rigidly Austen-ite New York dating scene. Second, he has the columnist's knack of connecting everyday experience to social politics in order to grind both personal and political axes. In the adoration of the celebrity aristocracy by the masses, he sees the realisation of de Toqueville's warning of "the tyranny of the majority" and witnesses, for those lower down the food chain, the corruption of the "be all that you can be" meritocracy America promises. If these are soft targets, then the hilariously toe-curling experiences that lead him to take aim are well worth the price of a cocktail. --Fiona Buckland

Review
'I'll rot in hell before I give that little bastard a quote for his book' - JULIE BURCHILL 'This man, Toby Young, is a rat and a snake and, to hear some tell it, also a raccoon. He deserves all these nasty blurbs' - Dave Eggers, author of A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS. 'In How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Toby Young--columnist and former co-editor (with Julie Burchill and Cosmo Landesman) of The Modern Review--portrays himself as a man pulled to the New York media set by twin desires: to trade one-liners with modern day Dorothy Parkers and Robert Benchleys over very dry martinis, and to drink Cristal from a supermodel's cleavage in the back of a limo. In the event, neither is fulfilled and desire shows itself up to be the snake that eats its own tail--endless and ultimately encircling a big fat zero. How to Lose... is Young's own telling of his disastrous five-year career in New York journalism, initiated when he is offered a job at Vanity Fair, Conde Nast's flagship star-fest. Young may have been hired for his snappy prose, but his real genius turns out to be antagonising the rich and famous. He is the British bulldog in the Armani-clad china shop of the politically correct glossy posse. He hires a strip-o-gram on bring-your-daughter-to-work day, commits the cardinal sin of asking celebs about their religion and sexual orientation, gets blasted on coke while trying to do a photo shoot and spends less time pulling up his chair to the modern day equivalent of the Algonquin table than trying to blag his way past "clipboard Nazis" barring his way into showbiz parties. Oh, and he gets sued by Tina Brown and Harold Evans. This is the place, he soon discovers, where greatness is measured not in your prose stylings, but how far up the guest list you are for Vanity Fair's Oscar party. But two things raise this particular loser's story above the crowd. First is his spot-on outsider's inside observations on phenomena such as the rigidly Austen-ite New York dating scene. Second, he has the columnist's knack of connecting everyday experience to social politics in order to grind both personal and political axes. In the adoration of the celebrity aristocracy by the masses, he sees the realisation of de Toqueville's warning of "the tyranny of the majority" and witnesses, for those lower down the food chain, the corruption of the "be all that you can be" meritocracy America promises. If these are soft targets, then the hilariously toe-curling experiences that lead him to take aim are well worth the price of a cocktail.' - Fiona Buckland, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW

About the Author
Toby Young was born in 1963. In the course of his career as a journalist he's been fired from a succession of prestigious newspapers and magazines, including The Times, The Guardian, The Independent and Vanity Fair. He lives in Shepherd's Bush

Customer Reviews

Damn good read
This is one of the best books I have read in years. Observant, witty, clever and absolutely hilarious. Young also has quite a serious point to make about American and Western culture and illustrates this with great intellience and skill. Of course it is no literary masterpiece but no one expeted it to be. It's a damn good read and is strangely educational at times. I wish I could read it again for the first time (although the second was nearly as good).

I couldn't put it down.
I could not put this book down once I had picked it up. It gives a great insight into American celebrity culture and the whole ridulousness of it all. But that doesn't stop Young desperately trying to be part of the social scene he claims to despise. Amusing at times, with some real laugh out loud moments, it was still hard to relate to Young as he comes across as a strange individula, a person whom you definitely wouldn't like to work closely with or share a house with. Nonetheless a good, clever writer, this book has certinly put him on the map of sorts. Even if it's not a map of the A-listers he so loves to write about.

time bomb waiting to explode
When Toby Young, a young Fleet street hack is given an opportunity to write for Vanity Fair, he jumps at the chance. After all, working on such a prestigious title reaps more rewards than just a good annual salary. The opportunities to smooze with the A-List come daily, freebies are abound and exclusive parties become far, far easier to crash. Oh and he's English, which by right, in the Big Apple should mean he's going to be swamped by six foot blondes with silicon implants. Needless to say, it all ends in tears and all over flat mate Sophie Dahl's' sweater no doubt.

To say the author should have expected such a conclusion would be an understatement. From the moment he stepped off the plane at JFK he was hell bent on offending and annoying anyone within spitting distance. Not a good idea, considering his publication is probably more about keeping people happy. In most cases you'd be expected to stand on the side of such a rebellious character but in this case you kind of think the opposite because most of the problems he causes seem only to boosting his own ego. There were so many instances where I thought to myself please don't...you'll just make a fool out of yourself and it's not even funny (unfortunately Toby Young in no Dennis Pennis) because he just gets straight to the point. Are you gay? He asks one of his high profile victims.

Along the way you'll get a glimpse into the world of the glossy magazine and some of its more colourful characters. The author also makes a plausible argument on the cultural differences between living in New York and effectively, the Rest of the World. I would suppose this holds more sway to a Brit than to the American. The authors take on how New York women judge potential partners is hysterical and wouldn't look out of place in an episode of Sex in the City. You could just imagine SJP saying, "In order of importance these should be social status, net worth, physical appearance, apartment, summer house and a long way down the list, personality." By the way Toby is great friends with the series' creator. At the end of the day some of the stories may seem a little far stretched but who cares when it makes for such an enjoyable read in a world that's gone so PC mad.