Listen free for 30 days
-
Pour Me
- A Life
- Narrated by: Dougray Scott
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Art & Literature
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Buy Now for £19.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Far and Away
- The Essential A.A. Gill
- By: A. A. Gill
- Narrated by: Bill Nighy
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book, the second posthumous collection of his journalism, brings together pieces from near and far. He was ferociously well travelled, and once wrote that for all our ability to cross the world at will, 'abroad is as foreign and funny and strange and shocking as it ever was, and our need to know our neighbours every bit as great'. This is a book about meeting those neighbours.
-
-
Superb listen!
- By Anonymous User on 17-01-21
-
My Last Supper
- One Meal, a Lifetime in the Making
- By: Jay Rayner
- Narrated by: Jay Rayner
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You're about to die. What would your final meal be? This question has long troubled Jay Rayner. As a man more obsessed with his lunch than is strictly necessary, the idea of a showpiece last supper is a tantalising prospect. But wouldn't knowledge of your imminent demise ruin your appetite? So, Jay decided to cheat death.
-
-
Easily digestible and entertaining
- By Edenforth on 14-10-19
-
Kitchen Confidential
- By: Anthony Bourdain
- Narrated by: Anthony Bourdain
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After 25 years of 'sex, drugs, bad behaviour and haute cuisine', Chef and novelist Anthony Bourdain decided to tell all. From his first oyster in the Gironde to his lowly position as a dishwasher in a honky-tonk fish restaurant in Provincetown; from the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop the Rockefeller Center to drug dealers in the East Village, from Tokyo to Paris and back to New York again, Bourdain's tales of the kitchen are as passionate as they are unpredictable, as shocking as they are funny.
-
-
Finished this book in 2 sittings.
- By Peter Brookes on 01-08-20
-
Uncle Dysfunctional
- Uncompromising Answers to Life's Most Painful Problems
- By: AA Gill
- Narrated by: Alexander Armstrong
- Length: 4 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From 2011 up until his death at the end of 2016, the inimitable AA Gill reigned supreme as Uncle Dysfunctional, Esquire's resident advice columnist. In this raffish, hilarious, scathing yet often surprisingly humane collection, Gill applies his unmatched wit to the largest and smallest issues of our time. Whether you're struggling to satisfy your other half, having a crisis over your baldness, don't like your daughter's boyfriend or need the definitive rules on shorts, leather jackets and man-bags, AA Gill has all the answers - but you'd better brace yourself first.
-
-
Finally the advice we've all been looking for!
- By Tom on 16-11-17
-
Quitter
- A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery
- By: Erica C. Barnett
- Narrated by: Jean Ann Douglass
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A startlingly frank memoir, Quitter documents one woman's struggles with alcoholism and recovery, with essential new insights into addiction and treatment.
-
-
the best out there
- By Amazon Customer on 04-09-20
-
Bourdain
- In Stories
- By: Laurie Woolever
- Narrated by: Laurie Woolever, full cast
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Anthony Bourdain died in June 2018, fans around the globe came together to celebrate the life of an inimitable man who had dedicated his life to traveling nearly everywhere (and eating nearly everything), shedding light on the lives and stories of others. Now, for the first time, we have been granted a look into Bourdain’s life through the stories and recollections of his closest friends and colleagues. Laurie Woolever, Bourdain’s long-time assistant and confidante, interviewed nearly a hundred of the people who shared Tony’s orbit.
-
-
Moving and honest memorial
- By Louise Leather on 01-12-21
-
Far and Away
- The Essential A.A. Gill
- By: A. A. Gill
- Narrated by: Bill Nighy
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book, the second posthumous collection of his journalism, brings together pieces from near and far. He was ferociously well travelled, and once wrote that for all our ability to cross the world at will, 'abroad is as foreign and funny and strange and shocking as it ever was, and our need to know our neighbours every bit as great'. This is a book about meeting those neighbours.
-
-
Superb listen!
- By Anonymous User on 17-01-21
-
My Last Supper
- One Meal, a Lifetime in the Making
- By: Jay Rayner
- Narrated by: Jay Rayner
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You're about to die. What would your final meal be? This question has long troubled Jay Rayner. As a man more obsessed with his lunch than is strictly necessary, the idea of a showpiece last supper is a tantalising prospect. But wouldn't knowledge of your imminent demise ruin your appetite? So, Jay decided to cheat death.
