Death by Leisure: A Cautionary Tale - Softcover

'Ayres is beautifully self-deprecating, very funny and he's clearly a brilliant blagger, all of which makes for a diverting read' -- Daily Mail 'Part anthropological study of LA, part self-deprecating comic misadventure' -- Independent on Sunday 'A hilarious look at the excesses of LA life, with a sobering undercurrent' -- Daily Express 'Hilarious, this is Hollywood laid bare' -- The Sun 'Death by Leisure presents a delicious vicarious thrill for the reader' -- Herald '(Ayres) carries it off with wit, panache and wry social observation ... this may be death for leisure but its reading for pleasure' -- Tatler 'Ayres second (book) chronicles his life as an LA show-bix hack. Highlights include when he takes a date to Michael Jackson's Neverland and slams a door in Mike Tyson's face' -- GQ 'A very funny book with nice comic timing' -- Guardian 'A frank, gonzo-esque account of his life among the glittering stars of Hollywood' -- Gay Times 'Ayres, a Times journalist, not only has a gift for comedy ... but nails the complicated character of the world's maddest, saddest city' -- thelondonpaper '(Ayres) is disarmingly honest and his many gaffes make hilarious reading' -- Sunday Business Post 'Hugely entertaining memoir' -- Word

After a brief and undignified stint as a war correspondent, Chris Ayres is exiled by his newspaper to Hollywood, where he lives in a building called The Leisureplex and sends celebrity tittle-tattle back home. Seduced by the apparently infinite wealth of LA, Ayres embarks on an ill-advised odyssey of self-gratification (in the name of research) and breaks first rule of foreign reporting: he goes native. Before long, he is an SUV-driving narcissist with a flat-screen TV in every room, eight pairs of designer flip-flops, a seven-digit overdraft, and a wife he met on the internet. As always, however, disaster looms. After a fire the size of Luxembourg, a Biblical flood, and the apocalypse of Katrina, Ayres realises he is living on a precipice. Like a gonzo Great Gatsby, Death by Leisure is a savage and hilarious takedown of our times, and a wake-up call to aspiring Leisuretocrats everywhere.