Review: How To Lose Friends And Alienate People/ The Sound Of No Hands Clapping

I've always been a fan of 'loser-lit'. Call it schadenfreude, but from Mr Pooter to Adrian Mole, reading about the inadequacies of others makes me feel all warm inside. So with this in mind, Toby Young's books about his failure to make it as both a glossy magazine editor (in How To Lose Friends) and a Hollywood scriptwriter (in The Sound Of No Hands Clapping) represent something of a holy grail.

In HTLFAAP (as it shall henceforth be known), Young recounts his years spent trying to 'hack it' in New York, following an invitation to work at Vanity Fair by it's somewhat naive editor Graydon Carter. Carter clearly sees something of himself in Young (pictured), but what he doesn't count on is the 30-something journalist's combination of naked ambition and interminable self-sabotage. After committing faux-pas such as embarrassing Carter at public events and making the grave mistake of asking Nathan Lane about his sexuality (my favourite anecdote), Young manages to lose his job, his status and his dignity in one fell swoop.

Of course, the irony of HTLFAAP is that Young has now reached the levels of fame and acclaim he so desired when he set out to New York. In The Sound Of No Hands Clapping (TSONHC), he writes about the effect the success of the first novel has on him, and admits that one of the prime motivations for writing it was to prove his capabilities to Graydon Carter. And he certainly manages that. The story, although not always wholly cohesive, is engrossing and as with most 'stick it to the man'-type books it reminds you of the reason you hate the establishment, the media and the world of celebrity. Of course, you knew this already, but reading about it from an insider's perspective gives you a real feeling of 'living with the enemy' that is utterly compulsive. The Graydon Carters of this world are not bad people, they just exist in a framework that seems utterly removed from any kind of ethical normality. It's a world where in order to climb the ladder, you have to be a snake.

For sheer readability, I actually preffered TSONHC (I do hope these acronyms aren't getting too confusing!). It certainly has more laugh-out-loud moments and has an added emotional depth thanks to Young's pitch-perfect description of the trials of fatherhood. He is very much an everyman, and like John O'Farrell managed in The Best A Man Can Get, defines the quandries faced by all 'modern men' without an over-reliance on pyschobabble. As Young is courted by Hollywood, it seems his dreams are within touching distance, but as ever the proverbial banana skin is on hand to ensure he remains 'one of us'. While it's not entirely clear this time round what has caused him to be frozen out, the implication is that as a screenwriter he simply doesn't cut the mustard. As a journalist however, Young is in a league of his own, helped largely by his uncomparable levels of self-awareness.

One small criticism is that his constant repetition of the phrase 'needless to say' makes him sound a bit like Alan Partridge at times - which is surprising considering that in the acknowledgements he actually thanks a friend of his for pointing out the number of times he uses it!

With a film version of How To Lose Friends (starring Simon Pegg) due out later in the year, now is as good a time as any to familarise yourself with these books - if only so you can snootily say "well of course the book was better" as you leave the cinema.

Click here to buy How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Click here to buy The Sound of No Hands Clapping