-
-
Easily digestible and entertaining
- By Edenforth on 14-10-19
-
Kitchen Confidential
- By: Anthony Bourdain
- Narrated by: Anthony Bourdain
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After 25 years of 'sex, drugs, bad behaviour and haute cuisine', Chef and novelist Anthony Bourdain decided to tell all. From his first oyster in the Gironde to his lowly position as a dishwasher in a honky-tonk fish restaurant in Provincetown; from the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop the Rockefeller Center to drug dealers in the East Village, from Tokyo to Paris and back to New York again, Bourdain's tales of the kitchen are as passionate as they are unpredictable, as shocking as they are funny.
-
-
Finished this book in 2 sittings.
- By Peter Brookes on 01-08-20
-
Uncle Dysfunctional
- Uncompromising Answers to Life's Most Painful Problems
- By: AA Gill
- Narrated by: Alexander Armstrong
- Length: 4 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From 2011 up until his death at the end of 2016, the inimitable AA Gill reigned supreme as Uncle Dysfunctional, Esquire's resident advice columnist. In this raffish, hilarious, scathing yet often surprisingly humane collection, Gill applies his unmatched wit to the largest and smallest issues of our time. Whether you're struggling to satisfy your other half, having a crisis over your baldness, don't like your daughter's boyfriend or need the definitive rules on shorts, leather jackets and man-bags, AA Gill has all the answers - but you'd better brace yourself first.
-
-
Finally the advice we've all been looking for!
- By Tom on 16-11-17
-
Quitter
- A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery
- By: Erica C. Barnett
- Narrated by: Jean Ann Douglass
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A startlingly frank memoir, Quitter documents one woman's struggles with alcoholism and recovery, with essential new insights into addiction and treatment.
-
-
the best out there
- By Amazon Customer on 04-09-20
-
Bourdain
- In Stories
- By: Laurie Woolever
- Narrated by: Laurie Woolever, full cast
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Anthony Bourdain died in June 2018, fans around the globe came together to celebrate the life of an inimitable man who had dedicated his life to traveling nearly everywhere (and eating nearly everything), shedding light on the lives and stories of others. Now, for the first time, we have been granted a look into Bourdain’s life through the stories and recollections of his closest friends and colleagues. Laurie Woolever, Bourdain’s long-time assistant and confidante, interviewed nearly a hundred of the people who shared Tony’s orbit.
-
-
Moving and honest memorial
- By Louise Leather on 01-12-21
-
Wishful Drinking
- By: Carrie Fisher
- Narrated by: Carrie Fisher
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher tells the true and intoxicating story of her life with inimitable wit. Born to celebrity parents, she was picked to play a princess in a little movie called Star Wars when only 19 years old. "But it isn't all sweetness and light sabers."
-
-
A life less serious
- By Rebecca on 14-09-09
-
A Greedy Man in a Hungry World
- How (almost) everything you thought you knew about food is wrong
- By: Jay Rayner
- Narrated by: Jay Rayner
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The UK's most influential food and drink journalist shoots a few sacred cows of food culture. The doctrine of local food is dead. Farmers' markets are merely a lifestyle choice for the affluent middle classes. And 'organic' has become little more than a marketing label that is way past its sell-by date. That may be a little hard to swallow for the ethically aware food shopper, but it doesn't make it any less true. And now the UK's most outspoken and entertaining food writer is ready to explain why.
-
-
A great listen
- By Edwin on 21-07-15
-
Bacon in Moscow
- By: James Birch
- Narrated by: Richard E. Grant
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This funny and personal memoir is the account of an audacious attempt by James Birch, a young British curator, to mount the ground-breaking retrospective of Francis Bacon's work at the newly refurbished Central House of Artists, Moscow in 1988. Side-lined by the British establishment, Birch found himself at the heart of a honey-trap and the focus for a picaresque cast of Soviet officials, attachés and politicians under the forbidding eye of the KGB as he attempted to bring an unseen Western cultural icon to Russia during the time of 'Glasnost', just before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
-
-
Fascinating story but
- By Daria Bynoe on 13-02-22
-
Wasted
- An Alcoholic Therapist's Fight for Recovery in a Tragically Flawed Treatment System
- By: Michael Pond, Maureen Palmer
- Narrated by: Michael Pond, Maureen Palmer
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Psychotherapist Michael Pond is no stranger to the devastating consequences of alcoholism. He has helped hundreds of people conquer their addictions, but this knowledge did not prevent his own near-demise. In this riveting memoir, he recounts how he lost his practice, his home, and his family - all because of his drinking.
