Clive James is a great storyteller, and this volume of memoirs covering the years when he was a household name on TV is full of fascinating anecdotes told in typically entertaining style.

Interesting look back at the beginning of television as a real force. Found that James did go on a bit about his longings around unattainable women. But then, it was a period piece. A memory lane book for those of us in our 60s and 70s.

To be honest, he could have written 'I am Clive James' a million times and I'd still give it five stars. But he didn't do that. He wrote a brilliant, incisive and hilarious memoir. I loved every single word.

I must admit that had I not got this volume of James' memoirs out of the library at the same time as its predecessor, I might not have gone back for it, much as I enjoyed North Face of Soho. I left Clive James on Television a long, long time before Clive James left television. And yet here we are with yet another engaging read - almost a guilty pleasure. As I write, James believes he really does not have much longer to live, in a rather more specific way than his intimations of immortality at th...

Clive James, for those too young too recall, is a London-based, Australian expatriate writer and former television presenter of some fame. This book, the latest in his series of memoirs all published by Picador, chronicles his years as a presenter of a variety of television programmes and made-for-television documentaries - it is written from a reflective position, some years after the end of that highly-public part of his career, having returned now to more 'serious' expansive writing of novels...

I missed the fourth volume of this series but I adored the first three. It was a surprise then that this one was a little disappointing. It has the self-deprecating observations of his own capabilities that I loved in the earlier books, the brushes with fame and the snatch of defeat from the jaws of victory and vice versa. What was missing was the energy and zest that the earlier books had. Or maybe it was the fact that this was the first book of Mr James’ that I’d read since he passed away. I k...

Another excellent volume of Clive James' brilliant unreliable memories. This volume takes in the time when I got to know James and his work.We start with the just plain funny of Clive James on TV (and, of course, Endurance which had everyone at school in stitches), move into the cleverer territory of his "Postcards from" films, that awakened a certain wanderlust in me, and always find Clive trying to reconcile the populist demands of TV with his more intellectual pursuits of poetry and literary

Some good writing and some funny bits but mostly as boring as Brisbane. However he did mention a piece he wrote about the death of Princess Diana for the New York Times ("Requiem"). That was very good.6.5/10

Oh Clive James how I love you...

As always, James writes well.There is one general weakness of this volume of his memoirs, too often it is grumpy, even vindictive in its judgments of some of the people he includes. The one specific limitation, for me, is it’s subject matter. Not living in the UK during the years he covers, I have little knowledge of and less interest in British TV, his subject matter.I also detect an increasing tendency to a fawning response to the famous. I cringed throughout the chapter on Diana Spencer.It’s

The fifth volume of Clive James's memoirs and, in my opinion, one of the best. A real insight into documentary making with all of James's wit and acute observations. He is also a thoughtful and reflective writer and never dull.

If you've never heard of him, Clive James was an immensely popular TV presenter in England during the 1980s & 90s; a period which this autobiography chronicles. I was one of a generation who grew up with his wit, warmth, and social commentary on almost a weekly basis. He was also an accomplished writer and poet, and highly respected in London's and NYC's literary circles. While he could always make me laugh with his sharp and self-deprecating humour, at the time, I never realised how much I had

The fifth in the series of memoirs by Clive James is just as funny, self-deprecating and insightful as its predecessors.This volume covers the period when James was regularly on TV, when he (and his team to whom he gives generous credit) and others were inventing a whole new genre of programming: sardonic, self-referential, using the medium to examine TV and fame itself.Covering a period when James was travelling the world and meeting the `stars', I was at first somewhat put off: it seemed less

Another rich instalment in Clive James' (hopefully) ongoing memoirs, sumptuously charting his apprenticeship and gradual mastery of the mainstream television presenting format, with a few juicy insider portraits and written with James' usual bon viveur grace.

This is the fifth and so far last instalment of Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs, although they appear to be becoming more reliable as they go on. The Blaze of Obscurity covers James' TV career from the eighties through to the turn of the millennium, at which point he's had enough and gives it up to return to the literary life. Smartly written of course and funny throughout, but the subject matter of this volume interested me less than the earlier volumes: the challenges of filming TV specials in...

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.

Brilliant. He's not allowed to snuff it until he writes one more volume.

Well, here we are. This is the final volume in Clive James's Unreliable Memoirs series. It's the fifth book wherein the éminence grise (or should that be éminence chauve?) describes his continued ascent through the land of the crystal bucket. With The Blaze of Obscurity, the Australian writer moves from being about the box to being mostly on it. It's where shows began to be prefaced with his name, not just his image. From now on, in this book, I will try to leave my name out of the title of the

A sense of deja by accompanied my reading of this memoir. I eventually realized this was because I had watched Clive James' TV interview series. He writes with humor about his experiences filming for TV, has some great anecdotes to share and a penchant for name dropping. However I didn't learn much about Clive the man.

What can you say about Clive, except to love him to pieces. The writing in this one about his television years is all over the shop, but the writing still shines through with creative expression and sage wisdom. I am not sure how many of Clive I have read, but I have downloaded a few more on my Kindle in case I have missed one in the past. At times he sounds like a professional Australian (which he was) but that in itself seems to being an anti-British establishment position which seems independ...