The Guardian Columns, 1998-2000

The iconoclast of her generation Julie Burchill – who started her infamous career aged 17 on the NME – has been thrilling and dismaying readers most recently in the Guardian on Saturday. Whether lampooning the cult of celebrity, old men who behave like young lads, two ex-husbands or the hypocrisy of New Labour and the middle classes, Britain’s Worst Mother (a title bestowed on her by the Daily Mail) applies her idiosyncratic and dissecting wit to the world we think is around us. This is a collection of her Guardian columns from January 1998 through to December 2000, a period that has seen the Kosovan war, the decline and fall of the Dome, and the eventual election of a new American President. There is no other commentator who can turn received wisdom on its head like Burchill, whether it’s applied to world events or to the latest media personality. And there is no other journalist who can combine such relentless insight, malice and warmth to deserving causes. She is one of the best columnists around – an antidote to the glut of confession columns that saturate the weekend papers – and this collection brings together the best of her writing.