Download or read book The Blaze of Obscurity Unreliable Memoirs Book 5 written by Clive James and published by Picador. This book was released on 2009-09-16 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many people, Clive James will always be a TV presenter first and foremost, and a writer second -- this despite the fact that his adventures with the written word took place before, during and after his time on the small screen. Nevertheless, for those who remember clips of Japanese endurance gameshows and Egyptian soap operas, Clive reinventing the news or interviewing Hefner and Hepburn, Polanski and Pavarotti, Clive's 'Postcards' from Kenya, Shanghai and Dallas, or Clive James Racing Driver, Clive's rightful place does seem to be right there -- on the box, in our homes, and almost one of the family. However you think of him, though, and whatever you remember him for, The Blaze of Obscurity is perhaps Clive's most brilliant book yet. Part Clive James on TV and part Clive James on TV, it tells the inside story of his years in television, shows Clive on top form both then and now, and proves -- once and for all -- that Clive has a way with words ... whatever the medium.
Download or read book The Blaze of Obscurity written by Clive James and published by Picador. This book was released on 2010 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many people, Clive James will always be a TV presenter first and foremost, and a writer second - this despite the fact that his adventures with the written word took place before, during and after his time on the small screen. Nevertheless, for those who remember clips of Japanese endurance gameshows and Egyptian soap operas, Clive James reinventing the news or interviewing Hefner and Hepburn, Polanski and Pavarotti, his Postcards from Kenya, Shanghai and Dallas, or Clive James Racing Driver, his rightful place does seem to be right there - on the box, in our homes, and almost one of the family. However you think of him, though, and whatever you remember him for, The Blaze of Obscurity is perhaps his most brilliant book yet. Part Clive James on TV and part Clive James on TV, it tells the inside story of his years in television, shows Clive James on top form both then and now, and proves - once and for all - that he has a way with words... whatever the medium.
Download or read book Unreliable Memoirs written by Clive James and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2009-05-18 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly 30 years ago, James wrote a refreshingly candid book that made no claims to be accurate, precise, or entirely truthful, only to entertain. Long unavailable in the U.S., "Unreliable Memoirs" is being made available to American readers.
Download or read book North Face of Soho written by Clive James and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-09-30 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Fleet Street to the television, North Face of Soho is the fascinating and hilarious fourth volume of memoir from much-loved author, poet and broadcaster Clive James. '[James] delivers his gags with honed elegance' – Sunday Times It is 1968. Newly married, dressed in the style of the times ('a frenzy of bad judgement'), Clive James is leaving the cloistered world of Cambridge academia and setting his sights once again on the lights of literary London. Luckily for him and us, this crack at the big city would go rather better than last time. Still writing songs, directing sketch shows and trying to break into the movie business, with very mixed success, Clive eventually lands a weekly TV column at the Observer, finds his metier and rapidly becomes a household name. Credited with inventing a genre, Clive turns his attention to the previously critically disregarded medium of television to comment on the entire culture. Through the Seventies and early Eighties, from Fleet Street to Hollywood, from Russian department stores to Paris fashion shows, this is the hilarious, entertaining and honest story of a life lived to the full. North Face of Soho is the fourth book of memoir from Clive James. Continue his story with The Blaze of Obscurity.
Download or read book Latest Readings written by Clive James and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author reflects on his latest readings, and re-readings, undertaken after being diagnosed with terminal leukemia, combining thoughts on old favorites and new discoveries with personal musings on living and dying.
Download or read book Play All written by Clive James and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-30 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A loving and breezy set of essays” on today’s most addictive TV shows from “an incisive and hilarious critic” (Slate). Television is not what it once was. Award-winning author and critic Clive James spent decades covering the medium, and witnessed a radical change in content, format, and programming, and in the very manner in which TV is watched. Here he examines this unique cultural revolution, providing a brilliant, eminently entertaining analysis of many of television’s most notable twenty-first-century accomplishments and their not always subtle impact on modern society—including such acclaimed serial dramas as Breaking Bad, The West Wing, Mad Men, and The Sopranos and the comedy 30 Rock. With intelligence and wit, James explores a television landscape expanded by cable and broadband and profoundly altered by the advent of Netflix, Amazon, and other cord-cutting platforms that have helped to usher in a golden age of unabashed binge-watching. “James loves television, he loves the winding stories it tells and that we share them together. Play All is a late love letter to the medium of our lives.”—Sunday Times “Large-brained and largehearted, and written with astonishing energy.”—The New York Times Book Review “Witty and insightful musing on popular and critically acclaimed series of the past two decades.”—Publishers Weekly
Download or read book Unreliable Memoirs written by Clive James and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-12-15 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first instalment of his famed autobiography, Unreliable Memoirs is a hilarious and touching introduction to the life of the author, broadcaster, critic and poet, Clive James. 'It is one of the most tender, frank and, above all, funny accounts of growing up I have ever read' –Michael Parkinson In the first instalment of James's memoirs we follow the young Clive on his journey from boyhood to the cusp of manhood, when his days of wearing short trousers are finally behind him. Battling with school, girls, various relatives, the local wildlife, and an overwhelming desire to be a superhero, Clive's adventures growing up in the suburbs of post-war Sydney are a hair-raising and uproarious evocation of a lost world. 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 . . . 'James cannot find it within himself to write a dull paragraph' – The Times With an introduction from P.J. O'Rourke, journalist, satirist and author of Holidays in Hell. Unreliable Memoirs is the first book of memoir from Clive James. Continue his story with Falling Towards England.
