{"product_id":"9780571287284","title":"Lord Berners: The Last Eccentric","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eHere lies Lord Berners\/One of life's learners,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThanks be to the Lord\/He was never bored.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSo reads the epitaph on the gravestone of Lord Berners. In its witty way, it hints at his range of accomplishment. He was a composer (admired by Stravinsky), writer, painter, aesthete and eccentric, indeed in Mark Amory's words 'The Last Eccentric', famously dyeing the pigeons at his house, Faringdon, in vibrant colours, and, for a time, having a giraffe as a pet and tea companion. His literary and artistic milieu was glittering: Stravinsky, Picasso, Salvador Dali, Siegfried Sassoon, John Betjeman, the Sitwells, Harold Nicolson, Frederick Ashton and Gertrude Stein - they all belonged to it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn fiction, he was famously portrayed as Lord Merlin in Nancy Mitford's \u003cb\u003eThe Pursuit of Love\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'As social history and a chronicle of a mad-cap English eccentric this long awaited, much needed and beautifully written book is, to use a simple clich , indispensable.' Alexander Waugh, \u003ci\u003eLiterary Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'In Amory, this engaging character has found the ideal biographer. Getting the exact measure of its subject throughout, written in a dry, wittily ironic prose ... the biography offers of sheer bliss.' Gilbert Adair, \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Faber and Faber","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47106466939120,"sku":"9780571287284","price":12.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780571287284_p0.jpg?v=1763718947","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780571287284","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}