Intermittent Journals

"More, please Dannie" said The Sunday Times on the publication of Journals from the Ant-Heap in 1986. Intermittent Journals answers that call, bringing back into print that book and adding to it Notes Mainly from the Clinic (1981), unpublished new jottings 1987-1992, and a specially commissioned journal for 1993, Abse's seventieth birthday year.

Doctors becoming ill, the shortcomings of opera, phoning Larkin from America, the peer with the Harold Wilson pin-up, the etiquette of poetry readings, this is Abse on the human race and, as his grandson corrects him, the egg-and-spoon race of life too. Witty, pointed, tender, gently self-mocking, Intermittent Journals is a stimulating, sometimes argumentative set of contemplations provoking both outright laughter and pause for serious thought.

"A delightful diary… warm, witty and wise... beautiful observation"

Graham Lord, Sunday Express

"The most elegant diary columns since literacy went out of fashion… consistent brilliance"

Gerald Priestland

Dannie Abse (b.1923) was born in Cardiff and studied Medicine at Cardiff, King's College and Westminster Hospital. A poet, novelist, playwright, he has also published diaries and autobiography. He has published eleven volumes of poetry including a Collected Poems.