Bücher von Clive James

Literary critic, cultural commentator, TV personality, journalist, poet, political analyst, satirist and Formula One fan: Clive James is a man (and master) of many talents, and the essays collected in The Meaning of Recognition are testament to that fact. Whether discussing Bing Crosby, Bruno Schulz or Shakespeare, he manages to prioritize style and substance simultaneously, his tone never less than pitch-perfect, his argument always considered. With each phrase carefully crafted and each piece offering cause for thought, the resulting volume - which takes the reader from London to Bali, theatre to library, from pre-election campaigning to sitting in front of the TV at home, watching The Sopranos and The West Wing - is remarkable not only for its range and insight, but also its intimacy and honesty. A contemporary everyman, James is also unmistakably himself, and The Meaning of Recognition shows him at his witty, learned - and heartfelt - best.His other essay collections include The Crystal Bucket, The Dreaming Swimmer, Snakecharmers in Texas and Even as We Speak.

The reputation of Clive James as a poet was slow to form, perhaps because he was too famous as a star journalist and television entertainer. There was also the drawback that his poetry was so entertaining it was hard for many critics to take seriously. But after the notoriety achieved by a single self-satirizing poem, 'The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered', one of the most anthologized poems of recent times, James's poetic output became impossible to ignore, and his 1985 collection Other Passports was greeted with praise for its thematic scope and technical accomplishment, even by critics who still doubted his seriousness. Since then, James has emerged unarguably as one of the most prominent poets of his generation - and The Book of My Enemy (which includes Other Passports) shows why.

'He writes like a prophet and he can satirise folly in high places with a touch as elegant as Oscar Wilde . . . There isn't a word wasted' Daily Mail 'A well-balanced show of wit, intellect and glorious observation' Sunday Times 'No one wields a joke more punchily than he does. And the wide capacity for warmth towards all sorts of experience - from Billy Connolly to Primo Levi - is impressively exemplary in our culturally divided and divisive times' Observer 'Very funny . . . breathtakingly good literary essays. Mr James is excellent on television - when he is on it, or reviewing it' Sunday Telegraph 'James's hilarity is often a powerful support for his argument, but as well as vintage Jamesian japery there are many excellent things in this collection' New Statesman & Society

Including Clive James's most memorable pieces - his 'Postcard from Rome', his observations on Margaret Thatcher, his insights into Heaney, Larkin and Orwell - this book also contains brilliantly funny examinations of characters like Barry Humphries, as well as showcasing James's more thoughtful, analytical side. From Germaine Greer to Marilyn Monroe, from the nature of celebrity to German culpability for the Holocaust, Reliable Essays is an unmissable collection from one of the best writers of our time.

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 in the same all-consuming, sparkling style. Even at that early stage, the learning behind his literary high-wire act was formidable: a portent of the wide-ranging erudition that in subsequent years was to back up his further volumes of critical prose and the television column that made him famous. An extra delight of this edition is a set of newly-written self-critical footnotes which combine with a nostalgic introduction to evoke what literary London was like when the author, low on salary but high on hope, was making his spectacular start.

His second work of fiction, following Brilliant Creatures, Clive James's The Remake is a brilliantly observed novel, filled with his trademark erudition and humour.Joel Court had problems. He'd lost his wife, his mistress, quite possibly his career as an astronomical wizard, and had ended up living with Chance Jenolan, to whom success was a way of life, and whose Barbican fortress was protected by a maze that would shame the Minotaur. To make matters worse, there was the Mole. Her heavenly body outshone all the celestial manifestations Joel had ever seen. Pretty soon, he would not be able to bear having her out of his sights . . .

The second instalment in Clive James's TV criticism collection - The Crystal Bucket - earned him the title 'Critic of the Year' by the British Press Awards. Taking its title from Walter Raleigh's The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage and is dedicated to the poet Peter Porter.

First published to great acclaim in 1979, At the Pillars of Hercules (a title taken from a certain Soho pub) confirmed Clive James's place as a writer of immense talent, and as entertaining and elegant as ever. His main topics are contemporary poetry, aesthetics and the theory and practice of criticism, the popular novel, and the literature of modern history and politics. His discussions range from the legacy of Auden and Larkin to Gore Vidal and Lord Longford. His inimitable wit and candour are ever present in this collection of criticism, featuring a previously unpublished introduction.

Effervescent, energetic and eclectic, this is one of the late Twentieth Century's finest minds (and bellies) on show. Even As We Speak is a compelling collection of essays in which Clive James focusses on Australian poetry; on television today; on the rise and fall of various icons; on the question of the culpability of the ordinary German in the holocaust; and there is a compellingly provocative and much-talked about piece on the death of Diana.

Opal Sunset gathers together fifty years of Clive James's poetry, and will undoubtedly enhance his reputation as one of the most versatile and accomplished of contemporary writers. Indeed - as with Other Passports, The Book of My Enemy and Angels Over Elsinore before it - Opal Sunset proves Clive James to be as well suited to the intense demands of the poetic form as he is to prose. Readers new to his verse will not be surprised to find him a master of the comic set-piece and surreal excursion, while those who are familiar with his previous collections will already be aware of his fluency and apparently effortless style, his technical skill and thematic scope. Ultimately, however, the highest recommendation one can give is that Clive James is, in these poems, unmistakably himself - an assured and dazzling wordsmith.