Pour Me

'A. A. Gill, the man who makes a living getting beneath the skin of things, whether it's television, restaurants or places round the world - has skinned himself' Vanity Fair

A. A. Gill's memoir begins in the dark of a dormitory with six strangers. He is an alcoholic, dying in the last-chance saloon. He tells the truth - as far as he can remember it - about drinking and about what it is like to be drunk. He recalls the lost days, lost friends, failed marriages ... But there was also an 'optimum inebriation, a time when it was all golden'.

Sobriety regained, there are painterly descriptions of people and places, unforgettable musings about childhood and family, art and religion; and most, movingly, the connections between his cooking, dyslexia and his missing brother.

Full of raw and unvarnished truths, exquisitely written throughout, POUR ME is about lost time and self-discovery. Lacerating, unflinching, uplifting, it is a classic about drunken abandon.

Short-listed for PEN Ackerley Prize 2016 (UK)

“His mind, officially measured as off the Mensa scale, is an object of wonder. But it swivels everywhere like a dropped high-pressure hosepipe ... Gill is explosive. God knows what a frightening thing he must have been in drink. He is bad enough as a dry drunk, the kind of sober person who gets thrown out of restaurants (in his case, Gordon Ramsay's). But the end of the book dwells on a recently evolved philanthropic side to Gill's character. He has become very anxious about the world. He travels to awful places, eloquently and genuinely compassionate with the suffering he witnesses there ... One deduces that he has transcended his suffering but he now has a hypersensitive sympathy with the suffering of others. A A Gill is 61, 30 years sober and surviving. Those who admire him (and I am one) will not merely read him over the years to come but follow him wherever he is now going. It will, one guesses, be an interesting journey”

He is still, by miles, the most brilliant journalist of our age

- Lynn Barber

Very, very funny - GQ

Underlying all the hype, the wit, the glittering rococo brilliant of his style, there is also the most solid and underrated of journalistic virtues - the power to convey a scene in words so that readers feel they are present - Daily Telegraph

A.A. Gill was the renowned restaurant and TV critic, and features writer, for The Sunday Times. He was a contributor to Vanity Fair, GQ, the Spectator and Australian Gourmet Traveller, and a columnist for Esquire. His books include A.A. GILL IS AWAY, THE ANGRY ISLAND, PREVIOUS CONVICTIONS, TABLE TALK, PAPER VIEW, A.A. GILL IS FURTHER AWAY, THE GOLDEN DOOR, THE BEST OF A.A. GILL and the highly acclaimed memoir POUR ME. He died in 2016.

'A. A. Gill, the man who makes a living getting beneath the skin of things, whether it's television, restaurants or places round the world - has skinned himself' Vanity Fair A. A. Gill's memoir begins in the dark of a dormitory with six strangers. He is an alcoholic, dying in the last-chance saloon. He tells the truth - as far as he can remember it - about drinking and about what it is like to be drunk. He recalls the lost days, lost friends, failed marriages ... But there was also an 'optimum inebriation, a time when it was all golden'.Sobriety regained, there are painterly descriptions of people and places, unforgettable musings about childhood and family, art and religion; and most, movingly, the connections between his cooking, dyslexia and his missing brother. Full of raw and unvarnished truths, exquisitely written throughout, POUR ME is about lost time and self-discovery. Lacerating, unflinching, uplifting, it is a classic about drunken abandon.

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