A mile-a-minute memoir I read like a parrot with my nails embedded in Pirate Tinas shoulder, yelling What??!! What!?!! WOWZA! as she swashbuckles through the eighties, her sword slicing up the staid shibboleths of New York. I remembered why I was afraid of her in those days. And why that energy and imagination, turned to making the world better, has galvanized so many of us now. A cultural catalyst, she makes things happen. Thank god she wrote it all down. Hang on - its a wild ride As delightful as eating a whole box of chocolates, without a trace of weight gain . . . irresistible * DAILY TELEGRAPH * Brilliant, concretely realised social history as much as a fabulous odyssey, and I read it in a mad frenzy I read them in one six-hour sprint of pure pleasure and joy . . . indiscreet, brilliantly observed, frequently hilarious. Its all here: the Demi Moore naked and pregnant front cover, Claus von Bulow photographed in black leather, Donald and Ivana Trump, the whole sweep of Eighties Manhattan reported at first hand in Tinas fresh, beady, borderline-paranoid style * EVENING STANDARD * Heaven * SUNDAY TIMES * Full of creative glee, passion and wild-ride excitement, The Vanity Fair Diaries features a cast of characters like Mad Men (and women) on speed; an epic of a legendary magazines dazzling re-creation; moments of laugh-out-loud comic asides, juicy gossip and sketches of Austen-like sharpness, all put together by an editor of high-octane genius who pauses only to reflect that however good she might be, its never quite good enough. Oh yes it is. Read the diaries and feel better about everything Addictive . . . features encounters with every influential name under the sun (political, literary and Hollywood stars) as well as an insight into Browns publishing power, which changed magazine journalism for ever * i NEWSPAPER * A great deal of fun . . . a perfect primer to the gaudy excesses of 1980s culture. It is her joy in her job, her delight at being ringside in this moment, and, most of all, her sheet chutzpah, which keeps you turning the pages * i NEWSPAPER * Brown is brilliant at these gleeful little character descriptions . . . She has the knack of making people instantly interesting . . . a fast-paced and head-spinningly hectic read * SUNDAY EXPRESS * The party-by-party, cover-by-cover story of how a Brit conquered New York publishing * NEW STATESMAN Books of the Year * Brown ( is) a fabulous diarist. Its not just that shes a wonderful writer (although she is: fluent, funny, fierce). Its more that, even after taking her seat at Americas top table, she never stops noticing. Amid the narcotic stupefaction of great wealth, Brown is invariably alert and on the money * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH * Such a juicy read. Shes honest about every interaction, no matter how big the star: every success and every mistake * GRAZIA * One is left with huge admiration for Browns wit, talent and determination * SUNDAY TIMES * The juiciest ( book) of the year * COSMOPOLITAN * ( A) terrifying, breakneck, hothouse, backstage tour of how magazines, news and views, and reputations are made and destroyed. ( It) made me crave an anti-anxiety pill! Within a couple of years she had turned it into the house magazine of a resurgent celebrity beau monde and gained an untouchable star quality of her own. Her diaries recount this will to power with caustic drollery and dash * FINANCIAL TIMES * A great portrait of the greed, the glitter, the fatal superficiality of that decade . . . her witty skewerings are first-class * THE TIMES * High, low, smart, sexy, Tina Browns The Vanity Fair Diaries is like the magazine she reinvented, a must-read for anyone interested in Hollywood, high society, and the movers and shakers of pop culture A brilliant portrait of New York in an age of shoulder-padded excess by a British editor who can pass as American, but never lost her merciless gift for a great story * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH * ( A) fascinating memoir from a publishing legend * HELLO! * Gripping, funny . . . ( Browns) enthusiasm for New York, and magazines, is infectious * THE ARTS DESK * Addictive * GUARDIAN * The Vanity Fair Diaries has a Gone with the Wind-like feel: its a chronicle of a lost age, before the internet, when to be the editor of Time or Newsweek was to be a demigod. Yeah, and to be Tina Brown was very heaven * LITERARY REVIEW * A journalism masterclass * NEW STATESMAN * Fun and often funny * GUARDIAN * Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair during the 1980s, covers her time in Manhattan with wit and wisdom, as she unwraps the stories behind the famous covers and tells of how she fought her corner, raised a family and strove to make the magazine a success * SAINSBURYS MAGAZINE * Enthralling - and terrifying * OBSERVER * The perfect stocking filler for any social x-ray who yearns to wallow in nostalgia. But even students of our own time with find the prescience of Browns observations a source of amusement. * 1843 ECONOMIST * She makes you glad that someone was taking notes * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT * Anyone who was anyone in Eighties New York can be found in Browns polished account of her time editing US magazine Vanity Fair. The result is a page-turning hymn to a vanished media age * i * Her pen portraits of the denizens of the Manhattan zoo are invariably sharp, and sometimes caustic . . . compulsive reading * DAILY MAIL *
