Clive James

Finally in paperback after six hardcover printings, this international bestseller is an encyclopedic A-Z masterpiece the perfect introduction to the very core of Western humanism. Clive James rescues, or occasionally destroys, the careers of many of the greatest thinkers, humanists, musicians, artists, and philosophers of the twentieth century. Soaring to Montaigne-like heights, Cultural Amnesia is precisely the book to burnish these memories of a Western civilization that James fears is nearly lost."

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 . . .

In this latest collection of essays, 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 Statue of Liberty.

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