Clive James

A world-renowned media and cultural critic offers an insightful analysis of serial TV drama and the modern art of the small screen Television and TV viewing are not what they once were—and that’s a good thing, according to award-winning author and critic Clive James. Since serving as a television columnist for the London Observer from 1972 to 1982, James has...

An esteemed literary critic shares his final musings on books, his children, and his own impending death In 2010, Clive James was diagnosed with terminal leukaemia. 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 house in Cambridge, where he...

Clive James read, learned and recited poetry aloud for most of his life. In this book, completed just before his death, he 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...

A love letter from one of the world's most critically acclaimed writers to one of its most cherished poets. Clive James was a life-long admirer of the work of Philip Larkin. Somewhere Becoming Rain gathers all of James's writing on this towering literary figure of the twentieth century, together with extra material now published for the first time. The greatness...

Essentially, this is Clive James' desert island poems: a selection of his favourite verse and a personal commentary on each. The Fire of Joy was the final book Clive James completed before his death in 2019. It takes its title from the French expression Feu de Joie, which refers to a military celebration when all the riflemen of a regiment...

One of the most important and influential writers of our time Sunday Times Clive James has been close to death for several years, and he has written about the experience in a series of deeply moving poems. In Sentenced to Life, he was clear-sighted as he faced the end, honest about his regrets. In Injury Time, he wrote about living...