Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics (Brewer'S ...) (Hardcover)

We've had some excellent coverage for this book. Willie was on LOOSE ENDS (BBC Radio 4) on 28 September and has also done the following local radio interviews THE DAVID PRIVA SHOW (LBC), THE ROBERT ELMS SHOW (BBC LONDON LIVE), THEBRIAN MORTON SHOW (BBC RADIO SCOTLAND), THREE COUNTIES RADIO and BBC RADIO LEICESTER. The following local radio stations have run competitions with the book - BBC RADIO GUERNSEY, BBC RADIO NOTTINGHAM, BBC HEREFORD & WORCESTER,SCOT FM, BBC RADIO SOLENT, BBC WILTSHIRE SOUND. The excellent interview withWillie ran in the INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY magazine on 27 October and last month he was featured in the INDEPENDENT'S Passed/Failed slot. We've had diary stories in THE DAILY EXPRESS, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH and BOOKSELLER. John Walsh gave it a wonderful plug in his column in THE INDEPENDENT as has Terence Blacker in his column Reviews have been excellent 'This is not a serious book by any means, but it is a welcome relief from the usual hagiographies found in Debrett's and Who's Who, which will set very comfortably on the bookshelves of those who have given up hope of an entry in either.'Ross Golden Bannon, THE SUNDAY BUSINESS POST 'I have not laughed so much in years, nor been so relieved that I did not know an author. You enter the world of William Donaldson at yourperil.'Byron Rogers, THE SPECTATOR 'This is probably the greatest bathroom book yet written.'Steve Jelbert, THE TIMES 'The most unputdownable anthology.... there's much to savour about this volume'John Walsh, THE INDEPENDENT 'In this breathtaking triumph of misdirected scholarship, Donaldson has found the ideal outlet for his splenetic wit and healthy disrespect for the great and the good.'Robert Chalmers, THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'This new 600-page encyclopedia is the funniest book of the year, and quite possibly of all time.'Francis Wheen, THE WEEK 'There is plenty here to titillate and entertain...... ifyou are curious to know who bottle-fed a porpoise in a railway waiting room (Francis Trevelyan Buckland), or which king died after being bitten by a monkey (Prince Phillip's father), or whose feet were cut off so that he could fitinto his sarcophagus (the 10th Duke of Hamilton) or which hangman later became a hairdresser (John Ellis), then this book is for you. It will make a goodbog-book, with oodles of human quiddity and notoriety to detain you.'Christopher Silvester, THE EXPRESS 'This book aims to catalogue the infamous and egregious from the 'undergrowth' of British and Irish history, and it certainly achieves this.'Charlie Campbell, LITERARY REVIEW 'The publishers wanted a 'browsable and addictive collection of pen portraits of 1,500 extraordinary characters' and Donaldson's flair for finding the extraordinary has fulfilled this brief amply - giving readers a glorious gawp into the lives of outsiders and outlaws past and present.'THE BIG ISSUE BREWER'S ROGUES VILLAINS AND ECCENTRICS has also been mentioned in a number of Christmas round-ups. We had an extremely successful launch on Tuesday 8 October at the Pan Bookshop in the Fulham Road, with a wonderful array of villains and eccentrics there from Frankie Fraser to Sebastian Hawsley.

Taking its inspiration from the Brewer's tradition of recording unexpected and fascinating information that is not generally available in other reference books, 'Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics' presents a colourful, informative and entertaining A-Z of bizarre Britons through the ages: assassins and arsonists, buggers and bigamists, hangmen and horse-stealers, hell-raisers and highwaymen, plus an array of poisoners, quacks, forgers and others. Yesterday's whoremasters and harlots rub shoulders with the defrocked parsons and dodgy geezers of contemporary Brtain in this richly entertaining dictionary of degradation, depravity and dottiness. A rich repository of arcane but fascinating information, it will make the perfect Christmas present for anyone who loves history, biography and 'Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable'.