was disappointed.
interesting details about australia but too much masturbation, too much self-deprication, and not that funny. ( )

Acerbic nostalgia? Is there such a thing? If so I think this "autobiography disguised as a novel" fits the description. Yes as the cover says it's laugh out loud funny but under the laughter is the poignant story of a boy who lost his father to WWII growing up insecure in post war Sydney. Read in one sitting. Beautiful, erudite, coarse, elegant a mass of contradictions which I still have to assimilate... ( )

When I read, I usually have my voice inside my head. No matter how hard I try, the voice is always the same - there's no escaping it. Or so I thought. As soon as I started reading Clive James' memoirs of his childhood and adolesence growing up in Australia, my voice disappeared, and James's unmistakeable Australian brogue took its place.

'Unreliable Memoirs' is certainly well-written, with its own idiosyncratic style that works best when one reads slowly; however, I would dispute the assertion that this is an hilarious work, since it is only occasionally as funny as James himself. It is often poignant and insightful, always sincere and never too serious, but I only 'laughed out loud' once. Still, that's more often than usual for a book. ( )