Beautiful and deeply meditative poems on illness, ageing, legacy and death from one of Australia’s finest writers.To be a long time dying is largely a phenomenon of modern medicine. The Light As It Grows Dark is reportage from this new country; hard-won revelations about the journey’s end: ‘This insane last phase/ When everything about you goes downhill.’A poet long before he was a journalist or broadcaster, Clive James was 70 when his health irret...

Step into the heart of Jamaica through the eyes of someone who lived its stories, traditions, struggles, and triumphs firsthand.The Fantasy: A True Jamaican Living is a powerful memoir by Clive James that captures the essence of growing up in Portland, Jamaica. From childhood adventures and family traditions to the rhythms of reggae and dancehall, the book paints a vivid picture of Jamaican culture and the values that shape its people. Through twenty-one engaging chapters, readers ...

"[A] collection of Clive James's essays on a variety of literary topics . . . This is sanity, humor and acuity in the face of death" ( The Wall Street Journal).In 2010, Clive James was diagnosed with terminal leukemia. Deciding that "if you don't know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as well read until they do," James moved his library to his Cambridge house, where he would "live, read, and perhaps even write." James is the award-win...

"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 analysi...

**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 ...

Travel writing at its humorous best, Flying Visits collects the Postcards of Clive James originally written for the Observer between 1976 and 1983 – full of his distinctive wit and satire.Whether enduring Australian television, exploring the mystifying Soviet Union, watching sumo training in Japan, or enjoying Sondheim via serial killers in New York, James is never less than thoroughly entertaining.As a time-capsule of the period or as a h...

**The publication of Clive James's Sentenced to Life was a major literary event. Facing the end, James looked back over his life with a clear-eyed and unflinching honesty to produce his finest work: poems of extraordinary power that spoke to our most elemental emotions. Injury Time is its outstanding successor.'James's confrontation with his approaching death is nothing short of inspirational' – Joan Bakewell, Independent**With more time on the cl...

**Blending the critical essay with poetry, Gate of Lilacs is a collection of verse written by Clive James in response to – and profoundly inspired by – the work of Marcel Proust.'James picks out the characters, the motifs and the moments that set his memory ablaze, just as Marcel was able to conjure such visions from a tisane-infused madeleine' – Literary Review**Over a period of fifteen years Clive James learned French by almost no other method than readi...

Cultural criticism at its best, The Metropolitan Critic sees essayist, critic and poet Clive James mix high and pop culture commentary – from Tom Wolfe to Tom and Jerry, from Seamus Heaney to Oz magazine.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 as if they were equally fasc...

**Thoughtful and funny, this fifth collection of essays from much-loved critic and author Clive James covers the art, politics and culture of 1987–1992.'A well-balanced show of wit, intellect and glorious observation' – Sunday Times**With work on writers as diverse as Philip Larkin, Primo Levi and Stevie Smith, performers as iconic as Frank Sinatra and Billy Connolly, and publishing events as monumental as the World's First Official The Sun Neighbours Collection St...

**Following Visions Before Midnight, The Crystal Bucket is another hilarious time-capsule of 1970s television – the second collection of Clive James's ruthlessly funny, inimitable columns dissecting the entertainment of the day.'One of the few columnists who makes you laugh aloud' – Melvyn Bragg, Sunday Times**In many ways, the 1970s were a dark time for Britain – a time of struggle, deepening divisions and Christmas with the Osmonds. Cli...

A comedy of no manners, Brrm! Brrm! by Clive James is the satirical story of a high-flying Japanese businessman sent to London.'Brrm! Brrm! is funny, clever and sometimes as delicate and tender as the poetry of its hero, Akira Suzuki' – The TimesAkira Suzuki is in London for the first time. He ponders the litter and the unappealing food, while smiling politely at motorcycle jokes about his name. British humour, he...