books by Kingsley Amis

books by Kingsley Amis

books:

Kingsley Amis

James Bond: Colonel Sun (James Bond)

Kingsley Amis

Titan Books, 2006

An absolute "must-have" for all dedicated James Bond fans
Latest in a series of James Bond daily strip collections, James Bond 007: Colonel Sun by the team of Kingsley Amis, Jim Lawrence, and Yaroslav Horak is a graphic novel compilation of black-and-white daily newspaper strips that adapted Ian Fleming's classic James Bond ...

Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis

Kingsley Amis

Bloomsbury USA, 2008

One Drunk Englishman
If you're interested in reading about the drinking life, where better to start than with a collection of writings on drink by Kingsley Amis, introduced by Christopher Hitchens? Though it weighs in at a mere 3.2 ounces, "Everyday Drinking" offers up enough drinking ...

The King's English : A Guide to Modern Usage

Kingsley Amis

St. Martin's Griffin, 1999

Curmudgeonly, pedantic language fun
This is not in all seriousness a guide to usage. It's more like Amis's personal opinion piece, or list of pet peeves. His criticism cuts both ways, searing both those who take liberties with language, and those who are overly stuffed-shirt about using "whom" or ...

Old Devils

Kingsley Amis

VINTAGE (RAND), 2004

rare is the book
Rare is the book that leaves one red-eyed with laughter. Rarer still the book that turns the same embarrassing trick (I try to avoid reading this book in public), after a dozen dog-eared readings. The aging Weavers, also-ran poet Alun and trophy-wife Rhiannon, ...

Lucky Jim (Penguin Classics)

Kingsley Amis

Penguin Classics, 1993

"O lucky Jim, /How I envy him."
The British literary theorist Terry Eagleton characterized Kingsley Amis as a "racist, anti-Semitic boor, a drink-sodden, self-hating reviler of women, gays, and liberals." Well well! And what is the reader of "Lucky Jim" to think of such a venomous outpouring of ...

Lucky Jim (Penguin Modern Classics)

Kingsley Amis

Penguin Classics, 2000

Don't read this on a plane
You will be hooting with laughter, disturbing your seatmates, and causing consternation among the flight attendants. This book is amazingly funny. But you will need some working knowledge of British academia to 'get it'. Which means, if you know the difference ...

The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare (Penguin Classics)

G. K. Chesterton

Penguin Classics, 1990

Chesterton's vivid imagination and an allegory to ruin your life...
First I'll say that this book certainly lived up to the reputation Chesterton holds as a literary genius. His subtle wit at times had me audibly laughing out loud. The descriptions he uses paint very vivid images in your mind and all the while he manages to hold an ...

Lucky Jim

Kingsley Amis

Penguin (Non-Classics), 1958

Older but Never Dated
I think you simply have to be an academic to fully enjoy the comedy of Lucky Jim. Not that the jokes lost any of their flair over last half a century, Jim's misfortunes have a slapstick quality to them which can be funny even in Elizabethan comedies. Their full ...

Lucky Jim

Kingsley Amis

Penguin (Non-Classics), 1976

Don't read this book on the subway,
because, most likely, it will provoke loud screams of laughter and you'll embarrass yourself. Lucky Jim is the story of Jim Dixon, a lowly lecturer at an English university. In order to keep his job, he must suck up to the fabulously annoying professor, Ned Welch. ...

Take a Girl Like You

Kingsley Amis

Penguin (Non-Classics), 1976

Amis hits his stride with a funny but dark novel
Kingsley Amis opened his career with the novel that remained his most famous work to the end of his life: Lucky Jim. His next two novels were generally regarded as disappointments, at least relative to Lucky Jim. It is with his fourth novel, Take a Girl Like You, that ...

Memoirs

Kingsley Amis

Summit Books, 1991

A last round for (or on) his friends
The famous founder of the original Angry Young Men offers up these mis-named memoirs. It is not an autobiography but more a collection of pub performances in written form. Which is no handicap to enjoying the collection: conversation remained an art in England long ...

The Alteration

Kingsley Amis

Viking Adult, 1977

music, love, and strange times
Amis gives us a very strange 20th century: Since the fundamentalist Martin Luther was elected pope and the Church was reformed, all Europe (including Great Britain) remained Catholic. Science and the laws, hemmed by theological traditions, have not developed to a form ...

Jake's Thing (Vintage Classics)

Kingsley Amis

Vintage Books, 2007

Should be required reading in medical schools
Anyone who has had to seek out an elusive medical diagnosis should laugh aloud. The novel is scabrous and cringe-inducing---and uproariously funny. It should be required reading in all medical schools.

Girl, 20

Kingsley Amis

Jonathan Cape, 1971

A brilliant author weaves yet another witty, comic tale
Kingsley Amis has again written a story of infidelity, destructive selfishness, and blatant stupidity and managed to make it hilarious. The basic story centers on a symphony conductor who, in an attempt to reawaken his lust for life, is having an ill-advised affair ...

The Green Man

Kingsley Amis

Academy Chicago Publishers, 1991

Through a whisky glass, darkly
In the early 1970s Amis seemed to be looking for a new direction. His initial series of comedies (_Lucky Jim_ and its successors in broadly similar mode) had begun bringing in diminishing returns, at least in terms of critical attention and sales. And later, in the ...