The BBC Radio 4 series, A Point of View, has been on the air since 2007. Over the years, it’s had a variety of presenters – including the national treasure that is Clive James – talking for ten minutes about anything and everything that has captured their imagination, piqued their ...

'A gigantic book on a gigantic theme' Sunday Times 'Aphoristic and acutely provocative: a crash course in civilization' J. M. Coetzee With three new essays and an introduction to the extras from the author, the special edition eBook adds new depth to an already absorbing book. A lifetime ...

When we last met our hero in Unreliable Memoirs, he had set sail from Sydney Harbour bound for London, fame and fortune. Idealistic and uncompromising, if short on cash, he planned to engage himself in a lowpaying menial job by day and to compose poetical masterpieces by night. Having promised himse...

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 largerthanlife story of a life lived to the full. ‘It’s not just that he write...

Including his 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 Jamess more thoughtful, analytical side. ...

‘Somebody once said that a trilogy ought ideally to consist of two volumes. Unfortunately he never said anything else, so his name is forgotten.’ Falling Towards England, the second volume of Clive James’ Unreliable Memoirs, was meant to be the last. Thankfully it is not. When we last met our hero...

Clive James power as a poet has increased year by year, and there has been no stronger evidence for this than Nefertiti in the Flak Tower. Here, his polymathic learning and technical virtuosity are worn more lightly than ever; the effect is merely to produce a deep sense of trust into which the read...

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In this collection of essays, written between 1980-1987, Clive James tackles burning issues and shining personalities from Barry Humphries to Barry Manilow and Michael Jackson to Michael Foot. He discusses the nuances of Kung Fu cinema, the lyrical footwork of Torvill and Dean and the charms of the ...

The brilliant creatures of the title live in a world of lost innocence and vast incomes; publishers, writers, media men and consultants, they belong to a charmed circle where everyone knows everybody elses business and thinks it the most important thing in life. Its all marvellously clever; Clive Ja...

First published to great acclaim in 1979, At the Pillars of Hercules (a title taken from a certain Soho pub) confirmed Clive Jamess place as a writer of immense talent. This new paperback edition is as entertaining and elegant as ever. His main topics are contemporary poetry, aesthetics and the theo...

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 here are testament to that fact. Whether discussing Bing Crosby, Bruno Schulz or Shakespeare, he manag...

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. F...

EVEN AS WE SPEAK is an illuminating and hilarious collection of essays from one of Picador's most beloved authors. Reflecting his comprehensive knowledge, wide-ranging interests and eclectic style, Clive James explores the rise and fall of various celebrities, discusses Australian poetry, considers ...

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With an introduction by P. J. O'Rourke'Do not read this book in public. You will risk severe internal injuries from trying to suppress your laughter.' Sunday TimesI 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....

In his new collection of poems - several of which have already become famous before their book publication - 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 de...

'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 capac...

'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' Thus the judges of the British Press Awards, in naming Clive James Critic of the Year for 1981. The Crystal B...

'These literary-critical essays are compact with wit and penetration but also have a kind of freshness about them, as if the author has never got over his first rapture of enjoyment at the sheer thisness of poetry and prose. James is in the tradition of Hazlitt, Bagehot, and Desmond MacCarthy, with ...

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, th...

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 h...

Clive Barker, Heather Graham, Lisa Morton, Ray Garton, and Ed Gorman lead readers down a twisted labyrinth of terror, horror, and suspense in Dark Screams: Volume Four, from Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar of the revered Cemetery Dance Publications. THE DEPARTED by Clive Barker On All Hall...