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The Best of A.A. Gill
For over twenty years, people turned to A.A. Gill's columns every Sunday - for his fearlessness, his perception, and the laughter-and-tear-provoking one-liners - but mostly because he was the best. 'By miles the most brilliant journalist of our age', as Lynn Barber put it. This is the definitive collection of a voice that was silenced too early but that can still make us look at the world in new and surprising ways.
In the words of Andrew Marr, A.A. Gill was 'a golden writer'. There was nothing that he couldn't illuminate with his dazzling prose. Wherever he was - at home or abroad - he found the human story, brought it to vivid life, and rendered it with fierce honesty and bracing compassion. And he was just as truthful about himself. There have been various collections of A.A. Gill's journalism - individual compilations of his restaurant and TV criticism, of his travel writing and his extraordinary feature articles. This book showcasesthe very best of his work: the peerlessly funny criticism, the extraordinarily knowledgeable food writing, assignments throughout the world, and reflections on life, love, and death. Drawn from a range of publications, including the Sunday Times, Vanity Fair, Tatler and Australian Gourmet Traveller, The Ivy Cookbook and his books on England and America, it is by turns hilarious, uplifting, controversial, unflinching, sad, funny and furious.
417 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 9, 2017
158 people are currently reading
654 people want to read
About the author
A.A. Gill
36 books102 followersAdrian Anthony Gill was an English journalist. He was the author of 9 books, including The Angry Island. He was the TV and restaurant critic and a regular features writer for The Sunday Times, a columnist for Esquire, and a contributor to Vanity Fair. He lived in London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
October 16, 2018
“It is not so much that this place of hateful, cheap Soviet architecture fills the soul with gloom: it’s that it sucks everything remotely beautiful or sensitive from the soul, leaving a vacuum of low-grade depression and the tinnitus of despair. Seventy years of communism, all that hardship, terror, death. All that effort and hope and promises, the forced migrations, the cruelty, exhaustion, misery and rationing, the starvation and privation, the mechanical, imperative certainty of it all, ended up with this baking, grim bleakness.”
This is Gill talking about his time visiting what used to be the Aral Sea. A strong candidate for the grimmest place he visited on his many travels, he described it as “The strangest, most maudlin place I’ve ever been.” But then when he washes up in the Congo more than thirteen years later, he claims that, “This is effortfully the worst place in the world.” To be fair there are plenty of other contenders, from starving children in South Sudan, or someone being murdered in front of him in Haiti and more children dying in Uganda of sleeping sickness.
Gill was a controversial enough figure in his time. On one hand he was the privately educated toff, whose daddy worked in television. He was a man paid handsomely by Rupert Murdoch to write about fine dining in up market restaurants. He was also a close friend of privately educated brat, and egomaniac, Jeremy Clarkson. Gill also seemed to take pride in telling us how much he enjoyed shooting pheasants and stalking deer in the Scottish Highlands and of course, let’s not forget the unfortunate baboon he shot and killed in Africa, just to see what it felt like.
On the other hand he was a proud father, a severely dyslexic, needing an amanuensis to write his articles, a recovering alcoholic who championed the dirt poor, raising awareness of dyslexia and third-world poverty, as well as highlighting the plight of refugees. Apparently his article on Ugandan sleeping sickness, inspired a CNN campaign that eventually helped to change the drug policy of one pharmaceutical company.
He loves to have a pop at the super rich who take themselves terribly seriously, as seen in his pieces about Monte Carlo and how eating out in London has gotten so expensive. At one point he insists, “It is arrant elitism to suggest that books are better or more culturally important than television.” He later praises the BBC because it, “says, I know what you like, my love-not, I know what you ought to like, dear.” but then we see him doing the exact opposite, like in the article, “Last Suppers”. After spending a page or two mocking the choice of last suppers of various US convicts on death row, he then considers his own last supper, narrowing it down to four options, one of which consists “foie gras and cassoulet, all sorts of duck, figs and Roquefort” from the south west of France. But what is really going on here is a form of sneering, bullying class snobbery. It’s a self-important, rich white man in a bow tie, looking down on other people for being poor and not having the privilege of sharing his sophisticated gastronomic tastes. Its times like this when Gill would do well to remember that not everyone had a rich daddy who could afford to send them away to an elitist English boarding school where they were taught how to be superior.
I thought his autobiography a few years back was a missed opportunity. It was too short and it seemed to hold back a lot more than it revealed, which was terribly disappointing and frustrating, so it’s good to be reacquainted with him at his best in this anthology. Like anyone else he had his good and bad points, but either way what isn’t in any doubt, is the quality of the man’s writing. His deep knowledge and varied interests took him off to many random and fascinating corners of the world, where he conjured up some wonderfully written pieces of sparkling journalism.
