Review
'Provocative and informed' --Choice magazine
`This new anthology finds the veteran wit...reflecting on everything from wheelie bins to plastic surgery.' --Cambridgeshire Journal
`With an opinion on everything, Clive James is an expert conversationalist and critic...A Point of View includes smart and hilarious observations on topics such as Harry Potter, wheelie bins, plastic surgery, global warming, cycling and more...this is James at his entertaining best.' --Daily Express Weekend Books
'The talks read as well on the page as they sounded on the radio and, precisely because of the shortness of the pieces and the vague brief, the wanderings of James's mighty magpie mind become, in book form, an accidental autobiography. You learn as much about James the man in these pages as you do in any of his other book . . . he points out that a society "wouldn't be free if it weren't full of things we didn't like". Freedom costs but it costs a lot less than the alternatives. It also nurtures great souls and free spirits such as James.' --Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times
`This new anthology finds the veteran wit...reflecting on everything from wheelie bins to plastic surgery.' --Cambridgeshire Journal
`With an opinion on everything, Clive James is an expert conversationalist and critic...A Point of View includes smart and hilarious observations on topics such as Harry Potter, wheelie bins, plastic surgery, global warming, cycling and more...this is James at his entertaining best.' --Daily Express Weekend Books
'The talks read as well on the page as they sounded on the radio and, precisely because of the shortness of the pieces and the vague brief, the wanderings of James's mighty magpie mind become, in book form, an accidental autobiography. You learn as much about James the man in these pages as you do in any of his other book . . . he points out that a society "wouldn't be free if it weren't full of things we didn't like". Freedom costs but it costs a lot less than the alternatives. It also nurtures great souls and free spirits such as James.' --Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times
Product Description
The book of the radio series.
Book Description
The BBC Radio 4 series A Point of View has been on the air since 2007. Over the years, it’s had a variety of presenters – including the national treasure that is Clive James – talking for ten minutes about anything and everything that has captured their imagination, piqued their interest, raised their blood pressure or just downright incensed them that week. Clive James was one of the favourite presenters, and now, for the first time, his original pieces – sixty in total – and all-new postscripts are collected together in one volume. Read along with Clive James as he reflects on everything from wheelie bins to plastic surgery, Elizabeth Hurley to the Olympics, 24 to Damien Hirst, Harry Potter to giving up smoking, car parks to Chinese elections, Britain’s Got Talent to the expenses scandal – and plenty more besides. Essentially a chronicle of life in twenty-first-century Britain, A Point of View is informed and informative, thoughtful and thought-provoking – but above all, entertaining. In fact, in short, it’s a damn good read.
About the Author
Clive James is the author of more than thirty books. As well as essays, he has published collections of literary and television criticism, travel writing, verse and novels, plus five volumes of autobiography. As a television performer he appeared regularly for both the BBC and ITV, and has also been a regular presenter on BBC Radio -- including A Point of View. In 1992 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia and in 2003 he was awarded the Philip Hodgins memorial medal for literature.
