Kingsley Amis: Memoir. (Hardback) 1991

 KINGSLEY AMIS - MEMOIRS

The publication of Kingsley Amis's MEMOIRS is, of course, a major literary event. But reading them is also like a fascinating evening's talk in the pub in the most congenial and entertaining company.

The book describes Amis's family in South London, his schooldays, Oxford, his joining the Army midway through the war, and later Swansea, Cambridge and then leaving the academic world to work as a full-time writer. Interspered are portraits of friends ( and a few foes) ranging from Philip Larking to Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Tom Driberg to Margaret Thatcher, Anthony Burgess to John Betyjeman - an Amis gallery written in one of the few unmistakable literary voices of our time: acerbic, affectionate, authoritative, comic, occasionally rueful, always honest. and in looking back on decades of friendships, as well as on the quick clashes and lively skirmishes which als punctuate his persona; and literary life, Sir Kingslkey inevitably provides a revealing and most vivid-portrait.

A hardback publioshed in 1991 by Hutchinson

NOTE: has a neatly written dedication on first page.