The Milk of Paradise: Diaries 1993 - Softcover

'Thoroughly irresistable...sparkles with delicious indiscretion and startling observations' -- Country Life 20051201 'The Milk of Paradise "is the provocative last testament of a never dull diarist' -- Catholic Herald 20051209 'As sharp and amusing, as generous and jaundiced, as ever' -- TLS 'Just as querulous, misanthropic, greedy, vain and fascinating as ever. One reads, one deplores -- and reads on with vindictive delight' -- Patrick Skene-Caitling, Sunday Telegraph 'The greatest diarist of our times -- funny, feline and disconcertingly honest, wielding a rapier to Alan Clark's cudgel' -- Jeremy Lewis, The Oldie 'The elegiac tone, the wintriness, gets to be very moving...A major work of literature' -- Roger Lewis, Spectator 'His wonderful diaries demonstrates to anyone with eyes to see that he was a superb chronicler of the human condition' -- Hugh Massingberd, Spectator 'Funny, shrewd, waspish and wise ... Lees-Milne was the greatest diarist of this century, and one of its finest writers' -- Jeremy Lewis, Literary Review 20051001 'Nothing short of phenomenal ! surely the finest diary of the 20th Century, truly a great masterpiece of English literature' -- Hugh Massingberd, Country Life 20051013 'Unique ! a 300-page gossip column, studded with apercus worthy of a great novel' -- Harry Mount, Daily Telegraph 20051029 'Alert and idiosyncratic ! James Lees-Milne is without question one of the finest diarists of the 20th century' -- Selina Hastings, Spectator 20051029 'Crammed with bizarre and funny anecdotes ... this volume splendidly rounds off an exceptional enterprise.' -- The Sunday Times 20051106 'It is his appealingly genuine tone of self-deprecationthat makes so many of his entries endearing.' -- Simon Blow, Independent on Sunday 20051106 'Amusingly irritating, he gives you a fascinating glimpse of what remains of society life today' -- Alan Titchmarsh, Sunday Express 20051204 'Deserves to be celebrated for [its] candour and compulsive readability' -- The Times, Michael Grove 20051203 'The anecdotes are priceless.' -- Observer 20060701 'Altogether an excellent mystery story, which grips the reader all the way through. Contains many ideas which would interest book groups.' -- New Books Mag 20060701 '[Lees-Milne's] final volume sparkles as brightly as its 11 predecessors, still full of gossip, sharp of eye and ear and only occasionally malicious. A bit of a snob? Maybe, but who cares? His delight in both people and places is positively touching' -- Sunday Telegraph / Seven 20060701 '[Lees-Milne's] journals are famous for their bitchiness but, in the long run, they are more impressive for their honesty and the way he communicates the small sensations of being alive' -- The Sunday Times 20060701 'Some diarists decline in interest as they age. Not Lees-Milne !wonderful, addictive' -- Evening Standard 20060710 'At times extremely funny, at other times a royal pain in the arse' -- Sunday Tribune 20060730

The twelfth and final volume of James Lees-Milne's magnificent diary covers the last five years of his life, until a few weeks before his death at the age of eighty-nine. Old age and infirmity have not diminished his interest in life, and he expresses sharp and original views on everything from modern architecture to New Labour. After the loss of his bossy but beloved wife Alvilde, he devotes himself to visiting friends, observing their habits and relishing their gossip and anecdotes. Whether describing an afternoon with the Prince of Wales, a week-end at Chatsworth, a nostalgic return to the scenes of his youth or a day at the latest London exhibitions, he displays the same mixture of candour, waspish wit, eloquent exasperation and human understanding which has delighted his readers since the first of these volumes appeared in 1975.