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I Read the News Today, Oh Boy Paul Howard

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy By Paul Howard

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy by Paul Howard


$18.49
Condition - Very Good
Only 2 left

Summary

A biography of Tara Browne, the Irish aristocrat whose extraordinary life inspired the Beatles' greatest song.

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy Summary

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: The short and gilded life of Tara Browne, the man who inspired The Beatles' greatest song by Paul Howard

Few people rode the popular wave of the sixties quite like Tara Browne. One of Swinging London's most popular faces, he lived fast, died young and was immortalized for ever in the opening lines of 'A Day in the Life', a song that many critics regard as The Beatles' finest. But who was John Lennon's lucky man who made the grade and then blew his mind out in a car?

Author Paul Howard has pieced together the extraordinary story of a young Irishman who epitomized the spirit of the times: racing car driver, Vogue model, friend of The Rolling Stones, style icon, son of a peer, heir to a Guinness fortune and the man who turned Paul McCartney on to LSD.

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy is the story of a child born into Ireland's dwindling aristocracy, who spent his early years in an ancient castle in County Mayo, and who arrived in London just as it was becoming the most exciting city on the planet.

The Beatles and the Stones were about to conquer America, Carnaby Street was setting the style template for the world and rich and poor were rubbing shoulders in the West End in a new spirit of classlessness. Among young people, there was a growing sense that they could change the world. And no one embodied the ephemeral promise of London's sixties better than Tara Browne.

Includes a sixteen-page plate section of stunning colour photographs.

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy Reviews

Tara Browne was the golden boy around whom, for a short while, the entire extraordinary world of Sixties London seemed to revolve. Tara knew everybody and they all loved him, not for his money, as he feared, but because he, above them all, embodied the spirit of the age. I absolutely loved this book. It's a brilliant, vivid portrait of extraordinary times -- Miranda Seymour, author of In My Father's House
After all these years, we at last know about the real life of the lucky man who made the grade. I found it fascinating to discover the true story of Tara Browne, a legend in a lyric. -- Hunter Davies, author of The Beatles: The Authorised Biography
I loved it! Howard's skilful evocation of an extraordinary turning point in cultural history is an absolute joy to read. The life of Tara Browne offers the perfect conduit into a psychedelic world populated by a legendary cast of characters that you simply couldn't make up. While it's clear that Howard undertook years of rigorous original research, his prose is always gripping and never laboured. The deep but slightly exasperated affection Howard feels for Browne injects pathos into this highly entertaining account of an extraordinary, chaotic, high-octane life -- Eleanor Fitzsimons, author of Wilde's Women: How Oscar Wilde Was Shaped by the Women He Knew
Tara Browne held the rare quality of romance. A figure of intense but passive glamour, he stood at the epicentre of the bohemian Anglo-Irish aristocracy and 1960s London at its most swinging, yet somehow gave the air of merely passing through life. In a wonderfully readable book, gleaming with detail, Paul Howard evokes the splendid vanished worlds that Browne inhabited and - no easy thing to do - makes us believe in his elusive, imperishable enchantment -- Laura Thompson, author of Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters
I read - no, devoured - I Read the News Today, Oh Boy. It's an absolute gem. Great humour is balanced with the sadness, and the writing is so deft with all that research woven so lightly into the mix. I can only imagine how much labour is involved in making it all flow so effortlessly -- John Butler, writer and director of The Stag
This is a wonderful book about the Swinging Sixties; it opens a door into an extraordinary world that we all clung to long ago, and dreamed of remotely, at the other end of our tiny transistor radios. Back then we only knew the sound track. But this is the real thing. Man -- Michael Harding, author of Staring at Lakes: A Memoir of Love, Melancholy and Magical Thinking
A vivid and immaculately researched account of a remarkable life. A fascinating journey through post-war Irish and English society, in the company of a cast of extraordinary characters. -- Antony Edmonds, author of Oscar Wilde's Scandalous Summer
I was fascinated to read this beautifully written book, which gripped me on many different levels. Vividly telling the extraordinary story of Tara Browne, a mythical figure through the Beatles' song, showing how extremes of love with no rules combined with limitless funds, is as disastrous as it is glamorous. Paul Howard documents in detail through his exacting conversations with many of the people in Tara's life, the post war/pre 60s British aristocratic attitudes - illuminating a life that seems more like centuries ago, than decades. Having been to Luggala as a child, and remembering my meeting with Oonagh, Paul brought her to life for me, told me much I had absolutely no idea about, showing both her brilliance and originality - and also the tragic outcome of many of her choices. It is a compelling read and a story that is only possible to believe because it is actually true. I can only hope that Julian and Dorian live more peaceful, if less exciting lives. -- Julia Samuel, founder of Child Bereavement UK and author of Grief Works: Stories of Life, Death and Surviving
Dramatic and engrossing . . . the opening chapters read like an Irish Great Gatsby by way of Downton Abbey . . . "A lucky man who made the grade", as The Beatles have it in A Day in the Life? This book removes Browne from a song lyric and repositions him as an alluring figure of wonderment . . . This is a masterpiece -- Brian Boyd * Irish Times *
A richly populated history traced along this spirited character's journey from Ireland to Swinging London, it is a fascinating piece of work * Daily Telegraph *
A masterpiece -- Ian O'Riordan * Irish Times *
A compelling, sympathetic and unusually poignant book about someone whose star may have burned briefly, but who has left an indelible impression on almost everybody he left behind * Daily Mail *
The devastating crash that killed him has become near folkloric, not least because of the Beatles song that is the title of this book. But for many people who read the news that day, Tara is alive and golden, beautiful and poetic, somewhere deep in their hearts today * Spectator *

About Paul Howard

Paul Howard is a multi-award-winning journalist, author, playwright and comedy writer. He is best known in his native Ireland as the creator of Ross O'Carroll-Kelly, a fictional rugby jock and the star of a series of books that have sold well over one million copies in Ireland. He is a former Irish Sports Journalist of the Year, an Irish Newspaper Columnist of the Year and a three-times Irish Book Award winner. He has written for stage and for television. He is a Beatles nut and lives in County Wicklow with his wife, Mary.

Additional information

GOR008447773
9781509800049
1509800042
I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: The short and gilded life of Tara Browne, the man who inspired The Beatles' greatest song by Paul Howard
Used - Very Good
Paperback
Pan Macmillan
2017-05-30
384
Winner of Bord Gais Energy National Book Tokens Nonfiction Book of the Year 2016 (UK)
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - I Read the News Today, Oh Boy