Search results for ""Author Clive James""
Pan Macmillan The Complete Unreliable Memoirs: Volume One
Clive James, a true polymath, became a generation-defining voice as a broadcaster, a critic, a poet and an author. Among his greatest achievements, his five hilarious, heartwarming books of autobiography are collected now in two volumes: his Complete Unreliable Memoirs.'It is one of the most tender, frank and, above all, funny accounts of growing up I have ever read' – Michael ParkinsonWith his trademark humour and self-deprecating style, Clive James proves a hugely entertaining and erudite guide to his own remarkable life. In this first volume, James explores his childhood adventures in the suburbs of post-war Sydney, his excited arrival in Sixties’ London as a young man and aspiring poet, and his time at Cambridge University where he neglected his studies in favour of poetry, the stage, the music business and the film industry.From a true national treasure, this is a collection of one of the most well-loved and acclaimed memoirs of our times.I was born in 1939. The other big event of that year was the outbreak of the Second World War, but for the moment, that did not affect me . . .'A comic triumph' – London Review of BooksThe Complete Unreliable Memoirs: Volume One collects the first three books of autobiography from Clive James: Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England, and May Week Was In June.The final two books, North Face of Soho and The Blaze of Obscurity, are available in Volume Two.Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.
£14.99
Pan Macmillan Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time
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.
£15.29
Pan Macmillan A Point of View
From the fierce and funny Clive James, this is Britain in the twenty-first century – from wheelie bins to plastic surgery, and from Britain's Got Talent to contemporary art.Between 2007 and 2009, Clive James wrote and presented A Point of View for BBC Radio 4, providing hilarious and profound thoughts on the matters of the moment. In this volume are presented his original pieces – sixty in total – alongside previously unpublished postscripts.Read along with Clive as he delves deep into television, Elizabeth Hurley, Harry Potter, the Olympic Games, Snoop Dogg and cane toads – and plenty more besides.'Irreverent and funny, clever without being cynical and not afraid to flex his wits on anything and everything' – Daily TelegraphClive 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
£10.99
Pan Macmillan Always Unreliable: Memoirs
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 . . .
£15.29
Pan Macmillan The Divine Comedy
‘Finally I realised that I had been practising for this job every time I wrote a quatrain . . . I had spent all this time – the greater part of a lifetime – preparing my instruments.’ The Divine Comedy is the precursor of modern literature, and Clive James’s vivid translation – his life’s work and decades in the making – presents Dante’s entire epic poem in a single song. While many poets and translators have attempted to capture the full glory of The Divine Comedy in English, many have fallen short. Victorian verse translations established an unfortunate tradition of reproducing the sprightly rhyming measures of Dante but at the same time betraying the strain on the translator’s powers of invention. For Dante, the dramatic human stories of Hell were exciting, but the spiritual studies of Purgatory and the sublime panoramas of Heaven were no less so. In this incantatory translation, James – defying the convention by writing in quatrains – tackles these problems head-on and creates a striking and hugely accessible translation that gives us The Divine Comedy as a whole, unified, and dramatic work.
£15.29
Pan Macmillan Sentenced to Life
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
£10.99