Gill tended to veer from the deeply fascinating to the deeply offensive, depending on the topic. There are times when it’s like listening to a ghastly, over-privileged bully from a Victorian novel, all plummy tones and elitist manners, but then there are other times when his writing is an absolute joy and he is a deep font of knowledge, showing a real flair for quality, descriptive writing.
Offensive and engaging, pretentious and egalitarian, harsh and kind, Gill is all of these things and more, a maddening textbook of contradictions. If you have never read his work before, then this is as good a place as any to start, if, like me, you have read most of his work then you will find a lot of the articles in here have appeared elsewhere. But this is a fine selection of fine writing and for all his controversy and shortcomings, Gill remains a sad loss to the world of journalism and writing.
This is Gill talking about his time visiting what used to be the Aral Sea. A strong candidate for the grimmest place he visited on his many travels, he described it as “The strangest, most maudlin place I’ve ever been.” But then when he washes up in the Congo more than thirteen years later, he claims that, “This is effortfully the worst place in the world.” To be fair there are plenty of other contenders, from starving children in South Sudan, or someone being murdered in front of him in Haiti and more children dying in Uganda of sleeping sickness.
Gill was a controversial enough figure in his time. On one hand he was the privately educated toff, whose daddy worked in television. He was a man paid handsomely by Rupert Murdoch to write about fine dining in up market restaurants. He was also a close friend of privately educated brat, and egomaniac, Jeremy Clarkson. Gill also seemed to take pride in telling us how much he enjoyed shooting pheasants and stalking deer in the Scottish Highlands and of course, let’s not forget the unfortunate baboon he shot and killed in Africa, just to see what it felt like.
On the other hand he was a proud father, a severely dyslexic, needing an amanuensis to write his articles, a recovering alcoholic who championed the dirt poor, raising awareness of dyslexia and third-world poverty, as well as highlighting the plight of refugees. Apparently his article on Ugandan sleeping sickness, inspired a CNN campaign that eventually helped to change the drug policy of one pharmaceutical company.
He loves to have a pop at the super rich who take themselves terribly seriously, as seen in his pieces about Monte Carlo and how eating out in London has gotten so expensive. At one point he insists, “It is arrant elitism to suggest that books are better or more culturally important than television.” He later praises the BBC because it, “says, I know what you like, my love-not, I know what you ought to like, dear.” but then we see him doing the exact opposite, like in the article, “Last Suppers”. After spending a page or two mocking the choice of last suppers of various US convicts on death row, he then considers his own last supper, narrowing it down to four options, one of which consists “foie gras and cassoulet, all sorts of duck, figs and Roquefort” from the south west of France. But what is really going on here is a form of sneering, bullying class snobbery. It’s a self-important, rich white man in a bow tie, looking down on other people for being poor and not having the privilege of sharing his sophisticated gastronomic tastes. Its times like this when Gill would do well to remember that not everyone had a rich daddy who could afford to send them away to an elitist English boarding school where they were taught how to be superior.
I thought his autobiography a few years back was a missed opportunity. It was too short and it seemed to hold back a lot more than it revealed, which was terribly disappointing and frustrating, so it’s good to be reacquainted with him at his best in this anthology. Like anyone else he had his good and bad points, but either way what isn’t in any doubt, is the quality of the man’s writing. His deep knowledge and varied interests took him off to many random and fascinating corners of the world, where he conjured up some wonderfully written pieces of sparkling journalism.
Gill tended to veer from the deeply fascinating to the deeply offensive, depending on the topic. There are times when it’s like listening to a ghastly, over-privileged bully from a Victorian novel, all plummy tones and elitist manners, but then there are other times when his writing is an absolute joy and he is a deep font of knowledge, showing a real flair for quality, descriptive writing.
Offensive and engaging, pretentious and egalitarian, harsh and kind, Gill is all of these things and more, a maddening textbook of contradictions. If you have never read his work before, then this is as good a place as any to start, if, like me, you have read most of his work then you will find a lot of the articles in here have appeared elsewhere. But this is a fine selection of fine writing and for all his controversy and shortcomings, Gill remains a sad loss to the world of journalism and writing.
January 17, 2021
How I mourn that this man is no longer living in this world. We are all the poorer for not having him casting his perceptive eye over the many issues he was drawn to. We miss his fearlessness in confronting topics many would rather not be faced with, his disregard for only writing nice things, not afraid to be negative, rude, completely politically incorrect and biting in some of his reviews of people, places, eating establishments. Audacious yet full of compassion and tenderness in much of his writing. Here is someone who can write about anything, any subject you could think of, and make it a perfect piece of prose with an angle, an opinion, an argument, an idea that you hadn't heard of.
