Product Description

A hilarious collection of the many articles written by Stephen Fry for magazines, newspapers and radio. It includes selected wireless essays of Donald Trefusis, the ageing professor of philology brought to life in Fry's novel "The Liar", and the best of Fry's weekly column for the Daily Telegraph.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20663 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Daily Telegraph
'Appallingly funny'

About the Author
As well as being the bestselling author of four novels, The Stars' Tennis Balls, Making History, The Hippopotamus, and The Liar, and the first volume of his autobiography, Moab is My Washpot, Fry has played Peter in Peter's Friends, Wilde in the film Wilde, Jeeves in the television series Jeeves & Wooster and (a closely guarded show-business secret, this) Laurie in the television series Fry & Laurie.

Customer Reviews

Bitty, but witty.
This book is collection of a wealth of essays, reviews, radio sketches and other oddments from various sources, so inevitably is something of a mixed bag. The majority of the pieces - including the fictionalised ramblings of The Liar's Professor Trefusis - take the form of short essays where Fry bemoans the state of society, both here and abroad. What saves these pieces from becoming tiresome is that Fry's observations (or, to put it more bluntly - moans) are wrapped up in both his ironic humour and an invigorating prose driven by his love of words. There is one slight problem with reading the pieces en masse however, and that is that Fry does have a tendencies to repeat his favourite anecdotes, arguments, and jokes - sometimes variations of the same line can be found repeated here not once but three or four times. In the books defence, these pieces were never originally written to sit next to each other, but having been collected a rather more rigorous editing might have eliminated some of this repetition. Still, an intelligent and amusing non-fiction collection, Paperweight is perhaps better experienced in small chunks than as one continuous text.

Fry = Wit ! Surprisingly original and funny viewpoints.
This is actually a collection of tonnes of different articles written over the years for a variety of publications. Most are only 1 to 3 pages long, and fit as many laughs into each one as you would normally get in one whole 'comedy book'. Steven's veiwpoints are so refreshing on so many issues, yet at the same time you think to yourself, "why has no-one though of this before ?". If your sense of humour is the kind that likes originality and new twists (with surreal and quirky touches) then this is what you will laugh at.

It turned me into a big fan of his, but I did not enjoy his novels so much. This format I think gives you the best of him. He says in the intro. that he used to get loads of desperate requests from readers for copies of articles he'd done; later you see why. Actually the introduction is one of the best bits as he is SO ironic, modest and more witty than anyone I've ever read. In fact simply, Fry = Wit. If anyone else finds a book similar then please, please contact me.

paperweight stephen fry audio and book
i absolutely give 5 stars to 'Paperweight' 1 and 2,for the book and the audio tape, although the audio is sooo much more entertaining, the bonus is the Fry voice surely?..never get tired of listening..his thoughts hidden in laughter,his politics and views on life never fail to amuse and are thought provoking, plus he loves Alistair Sim, so FRY RULES!! make a 2005 resolution
and get all the FRY works...