3 3/4 stars

I don’t normally read the introduction to a book until after I have finished it as I like to make up my own mind about what I’m reading.This time I started off with P.J. O’Rourke singing the praises of „Unreliable Memoirs“, which we‘re told is not only „every thinking persons’memoir“, „something new that no one has done before or will do again“ but „the best memoir in the world“ by „the best-read person he’s ever known“. (In order to find more things to praise, even the town name of Kogarah seem...

Guaranteed by a bold commendation under the title on the front cover: 'Do not read this book in public. You will risk severe internal injuries from trying to suppress your laughter . . . , this memoir looked interestingly challenging to me at first sight when I came across it in the DASA Book Café a few months ago. Till early last July I decided to buy one to read after reading his Wikipedia biography. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_J...)I found reading this paperback amazingly funny and,

This is an appallingly boring read from an excellent writer. I never would have finished it, nor given it three stars, had not this Volume 1 of Clive James’s autobiography gotten interesting only as he enters college. It’s a laugh riot from there on. And all too recognizable from my years of protracted adolescence and delayed learning. James, at least, began learning how to learn in his twenties. Took me a decade longer.

James' memoir about growing up in Australia is often riotously funny -- worth reading for those passages alone. But to my eye, he sidesteps some of the deeper material he could've explored, including his relationship with his widowed mother. That lack makes the book a series of humorous childish adventures, but something less than it could have been in the hands of a writer as brilliant as James.

Really enjoyed the childhood memoir and the wonderful descriptions of post-war Australia. The other 2 books seemed to dwell on how poor, cold, and smart he was and I lost interest.+++The above are the few words I wrote when I read this many years ago. Clive is so highly regarded, I often feel I should give him another go, but he has always irritated me for some reason. What we used to call "too clever by half". Now that he's just died, I'm sure there will be a new crop of readers, so I look forw...

This charmingly written, addictively funny book is the first I have read by the well known CLive James. The first in his series of memoirs he claims that they are often fictionised and highly unreliable. I have my doubts that anyone could imagine many of the events described here, so I am going to credit it with greater truth than it claims for itself.Covering James' early life, childhood, adolescence, university and national service it takes us up to the point at which James reaches England as

I quite enjoyed this memoir from one of Australia's best loved writers, the irrepressible Clive James. Almost from the opening pages you can tell this book was written a long time ago, when the structures of books were different and chapters were long and involved multiple ideas. Even the look and feel of the book is different from today's publications - issued in 1980, the text is small and tightly packed onto the page, resulting in a book of 175 pages only. I actually found it quite hard to re...

Clive has a wonderful way with words.Interesting history,but too much of what I thought was a little too personal.He was kind of a nasty kid.

To me, this book is an absolute classic. There were parts where I was unable to read any further because of the tears of laughter in my eyes, but that probably prevented the more serious damage that could have resulted from reading on and laughing even more. However a great book needs more than humour, it needs to mean something, and this book addresses profound themes concerning family, love, confidence, life choices, regret and self-acceptance. I have read this book before, but I was astonishe...

I first read this when I was a young teenager and it's a book I've returned to time and time again.The strength of the novel is Clive James's self deprecating humour, that has you cringing and laughing at the same time. He's fearless in recounting stories that anyone else would have happily oppressed and forgotten about.I recommend this book to everyone I know and keep having to buy myself new copies because of the one's I give away.Read it and enjoy.

Read this years back. I recall really enjoying. A genuinely witty man.

As with many memoirs, I lost interest in the story when Clive hit adolescence. All the funny stuff happens in childhood - and to give him credit, the whole thing was colourful and well-written enough to push me through to the end, although I admit to skimming the last few chapters.He writes well when his subject is not himself (haha, that seems like a mean remark considering this is a memoir, but his writing about the people around him, and his experiences, are what drew me on, not his introspec...

A frank, hilarious account of the writer's early life growing up in Sydney. James unfalteringly trapezes with grace between fart jokes and arcane literary references, poetic natural descriptions and angst-ridden teenage neuroses, in an admittedly half-fabricated journey through a youth that despite its hyperbole reveals a picture in which maybe everyone can see a part of their own childhood. Accomplished and absorbing. And very funny.

A slightly drawn out autobiography describing a boy growing into a man in Australia in the 50s. It’s mildly interesting and sporadically funny, but nowhere near as hilarious as the reviews imply. Perhaps I’m just too far removed (geographically and age wise) from the subject matter.

James is on my short list of people I envy terribly. Brilliant, extravagantly well-read, and funny to boot. I've read his criticism but never his other nonfiction so I didn't know what to expect. Unreliable Memoirs is his affectionate book-length mockery of himself as a child and young man. From spider bites to go cart crashes, it's a wonder that his mother didn't have a nervous breakdown. "The only thing I liked about school was skipping around in circles until the music stopped, then lying dow...

Clive James has always seemed a man unsure whether he was a serious academic or a wannabe comedian. These recollections of childhood through school and university in mid-Century Australia reveal the dilemma in embryo. From his early learning years James offers an account of himself as naturally gifted but inherently unenthusiastic. The selfishness of his relationship with his mother is viewed with ambivalent eyes - he did what he wanted, progressed with her support but seems to think he should h...

I was one of those who suggested that our book club read this, in our elaborate democratic process of choosing books from the library group reading list, but once I started in I couldn’t stand it. Given encouragement from others who said they had laughed out loud reading it, I persisted, sort of, which means that I skipped and sampled enough to a) learn more than I needed to know about Clive’s childhood and adolescence and b) could contribute to the discussion. I’ve summarised our discussion he...

I read this originally way back in the 80s and obviously thought more highly of it then. I was working for the BBC at the time in Woodstock Grove, the offices were just along the corridor from Clive Janes’ and I may have been influenced by that. This time around the distance between his young - and my old(er) self seems a bigger bridge to traverse. A good and well written account but with too many unfamiliar references for me.

In 2015 I wrote a short review of UNRELIABLE MEMOIRS: Many years ago I remember being given this book for my birthday with the comment "thought you might like this, he's the sort of droll smart-arse commentator that should appeal to you". The presenter of this present knew me well, although I think that they did a massive disservice to Clive James. The first of a series of books he's subsequently written as memoir there is nobody in these books that James picks on more than himself....