This book is a collection of his best writings, although I fully expect that to be subjective naturally, published in a number of publications, mainly The Sunday Times, but also Australian Gourmet Traveller, GQ, Vanity Fair, and Tatler. His subject matter ranges from his opinions about vegetarians, Starbucks, the restaurant Noma, Essex, Airports, Teletubbies, David Attenborough, Pornography, Ageing, and many others. The issue dearest to his heart is the refugee crisis - so perfect and heartfelt in its hopelessness, despair and personal stories.
What makes his writing more stunning is that he is dyslexic. There is an article about that too. All his work apparently is dictated by him and then transcribed. His brain is amazing, and maybe because it sees words and how to tell stories in a different way from us literate people, his approach to telling us what he thinks is more powerful than simply using words as we know them to tell the story. I don't know enough about how the dyslexic brain works, but I do know this is one extraordinary man.
Wouldn't it be marvellous to hear his take on the year 2020? There would be a whole book of writings generated by this insane year we have just all gone through. Genius.
This book is a collection of his best writings, although I fully expect that to be subjective naturally, published in a number of publications, mainly The Sunday Times, but also Australian Gourmet Traveller, GQ, Vanity Fair, and Tatler. His subject matter ranges from his opinions about vegetarians, Starbucks, the restaurant Noma, Essex, Airports, Teletubbies, David Attenborough, Pornography, Ageing, and many others. The issue dearest to his heart is the refugee crisis - so perfect and heartfelt in its hopelessness, despair and personal stories.
What makes his writing more stunning is that he is dyslexic. There is an article about that too. All his work apparently is dictated by him and then transcribed. His brain is amazing, and maybe because it sees words and how to tell stories in a different way from us literate people, his approach to telling us what he thinks is more powerful than simply using words as we know them to tell the story. I don't know enough about how the dyslexic brain works, but I do know this is one extraordinary man.
Wouldn't it be marvellous to hear his take on the year 2020? There would be a whole book of writings generated by this insane year we have just all gone through. Genius.
June 16, 2020
Just wish he'd stuck around for 2020
October 19, 2019
This collection of articles were arranged by subject - food then travel then television then life. I found they got better, the further in I got, culminating in his article on dying which is about his cancer diagnosis.
Of course many were controversial but that makes them more interesting. I’m really glad I read them especially ones on refugees, his alcoholism of his younger years, porn movies, growing old, shooting stags and very topically,Europe. Such a varied collection and they have set me off wanting to find out more on several subjects I knew very little about before which is always something that I value in a book.
Of course many were controversial but that makes them more interesting. I’m really glad I read them especially ones on refugees, his alcoholism of his younger years, porn movies, growing old, shooting stags and very topically,Europe. Such a varied collection and they have set me off wanting to find out more on several subjects I knew very little about before which is always something that I value in a book.
February 20, 2021
This might be the most heartbreaking surprise of recent months.
I'd always been aware of Mr Gill, but rarely read a word. His was a name in a byline, but never in my life, and this anthology taught me what I've missed.
Mr Gill developed a reputation for snobbery - and it was entirely deserved. His articles on food reveal an exquisite and exacting taste. Most of his finest zingers can be found in paragraphs on 'burger pizza' and vegetarian restaurants.
In spite of this, he was never a snob about people.
He might have judged a person's foibles, but always acknowledged his own. As much as he condemned others, he could condemn his own flaws. Better, he wrote about the plight of others with care and sympathy.
His article on Lampedusa brought me to tears.
Please read this book. Then give it to somebody else. Let's remember the man that was - and mourn what might have been.
I'd always been aware of Mr Gill, but rarely read a word. His was a name in a byline, but never in my life, and this anthology taught me what I've missed.
Mr Gill developed a reputation for snobbery - and it was entirely deserved. His articles on food reveal an exquisite and exacting taste. Most of his finest zingers can be found in paragraphs on 'burger pizza' and vegetarian restaurants.
In spite of this, he was never a snob about people.
He might have judged a person's foibles, but always acknowledged his own. As much as he condemned others, he could condemn his own flaws. Better, he wrote about the plight of others with care and sympathy.
His article on Lampedusa brought me to tears.
Please read this book. Then give it to somebody else. Let's remember the man that was - and mourn what might have been.
November 24, 2023
I tried to write a full length review for The Best of A.A. Gill. I chopped, I changed, but there's no point, I can't do it justice. Not everyone should try to write like Gill, but anyone creating anything should aspire to evoke emotion as well as he does. Captious and controversial, often. Staggeringly beautiful writing, always. Brilliant.
