Brian Viner

Brian Viner (born 25 October 1961,
London) is an English journalist and author.

Viner was born to an unmarried mother at the now demolished Royal Northern Hospital, London, and was adopted by a couple in Southport, Merseyside when a few weeks old. He met his birth parents for the first time in the 1990s.

He was educated at King George V School, Southport, then at St Andrews University. In 1985/6 he was a Robert T Jones Memorial Scholar at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

From 1994 to 1999 Viner wrote for the '' Mail on Sunday''. In 1997 he won a '' What the Papers Say'' Award for his work as the paper's television critic. He was a columnist on '' The Independent'' from January 1999 to December 2011, and then turned freelance, writing for numerous national newspapers, including the ''Daily Mail'', '' The Mail on Sunday'', the '' Financial Times'', '' The Sunday Telegraph'', '' The Sunday Times'', '' The Independent'', '' The Guardian'', the '' Daily Mirror'' and the ''Sunday Express''.

At ''The Independent'', he was principally a sports writer, and "The Brian Viner Interview" with a well-known sporting figure became the longest-running weekly interview in British newspaper journalism. He has been shortlisted multiple times as Interviewer of the Year in the British Press Awards and the Sports Journalism Awards. In October 2013, Viner became film critic of the ''Daily Mail'', succeeding Christopher Tookey.

He is the author of seven books, all non-fiction, with an eighth due to be published by Constable in 2022. Provisionally titled Frank & Fearless, it is a ghosted autobiography of the boxing promoter Frank Warren. Viner's most recently published book, "Looking For The Toffees", is an account of his teen years following Everton FC, in which he goes in search of his childhood heroes. Prior to that, he wrote ''The Good, The Dad and The Ugly: The Trials of Fatherhood'', published in May 2013. Of his earlier books, ''Tales of the Country'' and its sequel ''The Pheasants' Revolt'' recount the story of his, and his family's, move from London to Herefordshire. ''Ali, Pele, Lillee & Me: A Personal Odyssey Through the Sporting Seventies'' recalls his childhood as a sports enthusiast,BOOK REVIEW: LIFE WITH SPORTING ICONS OF THE 70S
", iomtoday.co.im, 12 April 2007, retrieved 2011-11-12 and ''Nice To See It, To See It Nice: The Seventies in Front of the Telly'' is similarly a memoir, but about television. His book ''Cream Teas, Traffic Jams and Sunburn: The Great British Holiday'' was voted Travel Book of the Year in The 2011 British Travel Press Awards. In 2010 ''Tales of the Country'' was adapted for the stage by the Pentabus Theatre Company.Bringing townies’ rural dream to life
", ''Hereford Times'', 8 April 2010, retrieved 2011-11-12

He is married to the novelist Jane Sanderson; the couple have three children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Viner, Brian
1961 births
Alumni of the University of St Andrews
Emory University faculty
English adoptees
English male journalists
Living people
People from Southport
The Independent people