Hug me while I weep for I weep for the world - Bel Littlejohn

Sometimes poignant, never less than tragic, often brave and always searingly honest: these are the qualities that have made Bel Littlejohn Britain's best-loved columnist. Part self-help guide, part heartfelt, brutally frank reappraisal of her life to date, Ms Littlejohn deals with such issues as: Diana, Princess of Wales: 'She taught us how to laugh and how to cry, and the difference between the two'; Coping with a Living Mother at Christmas-time; and Gordon Brown's Desert Island Disc, 'Je t'aime moi non plus', Louise Woodward. 'I wept; you wept; he or she wept; we wept; you plural wept; they all wept.' and Living with a Verucca, Bel's searingly honest long-running, OBSERVER column.

HUG ME WHILE I WEEP...FOR I WEEP FOR THE WORLD is about nothing less than the emotional rebirth of New Britain, as chronicled by the woman who acted as its midwife.

Craig Brown is one of the funniest writers in Britain. He writes the Private Eye diary piece, is a regular newspaper columnist and has written the comic novel THE HOUNDING OF JOHN THOMAS.

I doubt there is a better parodist alive than Craig Brown
- Matthew Parris, THE SPECTATOR

To be loused up by Craig Brown was really a kind of privilege. It was like being the subject of a two-nosed portrait by Picasso, or an eviscerated chicken by Soutine. A f***ing genius
Craig Raine

Miles Kington, INDEPENDENT