May 31, 2024
Obviously everything is so well written but I hated the structure, don't clump everything on the same theme together! Bored!
July 17, 2018
Well it most certainly is the best of him. I've read a few collections of Gill's work recently, and they're the sort of books you dip into, three essays at bedtime type thing.
If you're feeling upbeat and looking for laughter, you might crease up with his account of making porn in Los Angeles. If someone has crossed you, visit one of his excoriating critiques for a vicious vicarious thrill - GMTV, Just William and Morrissey are all roundly and scathingly thrashed.
For evenings when you are brave enough to go deeper, there's no more searching and observant travelling companion to go with into the world's worst places. His account of The Congo is unflinching and unforgettable.
Gill is widely held as one of the best foreign correspondents, a 'giant among journalists', a writer who goes to the far reaches of the human experience and sends back what he sees, and it's pieces like this that earn him those monikers. This collection itself traces an eloquent passage, beginning with a touching and heartfelt note from his editor. It goes on to some of his most poignant pieces, about taking his children on holiday to Africa and the difference between beauty and the sublime, and his most vulnerable, in the essay on being dyslexic. There are glancing sublime little moments like the one where he sees Nelson Mandela smile beatifically at the girl guarding the biscuits on his way out of a photo-shoot, and there are tears in her eyes.
It concludes with his final piece, published in the Sunday Times the day after his death, on Dying. As you close the book, you feel the loss.
Truly one of those collections one should have as a lifetime companion. For those who knew him, 'the Londoner everyone wanted at their table,' blessed they were. Imagine the joy, the gossip, the insights, the sheer unadulterated life-affirming no-holds-barred bitchiness and glee over a table with AA Gill in The Ivy. For those of us who can read him, these collections are a lifetime's store of riches.
If you're feeling upbeat and looking for laughter, you might crease up with his account of making porn in Los Angeles. If someone has crossed you, visit one of his excoriating critiques for a vicious vicarious thrill - GMTV, Just William and Morrissey are all roundly and scathingly thrashed.
For evenings when you are brave enough to go deeper, there's no more searching and observant travelling companion to go with into the world's worst places. His account of The Congo is unflinching and unforgettable.
Gill is widely held as one of the best foreign correspondents, a 'giant among journalists', a writer who goes to the far reaches of the human experience and sends back what he sees, and it's pieces like this that earn him those monikers. This collection itself traces an eloquent passage, beginning with a touching and heartfelt note from his editor. It goes on to some of his most poignant pieces, about taking his children on holiday to Africa and the difference between beauty and the sublime, and his most vulnerable, in the essay on being dyslexic. There are glancing sublime little moments like the one where he sees Nelson Mandela smile beatifically at the girl guarding the biscuits on his way out of a photo-shoot, and there are tears in her eyes.
It concludes with his final piece, published in the Sunday Times the day after his death, on Dying. As you close the book, you feel the loss.
Truly one of those collections one should have as a lifetime companion. For those who knew him, 'the Londoner everyone wanted at their table,' blessed they were. Imagine the joy, the gossip, the insights, the sheer unadulterated life-affirming no-holds-barred bitchiness and glee over a table with AA Gill in The Ivy. For those of us who can read him, these collections are a lifetime's store of riches.
August 15, 2021
I spotted this book in my local public library and had no idea who A.A Gill was but i thought it looked interesting so i'd give it a go.
Apparently this guy used to write a much loved column in one of the big Sunday newspapers in the UK. The sort of column that a lot of people looked forward to every week and thoroughly enjoyed.
The book is divided up into various topics. The food writing is both informative and funny. It gives off a real Jeremy Clarkson "chap about town" vibe which i quite enjoy. The piece about the true use and potential of cabbage was well worth reading and remembering.
The news stories from various war zones and refugee camps i didn't enjoy. I can't stand rich white people who are so passionate about poor brown and black people in foreign countries while mostly ignoring or despising the poor white people in their own country. Just one of my personal peeves.
The television reviews where laugh out loud funny and razor sharp.
The various musings on life towards the end of the book were quite enjoyable.
One the whole a very enjoyable book. Glad i picked it up.
Apparently this guy used to write a much loved column in one of the big Sunday newspapers in the UK. The sort of column that a lot of people looked forward to every week and thoroughly enjoyed.
The book is divided up into various topics. The food writing is both informative and funny. It gives off a real Jeremy Clarkson "chap about town" vibe which i quite enjoy. The piece about the true use and potential of cabbage was well worth reading and remembering.
