num_pages: 130
description: Health Warning: this book may seriously damage your ego ... and confronted by this gallery of world-beating swanks and swaggerers, who would be surprised? The sheer imagination and inventiveness that men put into self-glorification knows no bounds - and here is the proof: a staggering display of egotism designed to put us lesser mortals firmly in our place.Some start off modestly enough: 'We are all worms...' remarked Winston Chruchill - and then comes the escape clause - 'but I do believe that I am a glow-worm.' Nietzsche, on the other hand, employs shock tactics: 'I'm not a man - I'm dynamite!' A bit of pseudo-science is always impressive: 'I am the beneficiary of a lucky break in the genetic sweepstakes,' declared Isaac Asimov; but Clive James reckons it's best just to brazen it out: 'Look at me - conceit on the rampage.'Artless reasonableness is Henry James' style, so simple it's lethal: 'I konw everything. One has to, to write decently.' Mark Twain waxes lyrical on his youthful good looks: 'In San Francisco in the rainy season I was often taken for fair weather'; while others hold back meekly until their deathbeds like Auguste Comte, whose dying words were: 'What an irreparable loss!'From the humble compiler of the hugely successful 'Bedside Book of Insults' and 'More Insults' comes this puffed-up celebration of the world's most famous boasters and self-proclaimed geniuses. Sportsmen, writers, actors, politicians and plain, out-and-out narcissists jostle for a place in the spotlight. Who will be your favourite?
language: English
title: The bedside book of bigheads
titlecomplete: The bedside book of bigheads
ratings_count: 2
publisher: John Murray