Derren was born in 1971 in Croydon. A precocious and puzzling only child, he liked to paint, foster obsessive habits and once set fire to a neighbour's boat by accident. In 1999 he was asked by Channel 4 to put a mind-reading programme together for television. It was an immediate success and gained Derren a cool underground kudos. Two more series followed and then in October 2003 Derren caused an international furore by playing Russian Roulette live on television. This secured his notoriety with the public and his big apartment in London. Further specials have followed, including The Seance, still the most complained about show in the history of television. Derren's workload keeps him exhausted and irritable fifty-two weeks a year and he continues to live in London with a large collection of taxidermy and a fatalistic parrot. He spends any free weekends painting and likes to receive gifts.

"Weird, whimsical and, at times, uproarious... Brown takes us on a meandering pleasure cruise downriver. It is worth the journey" The Sunday Times "It combines a playfully baroque prose style with pinpoint observation and almost excruciating levels of self-examination, if not loathing. It's a fascinating experience" -- AL Kennedy Guardian, Books of the Year "A fantastic voyage into Derren Brown's intensely sharp brain... A deeply funny and eccentric triumph" Heat "Closer to the work of someone like Malcolm Gladwell than to the... reminiscences of Brown's memoirs-writing contemporaries" Word "A lovely kind of magic trick in book form" Boing Boing

Derren was born in 1971 in Croydon. A precocious and puzzling only child, he liked to paint, foster obsessive habits and once set fire to a neighbour's boat by accident. In 1999 he was asked by Channel 4 to put a mind-reading programme together for television. It was an immediate success and gained Derren a cool underground kudos. Two more series followed and then in October 2003 Derren caused an international furore by playing Russian Roulette live on television. This secured his notoriety with the public and his big apartment in London. Further specials have followed, including The Seance, still the most complained about show in the history of television. Derren's workload keeps him exhausted and irritable fifty-two weeks a year and he continues to live in London with a large collection of taxidermy and a fatalistic parrot. He spends any free weekends painting and likes to receive gifts.

"Weird, whimsical and, at times, uproarious... Brown takes us on a meandering pleasure cruise downriver. It is worth the journey" The Sunday Times "It combines a playfully baroque prose style with pinpoint observation and almost excruciating levels of self-examination, if not loathing. It's a fascinating experience" -- AL Kennedy Guardian, Books of the Year "A fantastic voyage into Derren Brown's intensely sharp brain... A deeply funny and eccentric triumph" Heat "Closer to the work of someone like Malcolm Gladwell than to the... reminiscences of Brown's memoirs-writing contemporaries" Word "A lovely kind of magic trick in book form" Boing Boing

Derren was born in 1971 in Croydon. A precocious and puzzling only child, he liked to paint, foster obsessive habits and once set fire to a neighbour's boat by accident. In 1999 he was asked by Channel 4 to put a mind-reading programme together for television. It was an immediate success and gained Derren a cool underground kudos. Two more series followed and then in October 2003 Derren caused an international furore by playing Russian Roulette live on television. This secured his notoriety with the public and his big apartment in London. Further specials have followed, including The Seance, still the most complained about show in the history of television. Derren's workload keeps him exhausted and irritable fifty-two weeks a year and he continues to live in London with a large collection of taxidermy and a fatalistic parrot. He spends any free weekends painting and likes to receive gifts.

"Weird, whimsical and, at times, uproarious... Brown takes us on a meandering pleasure cruise downriver. It is worth the journey" The Sunday Times "It combines a playfully baroque prose style with pinpoint observation and almost excruciating levels of self-examination, if not loathing. It's a fascinating experience" -- AL Kennedy Guardian, Books of the Year "A fantastic voyage into Derren Brown's intensely sharp brain... A deeply funny and eccentric triumph" Heat "Closer to the work of someone like Malcolm Gladwell than to the... reminiscences of Brown's memoirs-writing contemporaries" Word "A lovely kind of magic trick in book form" Boing Boing