Product Description

‘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.’

In the first instalment of Clive James’s memoirs, we meet the young Clive, dressed in short trousers, and wrestling with the demands of school, various relatives and the occasional snake, in the suburbs of post-war Sydney.

‘Vivid, cumulative and full of surprises’ Observer

‘Do not read this book in public. You will risk severe internal injuries from trying to suppress your laughter. What’s worse, you can’t put it down once started. Its addictive powers stun all normal, decent resistance within seconds. Not to be missed’ Sunday Times

‘Enormously funny . . . Buy it’ Cosmopolitan

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2975 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 9999 pages

About the Author

Clive James is the author of more than thirty books. As well as his memoirs, he has published essays, literary and television criticism, travel writing, verse and novels. As a television performer he has appeared regularly for both the BBC and ITV, most notably as writer and presenter of the Postcard series of travel documentaries. He helped to found the independent television production company Watchmaker and the Internet enterprise Welcome Stranger, one of whose offshoots is a multimedia personal website, www.clivejames.com. In 1992 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia and in 2003 he was awarded the Philip Hodgins memorial medal for literature.

Customer Reviews

unforgetable
I am about to buy this book for the second time, my first copy having been lost long agao. In a recent discussion with a friend we recounted our list of best books. and this was at the top of my 'auto-biography' list. Although it is many years since I last read it it still remains vivid in my memory. I can still picture the 'dunny-man' running full tilt into Clives carelessly discarded bicycle and spilling the contents of the Dunny all over the yard. or the box-car race down a steephill.
the comic timing is excellent the story so well told it leaves you breahless with admiration for his intellegence and self-depreciating humour. Yes it is laugh-out-loud funny. it is a book you will urge your friends to read after you. Buy it!

Wonderful
It's a shame, in a way, that Clive james was already a known presenter and writer when this book was published in 1980. It must have meant that many people only read it becouse of his persona and others not at all for the same reason. If this has been written by an unknown author it may have won many a prize for its darkly comic and touching writting- as it was it was just a humorous childhood memoir by a TV presenter.
I think Australia has always seemed slightly surreal to us Brits- cardboard houses on Neighbours, Muriels Wedding and that obssesion with Abba. This book seems to confirm that suspision but in the best way possible.
There is tragedy in it but even that is shown in its most bizzare form- the death of James's father when being returned from a POW camp in Singapore in an American areoplane is one of those moments. James's humour makes the sad seem even more poignant.
The moment that really shine are the memories of what James got up to as a mischevious young boy. Most people have amusing memories of their childhood but few can match his for being crazy, ambitious and a joy to read.

Heroic recollection of an Australian childhood
"Unrelaible Memoirs" is Clive James' description of his upbringing in a Sydney suburb lasting up to the time of his university education. I was expecting it to be funny but wasn't quite prepared for the raw emotion and literary skill displayed on virtually every page.

To me this is perhaps the most impressive of James' autobiographical writing. He has a special gift for describing childhood and a kind of fearless honesty which is hilarious and provides something of a turbulent rollercoaster ride for the reader, as he describes the trauma of being a single child to a single parent in the aftermath of the second world war.

I felt a little left behind by many of the historical and literary references James makes but this is more than made up for by the relish with which he uses the English language. For example, he describes a friend's mother giving him buttered bread covered with hundreds and thousands as like "eating a powdered rainbow".

"Unreliable Memoirs" made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I wish I had read it years ago.