Pour Me

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE ''An intense, succulent read that''s intermittently dazzling'' THE TIMES ''Chilling, exquisitely moving'' DAILY TELEGRAPH ''A superb memoir - and one of the best books on addiction I have ever read'' EVENING STANDARD 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.