Books by Clive James

In the last book he completed before he died, Clive James offers a personal guide to the poems he found it impossible to forget.

'In this book can be heard the merest edge of an enormous conversation. As they never were in life, we can imagine the speakers all gathered in some vast room, wearing name tags in case they don't recognize each other (although some recognize each other all too well, and avoid contact). My heroes and heroines are here. The reader will recognize some of their names, while other names will be more obscure. My intellectual betes noires are here too, and the same division might apply.' An almanac combining a comprehensive survey of modern culture with an annotated index of who-was-who and what-was-what, Cultural Amnesia is Clive James' unique take on the places and the faces that shaped the twentieth-century. 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, both public memoir and personal record - and provides an essential field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.

A soaring autobiographical poem, meditating on death and celebrating life, from one of our most cherished, critically acclaimed and bestselling writers.

In the last book he completed before he died, Clive James offers a personal guide to the poems he found it impossible to forget.

Effervescent, energetic and eclectic, this is one of the late Twentieth Century's finest minds (and bellies) on show. Even As We Speak is a compelling collection of essays in which Clive James focusses on Australian poetry; on television today; on the rise and fall of various icons; on the question of the culpability of the ordinary German in the holocaust; and there is a compellingly provocative and much-talked about piece on the death of Diana.

Renowned critic, bestselling author and award-winning poet Clive James offers an exploration and celebration of one of his favourite writers, Philip Larkin.

Including Clive James's most memorable pieces - his 'Postcard from Rome', his observations on Margaret Thatcher, his insights into Heaney, Larkin and Orwell - this book also contains brilliantly funny examinations of characters like Barry Humphries, as well as showcasing James's more thoughtful, analytical side. From Germaine Greer to Marilyn Monroe, from the nature of celebrity to German culpability for the Holocaust, Reliable Essays is an unmissable collection from one of the best writers of our time.

In this deracinated age appears a miraculous epic that pays homage to Dante and Camus.

A new collection of deeply moving and life-affirming poems from one of our most cherished, critically acclaimed and bestselling writers.

Over a period of fifteen years Clive James learned French by almost no other method than reading A la recherche du temps perdu. 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 and engagement with Proust's eternal masterpiece. With A 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 . . . If I wanted to talk about Proust's poetry beyond the basic level of talking about his language - if I wanted to talk about the poetry of his thought - then the best way to do it might be to write a poem.There is nothing like a poem for transmitting a mental flavour. Instead of trying to describe it, you can evoke it. In the end, if A la recherche du temps perdu is a book devoted almost entirely to its author's gratitude for life, for love, and for art, this much smaller book is devoted to its author's gratitude for Proust.

In his insightful collection of poems Clive James looks back over an extraordinarily rich life with a clear-eyed and unflinching honesty. There are regrets, but no trace of self-pity in these verses, which - for all their open dealings with death and illness - are primarily a celebration of what is treasurable and memorable in our time here. Again and again, James reminds us that he is not only a poet of effortless wit and lyric accomplishment: he is also an immensely wise one, who delights in using poetic form to bring a razor-sharp focus to his thought. Miraculously, these poems see James writing with his insight and energy not only undiminished but positively charged by his situation: Sentenced to Life represents a career high point from one of the greatest literary intelligences of the age.

Opal Sunset gathers together fifty years of Clive James's poetry, and will undoubtedly enhance his reputation as one of the most versatile and accomplished of contemporary writers. Indeed - as with Other Passports, The Book of My Enemy and Angels Over Elsinore before it - Opal Sunset proves Clive James to be as well suited to the intense demands of the poetic form as he is to prose. Readers new to his verse will not be surprised to find him a master of the comic set-piece and surreal excursion, while those who are familiar with his previous collections will already be aware of his fluency and apparently effortless style, his technical skill and thematic scope. Ultimately, however, the highest recommendation one can give is that Clive James is, in these poems, unmistakably himself - an assured and dazzling wordsmith.

Clive James's reputation as a poet has become impossible to ignore. His poems looking back over his extraordinarily rich life with a clear-eyed and unflinching honesty, such as 'Japanese Maple' (first published in the New Yorker in 2014), became global news events upon their publication. In this book, James makes his own rich selection from over fifty years' work in verse: from his early satires to these heart-stopping valedictory poems, he proves himself to be as well suited to the intense demands of the tight lyric as he is to the longer mock-epic. Collected Poems displays James's fluency and apparently effortless style, his technical skill and thematic scope, his lightly worn erudition and his emotional power; it will undoubtedly cement his reputation as one of the most versatile and accomplished of contemporary writers.

'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 vivif 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.

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 in the same all-consuming, 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 back up his further volumes of critical prose and the television column that made him famous. An extra delight of this edition is a set of newly-written self-critical footnotes which combine with a nostalgic introduction to evoke what literary London was like when the author, low on salary but high on hope, was making his spectacular start.

First published to great acclaim in 1979, At the Pillars of Hercules (a title taken from a certain Soho pub) confirmed Clive James's place as a writer of immense talent, and as entertaining and elegant as ever. His main topics are contemporary poetry, aesthetics and the theory and practice of criticism, the popular novel, and the literature of modern history and politics. His discussions range from the legacy of Auden and Larkin to Gore Vidal and Lord Longford. His inimitable wit and candour are ever present in this collection of criticism, featuring a previously unpublished introduction.

