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

The Divine Comedy

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!

With essays taking the reader from London to Bali, theatre to library and from election campaigns to television, The Meaning of Recognition collects the best of Clive James on art, culture and politics from 2001-2005. Whether analysing Bing Crosby, Bruno Schulz or Shakespeare, celebrating The Sopranos and The West Wing, or lamenting the decline of Formula One, Clive James writes with style and substance, offering food for thought across a huge variety of subjects. On Pushkin, Philip Roth, or the nature of celebrity, he is always sane, engaged and unmistakably himself. This collection shows Clive at his witty, learned and heartfelt best.'Clive James, the most glorious prose stylist of his generation, refuses to stop learning ever more about the world' - New Statesman'[Clive] can both get to the heart of a subject and raise a laugh' - Sunday TimesClive 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 Meaning of Recognition - Essays 2001-2005

Adding to an already unforgettable collection of comic brilliance, Clive James followed-up Visions Before Midnight and The Crystal Bucket with Glued To The Box - the third and final collection of his hilarious, inimitable columns of TV criticism and a time capsule of 1970s/1980s entertainment.'One of the few columnists who makes you laugh aloud' - Melvyn Bragg, Sunday TimesIn 1982 Clive James, the man who made TV criticism an entertainment in its own right, hung up his hat after ten years as the Observer's regular television critic. From the election of Reagan, Ski Sunday and finding out who shot JR, to Michael Foot's Labour Party, the ITV Telethon and Minder, it was a memorable end to his legendary tenure.'His contribution to the art and enjoyment of TV criticism over the past ten years has been immense. His work is deeply perceptive, often outrageously funny and always compulsively readable' - British Press Awards, on Clive James (Winner, Critic of the Year 1981)Glued To The Box collects James's TV criticism published originally in the Observer between 1979 and 1982. Clive James (1939-2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His much-loved, influential and hilarious television criticism is available both in three individual volumes, of which this is the third, and 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

Glued To The Box

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 .

Always Unreliable - Memoirs

Blending the critical essay with poetry, Gate of Lilacs is a collection of verse written by Clive James in response to - and profoundly inspired by - the work of Marcel Proust.'James picks out the characters, the motifs and the moments that set his memory ablaze, just as Marcel was able to conjure such visions from a tisane-infused madeleine' - Literary ReviewOver a period of fifteen years Clive James learned French by almost no other method than reading À la recherche du temps perdu - commonly translated as In Search of Lost Time, or Remembrance of Things Past. Then he spent half a century trying to get up to speed with Proust's great novel in two different languages. Gate of Lilacs is the unique product of James's love of and engagement with Proust's masterpiece. With À la recherche du temps perdu, Proust, in James's words, 'followed his creative instinct all the way until his breath gave out', and now James has done the same. In Gate of Lilacs, James, a brilliant critical essayist and poet, has blended the two forms into one. I had always thought the critical essay and the poem were closely related forms .

Gate of Lilacs - A Verse Commentary on Proust

A hilarious journey through the life and television of the 1970s and 80s, this nostalgic time capsule collects the treasured columns of Clive James.'The funniest writer in Britain' - Sunday TimesClive James is the man who created TV criticism as a genre, bringing to it all the breadth of reference, intelligence and delight that he brought to more conventionally highbrow art forms. At a time when there were only three TV channels in the UK, and a primetime show might gather a simultaneous audience of 20 million people, he was commenting on the hitherto overlooked major cultural phenomenon of the era. From the Olympics to the fall of Richard Nixon, from the Eurovision Song Contest to the rise of Thatcher, from endless Star Trek reruns to the election of Reagan, and from Charlie's Angels to Michael Foot's Labour Party, Clive James's inimitable commentary brought sense and humour to his huge audience. In Clive James On Television are collected all three volumes of the brilliant, uniquely Jamesian humour that saw hundreds of thousands of devoted fans turn to his column each Sunday morning. It is together a hilarious, insightful portrait of the time - whether or not you were there the first time around.'His contribution to the art and enjoyment of TV criticism over the past ten years has been immense. His work is deeply perceptive, often outrageously funny and always compulsively readable' - British Press Awards, on Clive James (Winner, Critic of the Year 1981)This book combines the three volumes of Clive's collected columns: Visions Before Midnight, The Crystal Bucket and 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 three individual volumes and collected 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

Clive James On Television

Wide-ranging, hilarious and enlightening, The Revolt of the Pendulum collects the best of Clive James on art, culture and politics from 2005-2008, showing the author, broadcaster and poet at his dazzling and versatile best. From the rules of grammar to the fundamentals of religion, from the culture of fandom to the cult of the critic, it's all there in this collection of essays - steeped in Clive's vast learning, his sane intelligence, and his wit. Whether discussing Kingsley Amis, Camille Paglia, Leni Riefenstahl or Formula 1, Clive is able to focus on the finer points and the bigger picture simultaneously - generating insight across a huge range of subject matter.'There's only one Clive James' - Sam Leith, SpectatorClive 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 Divine Comedy

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