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Title: How to Lose Friends & Alienate People by Toby Young ISBN: 030681188X Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: 02 July, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00

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Average Customer Rating: 3.18

Rating: 2
Summary: Great Title, Sub-par story
Comment: When I saw the clever title of Toby Young's auto-biography, "How To Lose Friends and Alienate People", I immediatly picked the book up, expecting a hilarious novel of self-deprication and public humiliaton. Unfortunatly, all my money bought me was a 368 page psychatrist's session with occasional humourous name-droppings. There are actually a few funny moments inside this novel, but they are buried under seemingly endless complaints about his annoyingly pretentious collegues (he works for Vanity Fair, what does he expect?), his problems with women (which seem to be told by a very longwinded and unfunny version of Woody Allen), and his smug self-satisfaction that he has singlehandedly uncovered irony in the lives of Manhattan socialites (WOW!).

There are brief, shining moments in "How To Lose Friends and Alienate People", where Young makes some interesting commentary, but there's not enough. And most of Young's observations aren't even that original - they have been better told in the past by stand up comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Paul Reiser (I would suggest reading Seinfeld's "SeinLanguage" and Reiser's "Couplehood" in lieu of this book).

So don't be fooled by the clever title, Young's novel doesn't deserve it, and unless you've got a morbid fascination with trashy coffee table magazines and the hacks who write for them - stay away from "How To Lose Friends and Alienate People".

Rating: 5
Summary: Bitter, sad, occasionally hilarious but never boring
Comment: It is very rare these days that I find a book engrossing enough to read in one sitting and which also makes me laugh out loud. Toby Young, who has an unerring ability to focus on his own shortcomings, does an excellent job of explaining exactly how not to get on in New York. His waggish personality, a healthy appetite for drink and a large stock of off-colour jokes -- all attributes which would serve you well as a journalist in London -- ensure he makes a total mess of pretty much everything he does in Manhattan, the mothership of all that is politically correct in the United States. Indeed, when Vanity Fair boss Graydon Carter fires Young, he tells our hapless hero that he has a brown thumb. "Everything you touch turns to ****," he explains with a laugh. Young is the squarest of pegs in a world where all the holes are round and to make matters worse, a friend of his who went to Los Angeles at the same time strikes immediate and lucrative success. Young is also very funny about his total lack of success with American women, largely because they quickly realise he is broke (and has quite a few complexes, as well as an impressively large collection of appalling pick-up lines). Two-thirds of the way through, the book suddenly becomes more serious as Young realises he has hit rock bottom and starts groping for a way out. To say much more would give too much away but it's well worth sticking through to the end.

Rating: 5
Summary: gossip and philosophy, all in one fun read
Comment: Toby Young manages to combine gossip, farce and social commentary in one terrifically well written book. While he makes sport of many famous media folk, he doesn't spare himself. This book reads like a primer on how NOT to behave in media circles, with many laugh out loud passages detailing Young's spectacular social and professional blunders. If you are extremely politically correct, this is not the book for you. And if you take offense at any critiques of the American way of life, you won't exactly see eye to eye with Young. I found the book insightful and refreshing, especially during this period of too often blind patriotism. Young writes about Graydon Carter and Alexis deTocqueville with equal facility, and manages to make all of it interesting. You start out thinking Young is a big jerk, but by the end, he's won you over.

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