It is quite sad. He is book-ending his life and the tone of being aware of impending mortality never leaves the page. I love you Clivy, don't go...

I'm an unashamed fan of Clive James, and of his poetry, essays and other writing.As always, my copy of this book is covered in pencil marks, and many of the pages are turned down at the corner to help me rediscover another unforgettable aphorism.Brilliantly funny, beautifully written, genuinely interesting.

My plan to read all of Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs volumes continues apace. It's been a while since I read the first three, so this fourth is like an unexpected visit from an old mate. In this volume, Clive is – in the polyester-and-beard '70s – married and attempting to shift towards a more stable income. However, that's not as simple as one would expect, and the pages detail epic poems, poet-bashing, too-smart songwriting and a dinner (with surprise trumpet interlude) with Spike Milligan.

The fourth volume of Unreliable Memoirs finds Clive James forging his early career as a critic and journalist, with a bit of theatre and television on the side. Less immediately funny than the previous volumes, but as he acknowledges, more truthful and accurate, it's a fascinating insight into the enormous amount of work he took on in order to earn a living and the London literary world of the seventies and early eighties. What shines through, as it did in May Week was in June, is his increasing...

Having watched some of his tv programs, I have a soft spot for Clive James and his self-deprecating style of delivery. Although he overdoes it at times in this, vol 4 of his memoir, it is more than offset by his boundless irreverent humour and the sage advice and genuine wisdom contained within many of his homilies.

Didn’t finish it

Two for the price of two and my orgy of reading Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs comes to a close.Surprisingly, it was an emotional close. He relates his grief when Princess Diana dies, rattles off a list of literary lunching companions as they shuffle off in turn and there is a touching moment when he is in Hong Kong for the 1997 handover to the Chinese and, when asked why he is even remotely concerned about what the Chinese are going to do to the place, replies that his father is buried there.

I recently re-read North Face Of Soho for the third time in about three years, and like Clive James's previous volumes of autobiography it's still good fun.This time, we see Clive in the first decade of what would become his world-famous multimedia career, and after some early intimidating failures in print and on screen he survives and ultimately thrives.Every now and then, Clive trips over too many words at once - but when his prose works, it works very well.North Face Of Soho is engrossing, m...

Great as ever. Indeed, was sorely disappointed upon finishing that I didn't have the next in the series lined up. Erudite, laugh-out-loud, and fascinating insight into that bygone era of journalism. And polyester fashion ;)

An ok read if Clive James resonates with you

Clive James, better known in the UK as 'Clive James on Television', is an Australian polymath who has made England his home. This book, the fourth instalment of his 'Unreliable Memoirs' series, covers the period from when he became a jobbing writer on Grub Street (the precursor to Fleet Street) right through to the beginnings of his TV stardom, mostly via a Soho pub called The Pillars of Hercules. This is my favourite book of the series, probably because it deals with his struggles in becoming a...

The public record prevents this volume of James's memoirs from being as enjoyably unreliable (fictionalized) as the previous volumes. And this perhaps makes it less funny. It's still highly confessional and ties together high and low culture as he did in his public career. He writes almost too well: you have to slow yourself down to note its erudition.

If you've read any of the Clive James autobiographies you know what you are getting. An entertaining look back at his life told well. This is no different covering the time from him getting into journalism up to the time he got big time into TV. Interesting along the way to see the 1970's remembered as a side thought.

Enjoyable book about Clive James' early working life. Not as funny as "Unreliable Memoirs", which I read many years ago, and the writing and successful launch of which is described in this book; but interesting.

I enjoyed the first three volumes of Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs in 1990, so was delighted to discover he had written a fourth volume (and I recently spotted that a fifth volume has just been published). His writing style remains a real pleasure - easy to read, immediate, full of wit and wry comment, while at times profound. James comes across well, as someone with a definite talent as a writer and observer, yet with an almost equal talent to mess things up by a combination of laziness, pigh...

You can hear Clive James through his words. You have to read it fast because that was how he spoke. Biographies are much more interesting when you know of the characters involved. A few chunks of this book are about the London Literati which left me a bit cold. On the whole a good read.

Loved this one, the fourth of his memoirs. Covering his time in Grub/Fleet St from the late 60s to the early 80s. A very funny book.

Clive James, an admitted work fiend, writes so well about such a range of things. No being a resident of Britain or immersed in popular culture, I was often drawn to Wikipedia for background information of some of the celebrities he describes. His characterisations of the less-ephemeral people he came across are fascinating. Inevitably some of this autobiography is located in a narrow time and place and is of little interest other than when it brings his own responses to the fore. It is then tha...

Always enjoy the work of Clive James. He manages to play down his own achievements without being annoying. This is the period of his life when he was 'making it' in television, although the path was not exactly even. He has some classic de(con)structions of the myths of those he came in contact with. When I finished this one I bought the next instalment of his memoirs (The Blaze of Obscurity), to put by and read in a few books time.

I adore Clive James's work and think he's truly brilliant, so it pains me to give this autobiographical volume only three stars. As in *Unreliable Memoirs*, there's a great deal of terrific writing here, particularly when James positions himself as a spectator and comments wittily on the doings of Martin Amis, Richard Burton, and other luminaries. As in the earlier work, however, he turns a tin ear on himself. His toe-scraping false modesty wouldn't fool a dog, and only serves to make the reader...