Bury My Heart At W. H. Smith’s

A most entertaining volume of memoir from a legend of science fiction.

A writer’s life can be exciting, unexpected, routine, lonely – and sometimes all on the same day! Brian Aldiss recounts the highs and lows of his professional career in this entertaining and revealing book.

Here are his adventures with publishers, booksellers, agents, other authors, and readers. Here are some of the complex questions of what makes and sustains a successful modern writer. The tales he tells are wry, witty, informative – beginning with his first job at the Oxford bookshop that was to be the setting for his first book of fiction, The Brightfount Diaries, and ending as he undergoes one of the most gruelling experiences of a writer’s life: the publication of a new novel, in this case his brilliant Forgotten Life.

Reviews

‘What comes through..is a man who is gregarious yet private, fun-loving yet deeply thoughtful, arrogant yet humble.’ NEW STATESMAN

'For decades, Brian Aldiss has been among our most prolific and consistently stylish writers.' THE TELEGRAPH

About the author

Brian Aldiss, OBE, is a fiction and science fiction writer, poet, playwright, critic, memoirist and artist. He was born in Norfolk in 1925. After leaving the army, Brian worked as a bookseller, providing the setting for his first book, The Brightfount Diaries (1955). His first published science fiction work was the story ‘Criminal Record’, which appeared in Science Fantasy in 1954. Faber encouraged Brian to pursue his enthusiasm for SF and published Space, Time and Nathaniel (1957). Since then he has written more than 75 books and 300 short stories, many of which are being reissued by The Friday Project.