-
-
Excellent
- By lea stacey on 21-05-21
-
Hunting Unicorns
- By: Bella Pollen
- Narrated by: Alex Jennings, Amber Sealey
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American Maggie Monroe is a journalist for New York's hard-hitting current affairs show Newsline. Independent and fearless, the more cutting-edge the story, the happier she is. But when her next assignment turns out to be an in-depth documentary on the decline of England's ruling classes, she's furious at being sent to cover a bloody tea party.
-
The Devil in the Kitchen
- The Autobiography
- By: Marco Pierre-White, James Steen
- Narrated by: Timothy Bentinck
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Marco Pierre White's mother died when he was just six years old, it transformed his life. Soon his father was urging him to earn his own keep, and by 16 he was working in his first restaurant. White went on to learn from some of the best chefs in the country, such as Albert Roux, Raymond Blanc and Pierre Koffmann. He survived the intense pressure of hundred-hour weeks in the heat of the kitchen, developed his own style and then struck out on his own.
-
-
I used to admire this chef....
- By carreen on 17-12-20
-
Eat a Peach
- A Memoir
- By: David Chang
- Narrated by: David Chang
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2004, Momofuku Noodle Bar opened in Manhattan's East Village. Its young chef-owner, David Chang, served ramen and pork buns to a mix of fellow restaurant cooks and confused diners whose idea of ramen was instant noodles in Styrofoam cups. It would have been impossible to know that he would become one of the most influential chefs of his generation. Full of grace, candour, grit and humour, Eat a Peach chronicles Chang's journey, laying bare his mistakes and feelings of otherness and inadequacy.
-
-
Arrogant, self aggrandising, boring.
- By Miss J Menzies on 24-08-21
-
My Other Life
- A Novel
- By: Paul Theroux
- Narrated by: David Dukes
- Length: 18 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning almost 30 years, My Other Life traces the journey of a fictional Paul Theroux from young bachelorhood in Africa, to his travels between continents, being in and out of marriage, and through affairs and various means of employment. From his early education at the knee of a highly eccentric uncle, until his years as a fledgling novelist in London under the wing of the rapacious Lady Max, this writer of different guises eventually returns alone to his hometown.
-
-
Only the Mask is real.
- By Alberto on 03-09-16
-
Medium Raw
- A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
- By: Anthony Bourdain
- Narrated by: Anthony Bourdain
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is Anthony Bourdain's long-awaited sequel to Kitchen Confidential, the worldwide best seller. A lot has changed since then - for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business, and for Anthony Bourdain. Medium Raw explores these changes, moving back and forth from the author's bad old days to the present.
-
-
I miss this guy, a great voice for the wayward
- By bahahahahahaha on 20-01-21
-
Taste
- My Life Through Food
- By: Stanley Tucci
- Narrated by: Stanley Tucci
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before Stanley Tucci became a household name with The Devil Wears Prada, The Hunger Games, and the perfect Negroni, he grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the table. He shared the magic of those meals with us in The Tucci Cookbook and The Tucci Table, and now he takes us beyond the recipes and into the stories behind them.
-
-
As good as you'd hoped it would be
- By Cozzer on 10-10-21
-
Dry
- A Memoir
- By: Augusten Burroughs
- Narrated by: Augusten Burroughs
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the request (well, it wasn't really a request) of his employers, Augusten lands in rehab, where his dreams of group therapy with Robert Downey Jr. are immediately dashed by grim reality of fluorescent lighting and paper hospital slippers. When Augusten is forced to examine himself, he finds himself in the worst trouble of all. Because when his thirty days are up, he has to return to his same drunken Manhattan life - and live it sober. Dry is the story of love, loss, and Starbucks as a Higher Power
-
-
listened twice. love it.