The news stories from various war zones and refugee camps i didn't enjoy. I can't stand rich white people who are so passionate about poor brown and black people in foreign countries while mostly ignoring or despising the poor white people in their own country. Just one of my personal peeves.
The television reviews where laugh out loud funny and razor sharp.
The various musings on life towards the end of the book were quite enjoyable.
One the whole a very enjoyable book. Glad i picked it up.
October 15, 2018
I’m not sure if the is the best of the author’s writing but is a fantastic assortment.
A. A. Gill was a one of a kind. His writing is exceptional his humor is delightful and his insights especially around subjects he was passionate about were beyond compare.
Yes the collection has some restaurant reviews but not the ones where he skewers everything about the dining experience. His take on Starbucks is quite amusing, I still think he was one of the top travel writers ever, his story on Monte Carlo is hysterical, his travels to many other locations are not funny at all and will likely hit you where it hurts and remind you how fortunate we are to be born in a modern first world country, but what seals this book as being superb is when he takes it to a personal level.
How many people would be brave enough to write a newspaper column and discuss
1. Their alcoholism and the time spent in rehab.
2. Their dyslexia
3. Their going to the doctor, finding they have cancer, starting Chemo and being told it’s too late.
The world lost an amazing man the day this author died.
A. A. Gill was a one of a kind. His writing is exceptional his humor is delightful and his insights especially around subjects he was passionate about were beyond compare.
Yes the collection has some restaurant reviews but not the ones where he skewers everything about the dining experience. His take on Starbucks is quite amusing, I still think he was one of the top travel writers ever, his story on Monte Carlo is hysterical, his travels to many other locations are not funny at all and will likely hit you where it hurts and remind you how fortunate we are to be born in a modern first world country, but what seals this book as being superb is when he takes it to a personal level.
How many people would be brave enough to write a newspaper column and discuss
1. Their alcoholism and the time spent in rehab.
2. Their dyslexia
3. Their going to the doctor, finding they have cancer, starting Chemo and being told it’s too late.
The world lost an amazing man the day this author died.
June 24, 2018
4.5 stars. This book made me laugh, at the sharpness of AA Gill's observations and at his one-liners. It made me exult, to know that there was a writer in the world who was so fearless and so moral without being moralistic, and who knew how to rock a simile. It tugged at my heartstrings and at my conscience, as I read articles that highlighted man's inhumanity to man. And by God, it made me sad, to know that such a brilliant writer is no longer with us. But he left a huge legacy. And I think it's up to all of us who create, or who care about this world at all, to fight against the forces of blandness, political correctness and moral righteousness, just as he did.
November 29, 2019
Arranged in four sections (Food, Away, Television and Life), this well-chosen selection of the late, great, brilliant, savage and hilarious Gill’s work, 72 columns dating from the mid-1990s, up until his December 2016 Sunday Times column ‘Dying’, a heartbreakingly honest meditation on his own end is a fantastic book.
He’s at his funniest, of course when he’s savaging something grotesque – Pizza Hut’s ‘burger pizza’, Brexit or Morrissey. His description of “… something dead and mutilated, possibly dragged from a canal…” could be about any of them, really. He obliterates all three in great style, anyway.
But he’s at his best, his angriest and most compassionate, when writing about the plight of refugees, especially in Lampedusa and Kos. “The one thing the refugees and the Europeans both agree on is that Europe is a place of freedom, fairness and safety. It turns out that one of us is mistaken and the other is lying.”
Generally, as you’d expect, ‘Away’ and ‘Life’ are by far the most serious sections (although his 2014 ‘Hatchet Job of the Year Award’ winning review of Morrissey’s autobiography is placed in the latter) and his travels (his love for Africa, the Scottish highlands and his scorn of Monte Carlo “a waiting room for purgatory”), and his thoughts on his own life – most notably on fatherhood, addiction and his cancer – are endlessly fascinating and thought-provoking.
Surprisingly, the best of the lot is a lengthy 1999 GQ piece on his experiences writing and directing a porn film. A serious, respectful look at a maligned industry, he convincingly argues that porn stars are like athletes. “They take it seriously. They train, they’re focused and they’re very, very good. Is a girl with breast implants who’ll take two penises up her backside any weirder than a shot-putter who’ll take male hormones to throw a cannonball? There’s no question which gives the most pleasure to watch. But one is a national hero and the other a seedy pariah. It doesn’t make sense.”
Few things in the world really make sense, and it’s arguably an even less rational, understandable place without Gill to help explain it. Or simply make fun of it.
He’s at his funniest, of course when he’s savaging something grotesque – Pizza Hut’s ‘burger pizza’, Brexit or Morrissey. His description of “… something dead and mutilated, possibly dragged from a canal…” could be about any of them, really. He obliterates all three in great style, anyway.
