Reliable Essays: Reliable Essays:The Best of Clive James - Tapa dura

Since arriving from Australia in the 1960s, Clive James has trod a tricky path between popular and high culture. In one field, he finds no joke too vulgar (think back to the 1980s, when his regular TV shows usually included a gleeful relay of clips from sadistic Japanese game shows); in the other, no text is too highbrow. Few, however, remember his lyrical contributions to the records of Pete Atkin, which resulted in some of the most literate and delightful popular music of the 1970s. His versatility has often rebounded on him - to some, he is viewed as a great wit, to others, he is unbearably smug. In recent times, however, James has decided to turn his back on the TV and reclaim the high ground as a serious writer and critic. Unsurprisingly for one who was for many years the Observer's TV critic, there are musings about the gogglebox, but for the most part, this collection consists of essays on Evelyn Waugh, Nabokov, Seamus Heaney and a four-part work on the poet Philip Larkin. And jolly fine essays they are, too - the serious analysis often being leavened by James' humour. Many of the pieces have appeared elsewhere before, but this represents both a handy anthology for the converted and a primer for the new reader.

The best essays of Clive James, culled from 30 years of prose. There are essays on Margaret Thatcher, Seamus Heaney, George Orwell and Philip Larkin, essays on the meaning of Australia and on what it means to be a TV critic, and his "Postcard from Rome".