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"[Books] are an arcadian pavilion with an infinite set of mirrored doorways to the unknown, which seems dark to us only because we will not be in it. We won't be taking our knowledge any further, but it brought us this far."Diagnosed with ultimately terminal leukaemia in 2010, Clive James has found his love of books reinvigorated: “If you don't know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as well read until they do ...The childish urge to understand everything doesn’t necessarily...
BBC interviewDescription: In 2010, Clive James was diagnosed with terminal leukemia. 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 would “live, read, and perhaps even write.” James is the award-winning author of dozens of works of literary criticism, poetry, and history, and this volume contains his reflections on what may well be his last reading list. A look at so...
If Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time was Clive James's Well-tempered Clavier (48 Preludes and Fugues), then Latest Readingsis his Little Notebook for Anna Magdalena:Bist du bei mir, geh ich mit Freudenzum Sterben und zu meiner Ruh.These are very short essays on James's readings and re-readings as he faces a terminal illness (emphysema). As his body goes, his mind is 'still with him,' and his reflections are still (mostly) interesting: Nor was “Dictionary Johnson” ever quite the st...
Years ago, when I was still a student, I enjoyed Clives James volumes of memoirs and so I was happy to read his latest musings, “Latest Readings,” a book about his love of reading. After being diagnosed with leukaemia in 2010, understandably, James wondered whether it was even worth reading anything substantial again. Would he have time to tackle all those great reads? However, wisely deciding that, “if you don’t know the exact moment when the light will go out, you might as well read until they...
Waffled between 3 and 4 stars for this. I suspect that if I were closer to the target audience, being 1) British and 2) better read in literary fiction than I am, I would give it a 4. Book talk is less fun when the authors under discussion are unfamiliar, but it's not James's fault that Edward St. Aubyn, Anthony Powell, and Stephen Edgar are unknown to me. Still, I finished this “book about books” without adding a single title to my TBR list, which is something I've never done with a “book-book”...
It must be nearly 40 years since I read "Unreliable Memoirs" but this book reminded me what a good writer Clive James is. A mixture of books I will follow up and books I will never read but all-in-all a delightful experience.
Clive James is consistently wonderful, and these essays/appraisals written in the teeth of the sickness unto death are only a little short of anything he's done; maybe just a whistle on the slight side. Gratifying to see another person "discover" Olivia Manning. How many more such discoveries will it take before she's recognized as one of the great writers of the 20th c.? Powell has the greater scope, he avers, although he does little to convince me that that's so (and I love Powell.) Happily he...
Diagnosed with terminal leukaemia in early 2010, Clive James decided to read & re-read until the end came (which it still hasn’t). “If you don’t know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as well read until they do.” (p.2) These are his notes “... on what might well have been my last readings...” (p.4)It’s a collection of book reviews, author appraisals & views on writing & writers, reading & readers, society & culture, with added glimpses of his own life, health & impending de...
Well, I tried to not gulp down this slender book of essays on reading but failed miserably at restraint. The first day I was almost good and only went a few essays over my intended allotment. The second day was a disaster of ill-discipline. Despite also reading several other books, two for work, I kept picking up Mr. James and reading just one more. And just one more. Like kisses, chocolate and otherwise, once you start it is impossible to stop.James is, as is well known, dying from leukemia but...
Honestly, I really wanted to love this. Clive James is a fantastic writer with many strengths and I truly respect his body of work. However, this book, while beautifully written just bored the dickens out of me.
Oh dear. There was a stab of disappointment early. Where was the parsing of ideas, so evident in Cultural Amnesia? Well, from the first page James notes that he's on his way out, dying from leukemia and myriad respiratory degradations. Finding his remaining time limited, he elected to reread some lifelong favorites and gauge any changes. What results is a softened survey which belongs in a popular magazine. This precipitous decline left me unsettled. I struggle to imagine any aspect which I coul...
Here’s a book, a slim volume of a book that hooked me right from the start. Oh how I wish they all did! What our Clive James doesn’t know about literature, reading and writing is probably not worth the bother. At times I was a little out of my depth but Clive managed to go easy with this novice and reeled me back in when I got lost, gently taught me new words and delighted me with many a perfectly structured turn of phrase. Mr. James spoke to me as an interested friend and amazed me with a comma...
This is a very poignant and slim volume marked by Clive James' erudition, wit and learning. These are hardly fully thought out critical essays, but that is quite besides the point as James decides to face a diagnosis of terminal cancer with a decision to read (and often re-read) whatever he wishes. The result is a series of short incisive takes on whatever he happens to be reading which for a man of Clive James eclecticism and intellect ranges from familiar favourites like Conrad, Kipling and He...
Latest Readings is an absolutely wonderful collection of essays written after the author, a book reviewer and literary critic, was diagnosed with terminal leukemia. It is a love letter to reading and the power of the written word and I adored it. The introduction is worth the price of the book -- but every essay spoke to some level of essential truth -- either about writing or about how it connects us to the world around us and influences our perceptions. Witty and sharp, James knows how to writ...
Despite the choice of Clive’s reading matter (Conrad, WWII non-fiction, movie-world ditto, Edward St. Aubyn, Anthony Powell, etc.), his talent as a critic and writer kept me rapt in this short collection (perhaps his last, for now his ‘latest’). Clive’s talent as a polymath has been overshadowed in the UK through various fatuous TV programmes made in the late 90s, however, in his final two decades, a corpus of first-rate criticism has set about redressing that balance. Long might Clive thrive.
Excellent book about books. Clive James is an Australian Icon, and for me he’s like an old friend, although I’ve never met him. So sad he had so much illness for so long at the end of his life. This collection of his thoughts related to his reading were written during his last reflective years, and the collection is very interesting, not too high-brow, with some wonderful insights. I listened to the book via an audible audiobook. The narrator, although not Clive James, delivered Clive’s words in...
I think it is just such a disappointment that this book became a bit of a diatribe against the things that James did not like, or did not agree with, as opposed to the literary homage it is pitched as. I love books about books, and I find a deep and enduring value in the reading lists of others. Understanding the love for certain pieces of literary work in the eyes of others is deeply valuable, and I absolutely adore it, however, this book diverted. I think the difficulty for me is that James si...
A smart writer (Clive James) writes about his smart reading of smart books. I especially liked James's reflections on Hemingway, whom I've never really cared for.
It seems churlish to give this short book only three stars: the author is dying, and this may be his last collection of lit-crit. But James is such a genius, and his reviews so startling and mind-stretching, that what I take to be the progress of his leukemia left but a few quotable quotes and additions to my TBR.It helps that he praises Olivia Manning and faintly damns V.S. Naipaul ("He always wanted the Indian culture that he came from…to be modernized, if necessary out of existence."). He rec...
I can say with surprise (I always tend to think that Clive James is much too clever not for his own good but rather for mine) that this collections of short essays on books was satisfying and perfectly formed. All were just long or short enough and leavened with James's increasingly acute awareness of which things in life are important. He is marking out his humanity, letting us in on his progress or at any rate the state of his current literary interests.His style is more approachable than ever...