But he’s at his best, his angriest and most compassionate, when writing about the plight of refugees, especially in Lampedusa and Kos. “The one thing the refugees and the Europeans both agree on is that Europe is a place of freedom, fairness and safety. It turns out that one of us is mistaken and the other is lying.”
Generally, as you’d expect, ‘Away’ and ‘Life’ are by far the most serious sections (although his 2014 ‘Hatchet Job of the Year Award’ winning review of Morrissey’s autobiography is placed in the latter) and his travels (his love for Africa, the Scottish highlands and his scorn of Monte Carlo “a waiting room for purgatory”), and his thoughts on his own life – most notably on fatherhood, addiction and his cancer – are endlessly fascinating and thought-provoking.
Surprisingly, the best of the lot is a lengthy 1999 GQ piece on his experiences writing and directing a porn film. A serious, respectful look at a maligned industry, he convincingly argues that porn stars are like athletes. “They take it seriously. They train, they’re focused and they’re very, very good. Is a girl with breast implants who’ll take two penises up her backside any weirder than a shot-putter who’ll take male hormones to throw a cannonball? There’s no question which gives the most pleasure to watch. But one is a national hero and the other a seedy pariah. It doesn’t make sense.”
Few things in the world really make sense, and it’s arguably an even less rational, understandable place without Gill to help explain it. Or simply make fun of it.
May 14, 2022
There's a hint of pomposity that surrounds the voice of this collection. Although I dare say they'd lament that diagnosis. It smacks of the way Jeremy Clarkson (a friend of this writer) presents himself as a champion of the working class but in reality wouldn't be seen dead with them. The scent of envy is at play. Those who are higher up the ladder are ripped to shreds. Those at the bottom are pitied but not directly aided.
I don't profess to know the guy. That's just the feeling I'm left with after reading this fantastically witty collection. Sharp and in places cruel, but justifiably so (mostly). There were moments where I felt the writer was a little too firmly entrenched in an affluent haze to be taken seriously when it came to his moral pronouncements.
Best Essays:
✒️ Dinner Parties (p5)
How much he hates them. How they should have died out as an activity. I was watching a lot of Come Dine With Me at the time and so I couldn't help but agree. Except that watching a car crash is terribly fun for those observing from a safe distance, no matter how mangled those within might end up.
✒️ Pomegranate (p18)
A brief glimpse of his childhood. Picking a Pomegranate over fish and chips and how it was a metaphor for his time in the Hades of a vegetarian boarding school. How much we attach our emotions to food. To soothe us.
✒️ Starbucks (p28)
How did they get everywhere? And he's so funny about the lack of quality.
✒️ Refugee Journey (p210)
'The one thing the refugees and Europeans both agree on is that Europe is a place of freedom, fairness and safety. It turns out that one of us is mistaken and the other is lying.'
Powerful words and a look into the face of the real, rather than the imagined, people fleeing their homes.
I don't profess to know the guy. That's just the feeling I'm left with after reading this fantastically witty collection. Sharp and in places cruel, but justifiably so (mostly). There were moments where I felt the writer was a little too firmly entrenched in an affluent haze to be taken seriously when it came to his moral pronouncements.
Best Essays:
✒️ Dinner Parties (p5)
How much he hates them. How they should have died out as an activity. I was watching a lot of Come Dine With Me at the time and so I couldn't help but agree. Except that watching a car crash is terribly fun for those observing from a safe distance, no matter how mangled those within might end up.
✒️ Pomegranate (p18)
A brief glimpse of his childhood. Picking a Pomegranate over fish and chips and how it was a metaphor for his time in the Hades of a vegetarian boarding school. How much we attach our emotions to food. To soothe us.
✒️ Starbucks (p28)
How did they get everywhere? And he's so funny about the lack of quality.
✒️ Refugee Journey (p210)
'The one thing the refugees and Europeans both agree on is that Europe is a place of freedom, fairness and safety. It turns out that one of us is mistaken and the other is lying.'
Powerful words and a look into the face of the real, rather than the imagined, people fleeing their homes.
June 25, 2023
I knew very little about this author before starting the book. I subsequently found out a bit more about him. Maybe not knowing would have helped me through it, as some of the details of his life and behaviour are far from palatable.
He undoubtedly writes well, but the controversy around his opinions and statements lingers on. Whether he is writing about food or politics, there is a sharp tongue waiting to lash out.
It is difficult to put feelings to one side and admire all these essays, but some are certainly very good indeed. Maybe the answer is to pick and choose, which is the way I read it. Select what appeals and read on. Not everything is of such a high standard, so in the end I stuck to the topics which interested me most. Food and drink are definitely what he was most famous about, but I found the essay on Europe and Brexit truly superb. A personal matter, really. Killing a baboon for the sake of it is not something I will ever understand.
