How Not To Be a Boy
Robert Webb
“It sounded to me that to be a gentleman, you needed both manners and bravery. And that thought was horribly fascinating. Because I thought only wimps needed manners. And only tough guys were brave”
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THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER - Robert Webb’s part-memoir, part call-to-arms
THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
Robert Webb tried to follow the rules for being a man:
Don’t cry
Drink beer
Play rough
Don’t talk about feelings
Looking back over his life he asks whether these rules are actually any use. To anyone.
“Quite simply brilliant. I (genuinely) cried. I (genuinely) laughed out loud. It’s profound, touching, personal yet universal … I loved it”
J.k. Rowling
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“With enormous poignancy and insight … Webb’s early portrait of himself as a hapless underdog navigating the boulder-strewn path of masculinity is vividly drawn and very funny … Echoes of Adrian Mole”
guardian
“Takes us deftly from hilarity to heart-stopping hurt … A truly great read, full of heart”
Dawn French
“Frank and compelling … Laugh-out-loud funny … also, in parts, blink-back-tears sad. Why would I blink back tears rather than give full rein to the emotion? Well, Webb can explain”
mail On Sunday
“Written with wit and clarity, How Not To Be a Boy is a funny, rueful, truthful book. I enjoyed every page”
Stephen Fry
Robert Webb
Robert Webb has been a male for his whole life. As such, he has been a boy in a world of fighting, pointless posturing, and the insistence that he stop crying. As an adult man, he has enjoyed better luck, both in his work as the Webb half of Mitchell & Webb in the Sony award-winning That Mitchell & Webb Sound and the Bafta award-winning That Mitchell & Webb Look, and as permanent man-boy Jeremy in the acclaimed Peep Show. He also played Bertie Wooster in the acclaimed West End run of Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense. Robert has been a columnist for the Daily Telegraph and the New Statesman, and now lives in London with his wife and daughters, where he continues trying to be funny and to fumble beyond general expectations of manhood. He will appear as a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing in 2021.
@arobertwebb
Watch Robert Webb read from his bestselling memoir How Not to be a Boy at the Hay Festival: ‘I thought only wimps needed manners, and only tough guys were brave.’
Robert Webb
The Hay Festival
Robert Webb on gender conditioning (or, the way you’re told how to behave because of what’s in your pants) – from the number one bestseller How Not To Be a Boy.
“I haven’t written it because I think I’m special. I’ve written it because I think I’m typical.” Robert Webb in the Irish Times talking about how How Not To Be a Boy has made some angry men angrier, and why he’s not a feminist Yoda.
Irish Times
Robert Webb on gender conditioning (or, the way you get told how to behave because of what’s in your pants) – from How Not To Be a Boy.
Robert Webb is taking his heartbreaking and hilarious memoir How Not To Be a Boy on tour!
“You think you’ve got something radical to say and then two princes of the realm go and agree with you. Terrific. Thanks, lads. I’ve never claimed to have much street cred but this is the limit.”
New Statesman
