How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Categories: In the News , Entertainment , Movies & Books , Nonfiction

The writers' strike is finally over, so the 80th Annual Academy Awards are still set to air on Sunday, February 24th at 8:00 p.m. on ABC.  In honor of all things Hollywood, I decided to write about Toby Young’s gossipy memoir,     How To Lose Friends and Alienate People. 

Young is a British journalist obsessed with American celebrity.  He leaves London to accept a job as a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, but after years of inappropriate office pranks, drinking too much, desperately trying to crash Oscar parties, and offending celebrities like Nathan Lane and Mel Gibson, he is fired.  As the New York Times wrote, “Young has an instinct for annoying the rich and famous that crosses over into the self-destructive.” 

Still, you can’t help but feel sorry for him as he falls flat on his face and tries to turn his life around.  His memoir continues with a new career as a Hollywood screenwriter in The Sound of No Hands Clapping. 

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People will be released as a movie this fall, starring British actor Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst, and Jeff Bridges as Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter.