The second instalment of his famed unreliable memoirs, Falling Towards England sees Clive James set sail for London - a long way from the acclaimed author, poet and broadcaster he would one day become .

Falling Towards England - More Unreliable Memoirs

Cultural criticism at its best, The Metropolitan Critic sees essayist, critic and poet Clive James mix high and pop culture commentary - from Tom Wolfe to Tom and Jerry, from Seamus Heaney to Oz magazine. In 1974, The Metropolitan Critic started a new trend in cultural comment which has since become an orthodoxy. The young Clive James was the first journalist in London to talk about high culture and pop culture as if they were equally fascinating fields of endeavour, and he did it in an incomparably engaged, fluent, sparkling style. Even at that early stage, the learning behind his literary high-wire act was formidable: a portent of the wide-ranging erudition that in subsequent years was to underpin the further volumes of critical prose and the television column that made him famous. An extra delight of this edition is a set of self-critical footnotes which, combined with a nostalgic introduction, evoke what literary London was like when the author, low on salary but high on hope, was making his spectacular start. Clive James (1939-2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His much-loved, influential and hilarious television criticism is available both in individual volumes and collected in Clive James On Television. His encyclopaedic study of culture and politics in the twentieth century, Cultural Amnesia, remains perhaps the definitive embodiment of his wide-ranging talents as a critic. Praise for Clive James: 'The perfect critic' - A. O. Scott, New York Times'There can't be many writers of my generation who haven't been heavily influenced by Clive James' - Charlie Brooker'A wonderfully witty and intelligent writer' - Verity Lambert

The Metropolitan Critic

Effervescent, energetic and eclectic, Even As We Speak collects the best of Clive James on art, culture and politics from 1993-2001. This is one of the late twentieth century's finest minds on show. From the Olympics to the British monarchy to Australian culture, and from icons of the century to the role of the ordinary German in the holocaust, this is a wide-ranging and thought-provoking selection of Clive at his best. This collection includes his compelling, much-discussed piece written shortly after the death of someone he knew personally - Diana, Princess of Wales. Whether the reader is discovering him for the first time, or revisiting classic pieces, Even As We Speak is a compelling collection from a much-loved figure in British - and Australian - culture. Clive James (1939-2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His much-loved, influential and hilarious television criticism is available both in individual volumes and collected in Clive James On Television. His encyclopaedic study of culture and politics in the twentieth century, Cultural Amnesia, remains perhaps the definitive embodiment of his wide-ranging talents as a critic. Praise for Clive James:'The perfect critic' - A. O. Scott, New York Times'There can't be many writers of my generation who haven't been heavily influenced by Clive James' - Charlie Brooker 'A wonderfully witty and intelligent writer' - Verity Lambert

Even As We Speak - Criticism

Collecting verse written in the years 2008-2011, Nefertiti in the Flak Tower sees Clive James approach his later years with the same technical versatility, emotional poignancy and lightly-worn erudition as defined his career. Across a breathtaking range of themes, there are moving elegies, a meditation on the later W. B. Yeats, a Hollywood Iliad, odes to rare orchids, wartime typewriters and sharks - as well as a poem on the fate of Queen Nefertiti in Nazi Germany. What marks this collection out is his intensified concentration on the individual poem as self-contained universe. Poetry is a practice he compares (in 'Numismatics') to striking new coin; in Nefertiti in the Flak Tower each poem is a twin-sided balance of the unashamedly joyous and the deadly serious, 'whose play of light pays tribute to the dark'. Clive James (1939-2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His acclaimed poetry includes the collection Sentenced to Life and a translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy, both Sunday Times bestsellers. His passion for and knowledge of poetry are distilled in his book of criticism on the subject, Poetry Notebook, and, written in the last year of his life, his personal annotated anthology of favourite poems, The Fire Of Joy. Praise for Clive James:'He will be seen, I think, as one of the most important and influential writers of our time' - Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times'Wise, witty, terrifying, unflinching and extraordinarily alive' - A. S. Byatt, critic and author of Possession: A Romance'Clive James is a true poet' - Peter Porter, London Review of Books

Nefertiti in the Flak Tower

Following Visions Before Midnight, The Crystal Bucket is another hilarious time-capsule of 1970s television - the second collection of Clive James's ruthlessly funny, inimitable columns dissecting the entertainment of the day.'One of the few columnists who makes you laugh aloud' - Melvyn Bragg, Sunday TimesIn many ways, the 1970s were a dark time for Britain - a time of struggle, deepening divisions and Christmas with the Osmonds. Clive James, the man who made TV criticism an entertainment in its own right, provided the relief. By turns insightful and hilarious, this collection sees his lens turn to television as diverse as the election of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party, the Silver Jubilee, endless Star Trek reruns, the Frost/Nixon interviews and Charlie's Angels.'He is one of the most remarkable figures in British cultural life at the moment: a poet and gifted literary critic who is also genuinely liked by the mass audience' - London Review of BooksThe Crystal Bucket collects James's TV criticism published originally in the Observer between 1976 and 1979. Clive's TV criticism from 1979 onwards continues in Glued To The Box. Clive James (1939-2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His much-loved, influential and hilarious television criticism is available both in individual volumes, of which this is the second, and collected in a single volume in Clive James On Television. Praise for Clive James:'There can't be many writers of my generation who haven't been heavily influenced by Clive James' - Charlie Brooker'A wonderfully witty and intelligent writer' - Verity Lambert'The perfect critic' - A. O. Scott, New York Times

The Crystal Bucket

His third book of cultural criticism, From the Land of Shadows sees essayist, critic and poet Clive James at his erudite, enlightening best.'[T]he lasting impression is of our critic's truly amazing breadth of reference' - Times Literary SupplementCollecting his work from the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, this book contains engaging, informed discussions of such writers as Bernard Levin, Gore Vidal, John le Carré, Anthony Burgess, Evelyn Waugh, Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden and Vladimir Nabokov. The four sections - In a Free Society; Fact Meets Fiction; Poetry, Criticism & Aesthetics, and The Giant in the East - together provide a lively image of literature in the mid-to-late twentieth century. The last section concerns Russian literature, the pieces written during the days of the Soviet Union and all the more fascinating for this context.'"Literature"', [James] writes, "says most things itself, when it is allowed to." Criticism like this expands that allowance and adds to its pleasure' - ObserverClive James (1939-2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His much-loved, influential and hilarious television criticism is available both in individual volumes and collected in Clive James On Television. His encyclopaedic study of culture and politics in the twentieth century, Cultural Amnesia, remains perhaps the definitive embodiment of his wide-ranging talents as a critic. Praise for Clive James:'The perfect critic' - A. O. Scott, New York Times'There can't be many writers of my generation who haven't been heavily influenced by Clive James' - Charlie Brooker'A wonderfully witty and intelligent writer' - Verity Lambert

From the Land of Shadows

A hilarious time-capsule of 1970s television, Visions Before Midnight is the first collection of Clive James's much-loved, inimitable columns skewering the entertainment of the day.'One of the few columnists who makes you laugh aloud' - Melvyn Bragg, Sunday TimesClive James is the man who made TV criticism an entertainment in its own right, paving the way for writers like Charlie Brooker. His comic brilliance is on full display here, from the 1972 Olympics to the 1976 Olympics, from War and Peace to the fall of Richard Nixon, and from the election of Thatcher as Leader of the Opposition to the Eurovision Song Contest. In this volume is collected the brilliant, uniquely Jamesian humour that saw hundreds of thousands of devoted fans turn to his column each Sunday morning. Visions Before Midnight collects James's TV criticism published originally in the Observer between 1972 and 1976. Clive's TV criticism from 1976 onwards continues in The Crystal Bucket. Clive James (1939-2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His much-loved, influential and hilarious television criticism is available both in individual volumes, of which this is the first, and also collected in a single volume in Clive James On Television. Praise for Clive James:'The perfect critic' - A. O. Scott, New York Times'There can't be many writers of my generation who haven't been heavily influenced by Clive James' - Charlie Brooker'A wonderfully witty and intelligent writer' - Verity Lambert

Visions Before Midnight

A single book-length poem, The River in the Sky sees Clive James face up to his final moments of life with all the wisdom, lightly-worn erudition and good humour that defined his extraordinary career. Close to death for a number of years, Clive James wrote about the experience in a series of deeply moving poems. In this volume, we find him in ill health but high spirits. Though his body found him bound to his Cambridge home, his mind was free to roam. On a grand tour of 'the fragile treasures of his life', James is animated by powerful recollections. He presents a flowing stream of vivid images, moving from emotionally resonant personal moments, such as listening to jazz records with his future wife, to unforgettable encounters with all kinds of culture: Beethoven's Ninth Symphony sits alongside 'YouTube's vast cosmopolis'. James shares his passions with enormous generosity, making brilliant, original connections and fearlessly tackling the biggest questions: the meaning of life and how to live it. In the end, what emerges from this autobiographical epic is a soaring work of exceptional depth and feeling.'The River in the Sky is superb, an epic lament, written in late life, filled with exact and moving observations about life and culture' - New York TimesClive James (1939-2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His acclaimed poetry includes the collection Sentenced to Life and a translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy, both Sunday Times bestsellers. His passion for and knowledge of poetry are distilled in his book of criticism on the subject, Poetry Notebook, and, written in the last year of his life, his personal annotated anthology of favourite poems, The Fire Of Joy. Praise for Clive James:'He will be seen, I think, as one of the most important and influential writers of our time' - Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times'Wise, witty, terrifying, unflinching and extraordinarily alive' - A. S. Byatt, critic and author of Possession: A Romance'Clive James is a true poet' - Peter Porter, London Review of Books

The River in the Sky

Always Unreliable is the collected first three volumes of Clive James's eloquently witty autobiographies, Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England and May Week Was in June. In Unreliable Memoirs we meet the young Clive James - dressed in shorts and growing up in post-war Sydney. With Falling Towards England, we find Clive living in a Swiss Cottage B&B, where he practises the Twist, anticipates poetical masterpieces he's yet to compose, and worries about his wardrobe. Finally, May Week Was In June sees Clive at Cambridge University, where he enthusiastically involves himself in college life (generally female lives) until May Week - not only in June but also a fortnight long - when he gets married. The rest, of course, is history .

Falling Towards England - More Unreliable Memoirs

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