He undoubtedly writes well, but the controversy around his opinions and statements lingers on. Whether he is writing about food or politics, there is a sharp tongue waiting to lash out.
It is difficult to put feelings to one side and admire all these essays, but some are certainly very good indeed. Maybe the answer is to pick and choose, which is the way I read it. Select what appeals and read on. Not everything is of such a high standard, so in the end I stuck to the topics which interested me most. Food and drink are definitely what he was most famous about, but I found the essay on Europe and Brexit truly superb. A personal matter, really. Killing a baboon for the sake of it is not something I will ever understand.
December 21, 2021
Without a shadow of a doubt one of the best books I’ve ever read.
I first came across AA Gill when flicking through a copy GQ in my mid-teens. His reputation was fairly clear at the time but it wasn’t until I read his final piece on having “the full English” of cancers that he stood out. I’ve thought about that article ever since reading it.
As a collection of his finest work by those who knew him best it’s of little surprise just how good this book is. He wrote in a way I’ve never seen before - raw, hilarious, and tangible. The breakdown of the fourth wall and constant addressing of the reader (and the context in which they were likely to be reading ie to your family over Sunday breakfast) displays an uncanny ability to understand what great writing is.
Rarely have a laughed out loud at a book but this couldn’t keep a smile off my face.
I first came across AA Gill when flicking through a copy GQ in my mid-teens. His reputation was fairly clear at the time but it wasn’t until I read his final piece on having “the full English” of cancers that he stood out. I’ve thought about that article ever since reading it.
As a collection of his finest work by those who knew him best it’s of little surprise just how good this book is. He wrote in a way I’ve never seen before - raw, hilarious, and tangible. The breakdown of the fourth wall and constant addressing of the reader (and the context in which they were likely to be reading ie to your family over Sunday breakfast) displays an uncanny ability to understand what great writing is.
Rarely have a laughed out loud at a book but this couldn’t keep a smile off my face.
February 27, 2023
The best way to consume this book would be to read one a day or one a week like their original outings in a Sunday newspaper. The writing is so good, it makes you stop and re-read. These essays are exquisite truffles to be treasured and digested one at a time. I promised myself I would just a few every day but I found myself devouring the next one as soon as I finished one.
AA Gill would make a great dinner guest as long as the other guests weren’t too sensitive. He’s been off the drink since he was 30 years old but he sounds like he’s still on it. Is it something to do with the fact that he dictates his stories from his own unreadable writing? Whatever it is, he’s hugely entertaining and this collection is the best of the best.
Sure he’s misogynistic and exploits famines and migrants; desperate plights for the propagation of his own stories sharpened with crocodile tears. He’s a friend of Jeremy Clarkson, alpha male apex predator, but he throws poor Jeremy under the bus as well as he describes a lunch in Stow-in-the-Wold.
Possibly the best quote of the book is in the description of Noma which has been awarded the best restaurant in the world many times. It’s in the middle of Copenhagen. His last line is Noma is where the mermaid gets her chips.
Another great quote is when he’s describing Faviken in Sweden: the snow is fresh and powdery as if a suspicious god was dusting the country for fingerprints.
There is a lot of food snobbery in that he loves Noma and the restaurant in Faviken but detests a burger pizza. But he does describe brilliantly the experience of drinking fresh blood from a cow after it was extracted by a Masai man in Kenya. Better than the best steak he’s ever had.
He has a devastating critique of Morrissey where you actually feel sorry for Morrissey – and that’s a fair achievement.
How the book finishes up with his approaching death is very poignant. He was writing right up to the end so he was able to describe what it was like to die with the NHS. Beat that.
AA Gill would make a great dinner guest as long as the other guests weren’t too sensitive. He’s been off the drink since he was 30 years old but he sounds like he’s still on it. Is it something to do with the fact that he dictates his stories from his own unreadable writing? Whatever it is, he’s hugely entertaining and this collection is the best of the best.
Sure he’s misogynistic and exploits famines and migrants; desperate plights for the propagation of his own stories sharpened with crocodile tears. He’s a friend of Jeremy Clarkson, alpha male apex predator, but he throws poor Jeremy under the bus as well as he describes a lunch in Stow-in-the-Wold.
Possibly the best quote of the book is in the description of Noma which has been awarded the best restaurant in the world many times. It’s in the middle of Copenhagen. His last line is Noma is where the mermaid gets her chips.
Another great quote is when he’s describing Faviken in Sweden: the snow is fresh and powdery as if a suspicious god was dusting the country for fingerprints.