Download or read book May Week Was In June written by Clive James and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-09-30 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is the middle of the Swinging Sixties, and Clive James doesn't have much to show for it. May Week Was In June is the third hilarious, tender instalment of memoir from the iconic author, poet and broadcaster. 'Nobody writes like Clive James' – Spectator Arriving at Cambridge University in a cold October in 1964, the young Clive James has yet to find a footing in the literary world. His move from Sydney and three years of hand-to-mouth existence in London has produced nothing but a handful of unpublished poems. Pembroke College Cambridge offers a way out, if not up . . . Ignoring the curriculum, he throws himself into writing songs, performing and film reviewing. “If something was irrelevant, I could do it.” He takes Footlights to the Edinburgh Fringe, writes for the New Stateman and works on Expresso Drongo, arguably the worst film ever screened at the NFT . He finds a lifelong passion in criticism, continues his poetry, falls in love with Italian art and eventually, in May Week, he marries. These are the years that formed the man Clive James – told with his trademark erudition and humour. May Week Was In June is the third book of memoir from Clive James. Continue his story with North Face of Soho.
Download or read book Sentenced to Life written by Clive James and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-04-09 with total page 77 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book Flying Visits written by Clive James and published by Boxtree. This book was released on 2017-04-06 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of Clive James's 'Postcards' originally written for The Observer between the years 1976 and 1983 about his experiences travelling abroad, from Peking, Los Angeles and Sydney. Full of James's distinctive wit and satire, this is a timeless collection for the well, and not so well travelled.
Download or read book Cultural Amnesia written by Clive James and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 875 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. 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’s 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.
Download or read book Falling Towards England written by Clive James and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Clive James On Television written by Clive James and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2017-04-06 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 Times Clive 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
Download or read book The Fire of Joy written by Clive James and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clive James read, learned and recited poetry aloud for most of his life. In this, the last book he completed before his death, the much-loved poet, broadcaster and author offers a selection of his favourite poems and a personal commentary on each. In the last months of his life, his vision impaired by surgery and unable to read, Clive James explored the treasure-house of his mind: the poems he knew best, so good that he didn't just remember them, he found them impossible to forget. The Fire of Joy is the record of this final journey of recollection and celebration. Enthralled by poetry all his life, James knew hundreds of poems by heart. In offering this selection of his favourites, a succession of poems from the sixteenth century to the present, his aim is to inspire you to discover and to learn, and perhaps even to speak poetry aloud. In his highly personal anthology, James offers a commentary on each of the eighty or so poems: sometimes a historical or critical note on the poem or its author, sometimes a technical point about the poem's construction from someone who was himself a poet, sometimes a personal anecdote about the role the poem played in his own life. Whether you're familiar with a poem or not – whether you're familiar with poetry in general or not – these chatty, unpretentious, often tender mini-essays convey the joy of James's enthusiasm and the benefit of his knowledge. His urgent wish was to share with a new generation what he himself had loved. This is a book to be read cover to cover or dipped into: either way it generously opens up a world for our delight. 'Clive James's joyous farewell . . . from Thomas Wyatt to Carol Ann Duffy' – Guardian, Best Poetry of 2020 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.
Download or read book The Seventh Well written by Fred Wander and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2008 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the experiences of a Holocaust survivor whose wartime sufferings and painful memories bring him face to face with the temptations of evil.
Download or read book Pompeii written by Mary Beard and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2010-07-09 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2008 'The world's most controversial classicist debunks our movie-style myths about the Roman town with meticulous scholarship and propulsive energy' Laura Silverman, Daily Mail The ruins of Pompeii, buried by an explosion of Vesuvius in 79 CE, offer the best evidence we have of everyday life in the Roman empire. This remarkable book rises to the challenge of making sense of those remains, as well as exploding many myths: the very date of the eruption, probably a few months later than usually thought; or the hygiene of the baths which must have been hotbeds of germs; or the legendary number of brothels, most likely only one; or the massive death count, maybe less than ten per cent of the population. An extraordinary and involving portrait of an ancient town, its life and its continuing re-discovery, by Britain's favourite classicist.
Download or read book My Word is My Bond written by Roger Moore and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2008-11-04 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A natural raconteur, Moore delights readers with his candid, witty, and often self-deprecating recollections of the movie business. He shares his thoughts on playing some of the world's most famous roles and how they have enriched his life and career.
