Based on a True Story (Paperback) - Anthony Holden

Anthony Holden, award-winning journalist and biographer, editor of Poems That Make Grown Men Cry, looks back whimsically and wittily on a richly varied, anecdote- and action-packed career.

From poker to poetry, poisoners to princes, opera to the Oscars, Shakespeare to Olivier, Mozart to Murdoch, Anthony Holden seems to have rolled many writers' lives into one. Author of 35 books on a 'crazy' range of subjects, this cocky Lancashire lad-turned-bohemian citizen of the world has led an apparently charmed life from Merseyside to Buckingham Palace, the White House and beyond. As he turns 70, the award-winning journalist and biographer - grandson of an England footballer, son of a seaside shopkeeper, friend of the famous from Princess Diana to Peter O'Toole, Mick Jagger to Salman Rushdie - spills the beans on showbiz names to literary sophisticates, rock stars to royals as he looks back whimsically and wittily on a richly varied, anecdote- and action-packed career - concluding, in the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, that 'Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well'.

About the Author

Anthony Holden was an award-winning journalist before becoming a bestselling writer. Best-known for his biographies of figures both living and historical, as well as critical studies of the monarchy, Holden also wrote several books about poker. Big Deal, his account of a year as a professional poker player, has been hailed as a cult classic. A frequent broadcaster, who wrote for a wide range of newspapers and periodicals on both sides of the Atlantic, Holden also published poetry, criticism and polemical pamphlets advocating constitutional reform.