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Sad Little Men

Inside the secretive world that shaped Boris Johnson

Richard Beard

$27.99

Paperback

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English
Vintage
07 August 2022
A passionate, personal book by a prize-winning memoir writer about boarding schools, the damage they do, and power in this country

'Read this book' Alastair Campbell

'A really wonderful book' Nigella Lawson via Twitter

In 1975 Richard Beard was sent away to boarding school. So were Boris Johnson and David Cameron.

He didn't enjoy it. But the first and most important lesson was not to let that show.

A public school education has long been accepted in Britain as a preparation for leadership, but being separated from your parents at a young age is traumatic. What sort of adult does it mould? Tackling debates about privilege head-on, Sad Little Men reveals what happens when you put a succession of men from boarding schools into positions of influence, including at 10 Downing Street, and asks the question- is this really who we want in charge?

'The most important book I've read this year' Adam Rutherford

By:  
Imprint:   Vintage
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 198mm,  Width: 129mm,  Spine: 17mm
Weight:   202g
ISBN:   9781529114805
ISBN 10:   1529114802
Pages:   288
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  Primary & secondary/elementary & high school ,  Professional and scholarly ,  ELT Advanced ,  Children's (6-12)
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Richard Beard is the author of Acts of the Assassins, which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, and most recently the memoir The Day That Went Missing, which was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, the James Tait Black Prize and won the PEN Ackerley Prize. In the United States the book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In the twenty years since his first book, he has published critically acclaimed novels and narrative non-fiction, including Becoming Drusilla, the story of how a friendship between two men was changed by a gender transition. He has served as a judge for Canada's Giller Prize and for the BBC and Costa Short Story Awards, and is a dour opening batsman for the Authors Cricket Club.

Reviews for Sad Little Men: Inside the secretive world that shaped Boris Johnson

A sensitive and incisive analysis of the British class system has no right to be as insanely readable and enjoyable as this book manages to be * Tom Holland, author of Dominion * Engaging and readable, powerful and cogent. A vivid portrait of the political elite exposed for the vulnerable men/ children they are * Joy Schaverien, author of Boarding School Syndrome * Well written... everyone...should pick it up for the insights into how being sent away by their parents shaped the characters of our wounded leaders -- Clive Stafford Smith * Times Literary Supplement * If you want to understand the aura of entitlement and untouchability shrouding our governing class, look no further than Beard's witty, unsparingly sharp and deeply moving anatomy of the emotional culture of England's boarding schools * Josh Cohen * Read this book * Alastair Campbell *


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