Picador Classic

The first instalment of his famed autobiography, Unreliable Memoirs is a hilarious and touching introduction to the life of the author, broadcaster, critic and poet, Clive James.

''It is one of the most tender, frank and, above all, funny accounts of growing up I have ever read'' –Michael Parkinson

In the first instalment of James''s memoirs we follow the young Clive on his journey from boyhood to the cusp of manhood, when his days of wearing short trousers are finally behind him.

Battling with school, girls, various relatives, the local wildlife, and an overwhelming desire to be a superhero, Clive''s adventures growing up in the suburbs of post-war Sydney are a hair-raising and uproarious evocation of a lost world.

I was born in 1939. The other big event of that year was the outbreak of the Second World War, but for the moment that did not affect me . . .

''James cannot find it within himself to write a dull paragraph'' – The Times

With an introduction from P.J. O''Rourke, journalist, satirist and author of Holidays in Hell.

Unreliable Memoirs is the first book of memoir from Clive James. Continue his story with Falling Towards England.