Hello Goodbye Hello: A Circle of 101 Remarkable Meetings [Hardcover]

Craig Brown (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 7, 2012

Hello Goodbye Hello is a daisy chain of 101 fascinating true encounters, a book that has been hailed by reviewers in London as “howlingly funny” (The Spectator), “original and a complete delight” (The Sunday Times), and “rich and hugely enjoyable” (The Guardian). Or, as the London Evening Standard put it, “the truth and nothing but the plain, bonkers, howling truth . . . 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.” Who could imagine such unlikely—but true— encounters as these:

Martha Graham meets Madonna

Igor Stravinsky meets Walt Disney

Frank Lloyd Wright meets Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe meets Nikita Khrushchev

President Richard Nixon meets Elvis Presley

Harpo Marx meets George Bernard Shaw

Cecil Beaton meets Mick Jagger

Salvador Dali meets Sigmund Freud

Groucho Marx meets T.S. Eliot

Brilliant in conception, Hello Goodbye Hello shows how the celebrated and gifted—like the rest of us— got along famously or disastrously or indifferently with one another, but, thanks to Craig Brown, always to our amusement and entertainment.

From an opening story in which Adolf Hitler survives being knocked down by a careless English driver in 1931 to the Duchess of Windsor’s meeting with the Führer over tea, and 99 others in between, Hello Goodbye Hello is the perfect example that truth is stranger than fiction (and infinitely more enjoyable).

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Captivating…Glittering…Engaging…Entertaining…[Brown] has whipped up a gratifying summertime confection — funny, diverting, occasionally sad.”

--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

“Deliciously clever and amusing…Hello Goodbye Hello is splendid company, not to mention perfect for the beach, the lake or the pool.”

--Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post

“Hello Goodbye Hello is a hilarious book, clever and thoroughly researched…dip into this book anywhere and you will be rewarded with something delightful.”

--Moira Hodgson, Wall Street Journal

“Brown’s collection of odd encounters could be titled Famous People Behaving Badly. They’re irresistible.”

--People

“Craig Brown is the wittiest writer in Britain today.”

—Stephen Fry

“The book that made me laugh most was Craig Brown’s quirky game of biographical consequences.”

—Julian Barnes, Times Literary Supplement “Books of the Year”

"Craig Brown is something of a national treasure in Britain. . . . Hello Goodbye Hello is a bravura feat of narrative engineering. . . . A joyful, fun read espsecially for its widgety, ingenious construction."

—David Kamp, Vanity Fair

About the Author

Craig Brown writes the Private Eye celebrity diary as well as a twice-weekly column for the Daily Mail (London) and reviews books for Mail on Sunday. He was the host of This Is Craig Brown on BBC Radio 4. Mr. Brown lives in London.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (August 7, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 145168360X
• ISBN-13: 978-1451683608
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,380 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Cute, but one gimmick too many September 24, 2012

By Hubcap

Format:Hardcover

Hello Goodbye Hello has a fine concept: 101 daisy-chained encounters between the great, the good, the bad and the somewhere-in-between. But for some reason Craig Brown decided this wasn't enough of a gimmick. So on top of that, each of the 101 encounters is 1001 words long. This conceit hurts the book. The writing is weirdly choppy, with callbacks to names that have never actually been mentioned; the same snippet being included in both the body of the text and the footnotes; a strange jumpiness between paragraphs; and other visible scars from the editing process. On top of that, not all of these encounters are equally interesting. But because of the gimmick, they are treated as though they are.

A book like this should be an exercise in style. His fixation on 101x1001 crippled his style, knocked the book out of rhythm and in the end made me wish it had ended about 80 pages before it actually did. Which is not really what I'm looking for in light entertainment. When the gimmick hurts the writing, you need to drop the gimmick.

28 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "HILARIOUS,CLEVER, ENJOYABLE!" August 7, 2012

By Geraldine Ahearn TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Craig Brown delivers 101 fascinating, true encounters between the rich and famous as he portrays the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This perfect summer read is awesome to bring to the beach, or for any leisure time. This collection of true tales is strange, interesting, and witty. Some encounters are simply laugh-out-loud fun. Delightful, and entertaining from beginning to end. Highly Recommended!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Completely Unputdownable. August 18, 2012

By Author

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is like a game of "Telephone" except the message doesn't get garbled at the end. The placement of the vignettes, where one person from the last encounter leads in the next, is genius. I absolutely loved this book and the sheer amount of information I've never been privy to before. You don't have to know the classics to read this book. You'll glimpse the personalities behind the authors who created them. Fascinating!

Five stars. Great Read!