Literary critic, cultural commentator, TV personality, journalist, poet, political analyst, satirist and Formula One fan: Clive James is a man (and master) of many talents, and the essays collected in The Meaning of Recognition are testament to that fact. Whether discussing Bing Crosby, Bruno Schulz or Shakespeare, he manages to prioritize style and substance simultaneously, his tone never less than pitch-perfect, his argument always considered. With each phrase carefully crafted and each piece offering cause for thought, the resulting volume - which takes the reader from London to Bali, theatre to library, from pre-election campaigning to sitting in front of the TV at home, watching The Sopranos and The West Wing - is remarkable not only for its range and insight, but also its intimacy and honesty. A contemporary everyman, James is also unmistakably himself, and The Meaning of Recognition shows him at his witty, learned - and heartfelt - best.His other essay collections include The Crystal Bucket, The Dreaming Swimmer, Snakecharmers in Texas and Even as We Speak.

His second work of fiction, following Brilliant Creatures, Clive James's The Remake is a brilliantly observed novel, filled with his trademark erudition and humour.Joel Court had problems. He'd lost his wife, his mistress, quite possibly his career as an astronomical wizard, and had ended up living with Chance Jenolan, to whom success was a way of life, and whose Barbican fortress was protected by a maze that would shame the Minotaur. To make matters worse, there was the Mole. Her heavenly body outshone all the celestial manifestations Joel had ever seen. Pretty soon, he would not be able to bear having her out of his sights . . .

The reputation of Clive James as a poet was slow to form, perhaps because he was too famous as a star journalist and television entertainer. There was also the drawback that his poetry was so entertaining it was hard for many critics to take seriously. But after the notoriety achieved by a single self-satirizing poem, 'The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered', one of the most anthologized poems of recent times, James's poetic output became impossible to ignore, and his 1985 collection Other Passports was greeted with praise for its thematic scope and technical accomplishment, even by critics who still doubted his seriousness. Since then, James has emerged unarguably as one of the most prominent poets of his generation - and The Book of My Enemy (which includes Other Passports) shows why.

21st century Britain: a point of view from our fiercest and funniest critic The BBC Radio 4 series A Point of View has been on the air since 2007. Clive James was one of the most popular presenters, and now, for the first time, his original pieces - sixty in total - and previously unpublished postscripts are collected together in one volume. Read along with Clive James as he offers his informative, thought-provoking and entertaining insights into everything from wheelie bins to plastic surgery, Elizabeth Hurley to the Olympics, Britain's Got Talent to Damien Hirst, Harry Potter to giving up smoking - and plenty more besides.

'He writes like a prophet and he can satirise folly in high places with a touch as elegant as Oscar Wilde . . . There isn't a word wasted' Daily Mail 'A well-balanced show of wit, intellect and glorious observation' Sunday Times 'No one wields a joke more punchily than he does. And the wide capacity for warmth towards all sorts of experience - from Billy Connolly to Primo Levi - is impressively exemplary in our culturally divided and divisive times' Observer 'Very funny . . . breathtakingly good literary essays. Mr James is excellent on television - when he is on it, or reviewing it' Sunday Telegraph 'James's hilarity is often a powerful support for his argument, but as well as vintage Jamesian japery there are many excellent things in this collection' New Statesman & Society

The second instalment in Clive James's TV criticism collection - The Crystal Bucket - earned him the title 'Critic of the Year' by the British Press Awards. Taking its title from Walter Raleigh's The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage and is dedicated to the poet Peter Porter.

The Revolt of the Pendulum is an essay collection that shows Clive James at his most 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: his customary wit, learning and understanding; his precise way with words and pointed comments; his ear for language and eye for detail; his ability to focus on the finer points and the bigger picture simultaneously - not to mention the sheer scope of his subject matter. 'Clive James has a fantastic range and depth of knowledge. He is, at times, miraculously funny. He writes knowledgeably and with passion about literature, and especially poetry. His opinions are his own; he knows about classical music, show tunes and pop. He knows about politics and history. He understands people too. And he makes good jokes . . . There's only one Clive James' Sam Leith, Spectator

I was never alone except in the toilet, where I soon found that locking myself into a cubicle was not much protection from hearing myself talked about by young men standing at urinals. ("e;Jesus, he's looking rough."e; "e;And it's only Monday."e;) Reviews for Clive James's fourth volume of memoirs, North Face of Soho, included several that specifically requested a further volume; Clive James duly obliged and here, in all its glory, is 'Unreliable Memoirs V', otherwise known as The Blaze of Obscurity. Perhaps his most brilliant memoir, The Blaze of Obscurity tells the inside story of his years in television: it shows Clive James on top form. 'In the case of many people who attempt an autobiography even a single volume is one too many . . . In the case of Clive James, the volumes now in existence are too few. If the final tally puts him up there with Marcel Proust, so much the better.' - Financial Times.

In the closing pages of the last volume, I got married. The ceremony marked a rare outbreak of normality in my life. It was symbolized by my personal appearance. I was clean-shaven and had a hairstyle in reasonably close touch with my head. After Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England and May Week Was In June comes the fourth instalment in Clive James's life. Taking us from Fleet Street to Clive James on TV, from Russian department stores to Paris fashion shows - via fatherhood, some killer bees, and a satire starring Anne Robinson as Mrs Thatcher - North Face of Soho is the larger-than-life story of a life lived to the full.Continue Clive's story with the last of his memoirs The Blaze of Obscurity.

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 . . .