A frank autobiography by "The Times" columnist and ex-politician Matthew Parris. His childhood was spent on a variety of different countries as his engineer father moved jobs; Rhodesia, Cyprus, the Middle East and Jamaica. After Cambridge and Yale, he joined the Conservative central office at roughly the same time (aged 26) he discovered he was gay. He worked for Michael Dobbs, Chris Patten, and Mrs Thatcher (who famously fired him), before entering parliament himself. Part participant, part bystander, Matthew Parris describes what it was like to be so close to the centre and remain an outsider.

Chance Witness : An Outsider's Life in Politics

PARRIS, Matthew

Biographies & Memoirs

Penguin??Books

Inca Kola : A Traveller"s Tale of Peru

History

Ancient Civilizations

Weidenfeld&Nicolson

Chance Witness: An Outsider's Life in Politics by Parris, Matthew

VIKING

Matthew Parris's Parting Shots is a treasure trove of wit, venom and serious analysis.   Up till 2006 a British Ambassador leaving his post was encouraged to write what was known as a valedictory despatch, to be circulated to a small number of influential people in government. This was the parting shot, an opportunity to offer a personal and frank view of the host country, the manners and morals of its people, their institutions, the state of their cooking and their drains. But it was also a chance to let rip at the Foreign Office itself and to look back on a career spent in the service of a sometimes ungrateful nation.   Combining gems from the archives with more recent despatches obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Parting Shots sheds light on Britain's place in the world, revealing the curious cocktail of privilege and privation that makes up the life of an ambassador.   'Wonderful ... a glimpse of that lost world of private eloquence and erudite candour' Matthew d'Ancona, Evening Standard   'Unbuttoned, indiscreet and very funny' Yorkshire Post   Matthew Parris had a short career in the Foreign Office where one of his tasks was to distribute incoming valedictory despatches. He was a Conservative MP from 1979 to 1986, since when he has worked as a journalist. He is the author of A Castle in Spain, Parting Shots, and A Spanish Ambassador's Suitcase. He divides his time between Derbyshire (where his old constituency was situated) and east London.

Parting Shots

Humor & Entertainment

Bryson, Andrew

Humor

Matthew Parris's Parting Shots is a treasure trove of wit, venom and serious analysis. Up till 2006 a British Ambassador leaving his post was encouraged to write what was known as a valedictory despatch, to be circulated to a small number of influential people in government. This was the parting shot, an opportunity to offer a personal and frank view of the host country, the manners and morals of its people, their institutions, the state of their cooking and their drains. But it was also a chance to let rip at the Foreign Office itself and to look back on a career spent in the service of a sometimes ungrateful nation. Combining gems from the archives with more recent despatches obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Parting Shots sheds light on Britain's place in the world, revealing the curious cocktail of privilege and privation that makes up the life of an ambassador. 'Wonderful ... a glimpse of that lost world of private eloquence and erudite candour' Matthew d'Ancona, Evening Standard 'Unbuttoned, indiscreet and very funny' Yorkshire Post Matthew Parris had a short career in the Foreign Office where one of his tasks was to distribute incoming valedictory despatches. He was a Conservative MP from 1979 to 1986, since when he has worked as a journalist. He is the author of A Castle in Spain, Parting Shots, and A Spanish Ambassador's Suitcase. He divides his time between Derbyshire (where his old constituency was situated) and east London.

Columnist and broadcaster Matthew Parris takes us on his fourth trip to spectacular Peru, a land encompassing some of the highest mountains, driest deserts and thickest jungles in the world. Visiting old stomping grounds and finding new ones, he recounts the troubles, curiosities and wonders he and his three companions meet. Travelling among bandits, prostitutes, peasants and riots, Parris describes it all, at times moving, hilarious and grotesque.

Inca-Kola: A Traveller's Tale of Peru (U (Ulverscroft Large Print Series)

Ulverscroft

Look behind you!: Sketches and follies from the Commons

Robson

In this highly revealing, entertaining and salutary expedition into the moral swamps of British politics, award-winning columnist and broadcaster Matthew Parris presents the low side of high office. From the Victorian Prime Minister who brought prostitutes into Downing Street to the MP caught red-checked in the House of Commons shower; from two leaders groped by one backbencher to shady share dealings in the newly invented wireless; from the sale of peerages for cash to love-sick House of Commons secretaries; from rent boys to Soviet spies; and from pistols at dawn on Putney Heath to three-in-a-bed romps with serving wenches all is revealed here. Researching this book, Parris has been able to talk to many of those living politicians and former politicians who appear here, and while this all-too-readable history includes the scandals you would expect - starting with Elizabeth I's Francis Bacon, who went on to become the most corrupt Lord Chancellor ever, and ending with the scandal-rocked 1990s - there are also some surprising and little-known ones: the MPs who (until now) got away.

Great Parliamentary Scandals: Four Centuries of Calumny, Smear and Innuendo

Prosser, Lord David

Pierce, Andrew

Robson Book Ltd

While presenting Great Lives on Radio 4, Matthew Parris noticed a trend in the lives of the exceptional men and women the programme covered: many of them had been marked by extreme trauma and deprivation. They seemed to have succeeded not only in spite of their backgrounds, but perhaps even because of them. 
Charlie Chaplin spent much of his childhood in a south London workhouse, while Ada Lovelace was paralysed at the age of thirteen. Edward Lear was the last of twenty-one children, and suffered from severe epilepsy and depression, and Coco Chanel was abandoned by her father in a freezing-cold church orphanage. Yet they would all grow up to be not just successful, but to create paradigm shifts in their fields, and create work that still influence our lives today. 
As Matthew Parris brings each individual's story to life in this original and compelling study, it becomes clear that we must rethink the origins of success, as well as the legacy of trauma.

Fracture: Trauma, Success and the Origins of Greatness

Profile Books

Fracture: Stories of How Great Lives Take Root in Trauma

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by PARRIS, Matthew. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by PARRIS, Matthew