There is a lot of food snobbery in that he loves Noma and the restaurant in Faviken but detests a burger pizza. But he does describe brilliantly the experience of drinking fresh blood from a cow after it was extracted by a Masai man in Kenya. Better than the best steak he’s ever had.
He has a devastating critique of Morrissey where you actually feel sorry for Morrissey – and that’s a fair achievement.
How the book finishes up with his approaching death is very poignant. He was writing right up to the end so he was able to describe what it was like to die with the NHS. Beat that.
May 11, 2021
I took a long time to get through this book. The writing is so descriptive, it made me find quotations in every essay. The anger, the contempt, the enthusiasm are expressed with such clarity and precision the words leap off the page. And yet I had never come across his work before - yes, I knew the name, but hadn't seen or looked for his work. My loss, and his death is a loss for all of us with consciences, moral and political convictions, an urge to improve the world and call out our failures, our deliberate ignorance, our self indulgence and self importance. He was no saint, that's clearly stated, but he cared. And that's more important than all the rest.
January 24, 2021
A fantastic collection of essays from a truly seminal writer. Witty, self-depricating, honest and touching. Very few books make me laugh out loud and this managed it - if you're a fan of culture, food and travelling you can't ask for a better guide. Luckily this fine collection had my favourite line of his ("roast beef that tastes like it has been cut off the bottom of the Morris men’s pantomime horse") and many other writings that I myself, an avowed fan, completely missed. We have it on our coffee table at home and whenever I'm bored or sad I'll read it - never fails to engross me.
February 21, 2020
a collection of essays sorted by category and then chronologically. i wish they just did them all chronologically together because reading 100 pages of food reviews was not fun - even though he barely reviewed the food, was more just essays about things that happened to him whilst he went to review food. the essays on tv aren't great either, but the ones on travel and life are good. considering gill is supposedly a "controversial" figure his essays all seem pretty liberal.
May 30, 2020
I wanted to like this more as it’s a celebration of the writing of A A Gill. Although he lived life to the fullest, his searing criticism can sometimes be too much of a good thing. This collection comprising 20 years of Gill’s columns is, by turns controversial and funny, but is also sad and has a tiring sameness to it. I quickly moved on to something more uplifting as this record seemed to be stuck in the same groove.
November 30, 2017
A new favourite writer. Love his wit and descriptive prose. This book is an entertaining collection of articles by Gill that appeared in publications including, The Sunday Times, Vanity Fair, Tatler etc. He's inspired a new approach to my weekend blog; a gonzo-style commentary on everything from travel to social media.
July 1, 2019
This should be prescribed reading for everyone everywhere ( unless of course you’re a Morrisey fan .... ). So much more than Restaurants reviews - what a wonderful insightful book on so many topics and makes you consider many of our modern day global dilemmas in a more humane and considered manner. Thank u AA Gill :)
September 11, 2019
My review of Gill's books could never be erudite, explicit, amusing like his own columns, journalism, books, observation. He wasn't always my favourite personality, but I would go as far as to say as he was one of my favorite writers and I have to say there is a hole left in this world for me, since his passing.
April 14, 2019
An exceptionally talented writer with an absolutely authentic voice. The breadth of journalism is astonishing. The restaurant pieces in particular are outstanding. Irreverent, erudite and very, very funny.
August 28, 2019
There's some overlap with Lines in the Sand, another AA Gill best-of, but really, who cares: Gill was fantastic. Funny, moving, adventurous, learned, daring and, ultimately of course, tragic. We're lucky to have as many collections of his work as we can get.
May 8, 2020
AA Gill is really one of the greatest journalists of the 21st century. He is so honest and thoughtful about the world around us. Ate the book in 1 week (that is fast for me!) Loved it highly recommend!
June 15, 2020
A superb collection of essays that will make you alternately laugh and cry. His essay on Europe is particularly apposite, as is the last essay in the volume about his cancer diagnosis. Makes me want to read more. A great introduction.
June 27, 2021
An absolute joy to read a collection of AA Gill’s best bits - surely one of the giants of jornalism, sadly cut down far too young. We all wish we had the balls to say what he says and the ability to write how he does.
August 3, 2022
I couldn't put it down
Great short stories, and such a verity of topics and his writing style absolutely clicks with me. The final story was very touching. What a brave man he was. Highly recommended
Great short stories, and such a verity of topics and his writing style absolutely clicks with me. The final story was very touching. What a brave man he was. Highly recommended
July 16, 2019
"I read very slowly, but I forget very little. And it doesn't matter - books aren't a race. A book doesn't melt or go off. The author's still dead, the words still live."
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