'Finally I realised that I had been practising for this job every time I wrote a quatrain .

The Divine Comedy

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

With fascinating essays on artists from Louis Armstrong to Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud to Franz Kafka and Beatrix Potter to Marcel Proust, Cultural Amnesia is one of the crowning achievements in Clive James's illustrious career as a critic.'One stupendous starburst of wild brilliance' - Simon Schama, historian and author of The Power of ArtA lifetime in the making and containing over one hundred essays, this is a definitive guide to twentieth-century culture. James catalogues and explores the careers of many of the century's greatest thinkers, humanists, musicians, artists and philosophers, with illuminating excursions into the minds of those historical figures - from Sir Thomas Browne to Montesquieu - who paved the way. Altogether, it is an illuminating work of extraordinary erudition. Organised alphabetically by surname, this almanac invites you to share in the connections James draws, and to make your own - whether you read cover-to-cover, or allow curiosity to guide you. From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Wittgenstein, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, public memoir and personal record - and provides a field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.'Aphoristic and acutely provocative: a crash course in civilization' - J. M. Coetzee, author of Disgrace'This is a beautiful book' - ObserverPart of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.

Cultural Amnesia - Notes in the Margin of My Time

A comedy of no manners, Brrm! Brrm! by Clive James is the satirical story of a high-flying Japanese businessman sent to London.'Brrm! Brrm! is funny, clever and sometimes as delicate and tender as the poetry of its hero, Akira Suzuki' - The TimesAkira Suzuki is in London for the first time. He ponders the litter and the unappealing food, while smiling politely at motorcycle jokes about his name. British humour, he realises, is largely a game of mortal insults. Breaking into high society and chasing after two different women, he is supposed to be learning about the city's cosmopolitan lifestyle. Instead, Akira manages to make headlines - for all the wrong reasons .

Brrm! Brrm!

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

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

Thoughtful and funny, this fifth collection of essays from much-loved critic and author Clive James covers the art, politics and culture of 1987-1992.'A well-balanced show of wit, intellect and glorious observation' - Sunday TimesWith work on writers as diverse as Philip Larkin, Primo Levi and Stevie Smith, performers as iconic as Frank Sinatra and Billy Connolly, and publishing events as monumental as the World's First Official The Sun Neighbours Collection Stick Album Plus Extra Free Poster Pull-Out of Jason and Kylie, Clive James is always erudite, insightful and thoroughly entertaining.'He writes like a prophet and he can satirise folly in high places with a touch as elegant as Oscar Wilde .

The Dreaming Swimmer - Non-fiction 1987-1992

Collecting poetry written in the years 2011-2014, Sentenced to Life sees Clive James look back over his extraordinarily rich life with a clear-eyed and unflinching honesty. After falling dangerously ill in 2010, Clive James did not expect to live to see this volume published. But live he did, and these poems see James writing with his insight and energy not only undiminished but positively charged by his situation. There is no sense of self-pity in this collection, which includes the internet sensation 'Japanese Maple' and which deals openly with regret, death and his own illness,. With a great breadth of subject matter - taking in Hollywood, travel, art and politics - it is his fascination with humanity that shines through. It is, above all, a celebration of life - all that is treasurable and memorable in our time here. Rich in wisdom and sharp of thought, Sentenced to Life represents a career high point from one of the great literary intelligences of the age. 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

Sentenced to Life

From the author of Cultural Amnesia, beloved writer, poet and broadcaster Clive James, The Remake is a satirical story of astronomy, celebrity and a certain sort of romance .

The Divine Comedy

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