North Face of Soho - More Unreliable Memoirs (Paperback, Reprints)

Taking us from Fleet Street to Clive James on TV, from Russian department stores to Paris fashion shows via fatherhood, some killer bees, and a satire starring Anne Robinson as Mrs Thatcher, North Face of Soho is the larger-than-life story of a life lived to the full.It's not just that he writes a lot, but that he writes with intense perfectionism, and delivers his gags with honed elegance - Sunday Times. One of the most rewarding aspects of this exuberant work is James' willingness to reveal the backstage mechanics of his professional life. This book is enormously entertaining - Sunday Telegraph. In the case of many people who attempt an autobiography even a single volume is one too many. In the case of Clive James the four volumes now in existence are too few. If the final tally puts him up there with Marcel Proust, so much the better - FT Magazine. I feel I know more about the author after reading it than I gleaned from all of his other books put together. This is a book about hard-earned self-knowledge. What makes it funny is quite how hard the self-knowledge was to earn - William Leith, Evening Standard.