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.
Gill's broadsides, his impatience, his scathing penportraits were,
it becomes particularly clear when you read his work en bloc, the
byproduct of his desire that we should wriggle free of conformity,
embrace pleasure, eat our fill
*GUARDIAN*
Lines in the Sand, a treat for his many fans, gathers the best of
Gill's journalism from 2011 to 2016. Ranging from travel reportage
to serio-comic appreciations of Savile Row tweed and the delights
of condensed milk, the pieces are lit up by the author's trademark
literary flourishes and waspish put-downs
*EVENING STANDARD*
Serene, painfully wise ... glimpses of a loftier truth are the
glory of Gill's essays, and they open metaphysical vistas in
journalistic junkets or stunts contrived for the sake of a feature
article ... His essays - so delicate in their connoisseurship of
nature and culture, so tender in their sketches of family, friends
and anonymous strangers in refugee camps, so brightly witty and yet
so unexpectedly profound - affirm the manifold pleasures of being
alive, which is why they enrich the life of anyone who reads them,
and in Gill's absence will go on doing so
*OBSERVER*
As Lines in the Sand, his final collection of journalism -
published just a few weeks after his death from cancer, aged 62 -
makes clear, Mr Gill's opinions actually held prejudice, piety and
pretension to account ... Mr Gill's overriding message throughout
these pieces is that experience should be gulped down, pleasure
embraced, and conformity shunned ... "There's a basic human need to
tell someone what we saw, where we've been," Mr Gill writes, and
his dispatches - opinionated, experienced - are told with eloquence
and elan, from war zones and home counties camp sites, to, finally,
the cancer ward ... Elsewhere, he writes of Lord Snowdon: "His
immensely sympathetic eye was often a surprise to people who knew
only his waspish tongue." There could be no better epitaph for Mr
Gill himself.
*MR PORTER*
AA Gill was that rare writer, famously able to serve up waspishness
and compassion in the same sentence. Both are on full display in
Lines in the Sand ... Written with style and ubiquitous wit, this
collection of essays is only further proof that Gill's voice will
be sorely missed
*FINANCIAL TIMES*
I can't think of a writer whose style so exactly replicated their
conversation as A. A. Gill. Reading his weekly dispatches was just
like being with him in person, which is why so many readers took
his death late last year very personally. People - even people who
had never met him - felt they'd lost their funniest, most
outrageous chum. Opening a paper without an article by him is like
going to your store cupboard and finding that there's no chilli or
salt: everything is blander without him. Two collections which came
out this year, Lines in the Sand and The Best of A A. Gill,
showcase him at his finest. Adrian showed incredible courage, wit
and generosity of heart during his final weeks. Once my husband,
always my friend, he is irreplaceable, on and off the page
*THE SPECTATOR Books of the Year*
Thankfully, the late A A Gill was neither diplomatic or sensitive.
Collecting together the last five years of Adrian Anthony's many
highlights, Lines in the Sand sees him wasp around the world with
passion, honesty and glorious, wickedly funny words. He's already
much missed
*WANDERLUST*
The late AA Gill was a journalist who you either loved or hated,
but was impossible to ignore, and this is an excellent selection of
his writing, spanning the wide range of his interests, from food
and television to travel and family. Even when facing his own
mortality, Gill was uninhibited and brutally honest This collection
does him proud
*CHOICE*
![]() |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
![]() |