- By G M F on 12-04-18
-
Stories I Might Regret Telling You
- By: Martha Wainwright
- Narrated by: Martha Wainwright
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born into music royalty, the daughter of folk legends Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III and sister to the highly acclaimed singer Rufus Wainwright, Martha grew up in a world filled with such incomparable folk legends as Leonard Cohen, Anna McGarrigle, Richard and Linda Thompson, Pete Townsend and Emmylou Harris. It was within this loud, boisterous musical milieu that Martha came of age, struggling to find her voice until she exploded onto the music scene.
-
-
An intimate telling of a life worth telling
- By brianpwharton@yahoo.co.uk on 12-04-22
Summary
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 - driven to dry out, not out of a desire to change but mainly through weariness. He tells the truth - as far as he can remember it - about drinking and about what it is like to be drunk.
Pour Me is about the blackouts, the collapse, the despair: 'Pockets were a constant source of surprise - a lamb chop, a votive candle, earrings, notes written on paper and ripped from books' and even, once, a pigeon. 'Morning pockets,' he says, 'were like tiny crime scenes.' He recalls the lost days, lost friends, failed marriages.... But there was also 'an optimum inebriation, a time when it was all golden, when the drink and the pleasure made sense and were brilliant'.
Sobriety regained, there are painterly descriptions of people and places, unforgettable musings about childhood and family, art and religion, friendships and fatherhood 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.
Read by Dougray Scott.
More from the same
Author
Narrator
What listeners say about Pour Me
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Reluctant Reviewer
- 16-04-18
The author would not approve
...of an old sentimentalist writing a review of a critic’s work, but I find it difficult to listen to this without missing the honesty, wit and style of A A Gill.
This book is a fine example of his work and reminded me of what I miss every Sunday morning.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rachel Redford
- 15-08-17
'Every long, hallowed word'
Michele deserves to be named and credited for this, and all of Adrian Gill’s writing. Gill is severely dyslexic, writes on screen and then dictates it all to her. If he leaves it on screen for more than a couple of weeks, he can’t interpret it. This memoir isn’t really a book as a consequence, it’s a kaleidoscopic torrent of engaging, witty, always engaging, disorderly, dictated experiences which may or not be true, anecdotes and musings. This makes it particularly successful on audio. Dougray Scott’s spot-on narration rattles along at high speed, but he mangles many words and his attempt at French (louche, raconteur…) is rubbish. A pity.
Words are Gill’s life blood and this memoir is led by words and not chronology as he darts about from childhood (born in the hospital where Burke and Hare sold their corpses; learning the ‘kiddy patois of internment’ at his boarding school for dyslexics; failure at art school (where the life model’s ‘histrionically hideous’ scrotum dangled to his knees); failure at various jobs including in a Soho sex shop; years of alcoholism until stopping drinking at aged 30 (having been told he wouldn’t see Christmas if he didn’t); years of brilliant journalism; the disappearance of his chef-brother (still a source of deep anguish); the birth of his children and his visceral love for them (very moving); his religion (finding transubstantiation in oil and egg becoming mayonnaise)…. It goes on and on.
Similes (many 30 words long or more as the words spill out like lava) pour out from Gill as generously as he once poured the drink down his throat. Although they can be overdone or just silly, they usually make you laugh. The copy editors discuss sex (one described being ‘shagged by a minaret’ ); the Tatler editor’s smile is ‘like a string of pearls breaking into a urinal’ ; snobbery is like ‘peeing in your pants.’ He’s full of garnered facts – did you know humans are the only species who can eat and make eye contact at the same time?
There are some brilliant parts: one which had particular punch and insight for me was the impassioned talk he gave to a group of dyslexic children - the English language is ‘bigger than any god ever imagined’; words are ‘subtle as dew on a web’ – showing them that they CAN access its riches. Gill certainly has.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- "the_gentleman_of_the_bush"
- 29-06-20
Great Story, Horrible Telling...
If you want to read this then I would recommend the physical copy. Mr. Dooogray Scott's narration must have been done in a single take because it is listless and, as many people have said, full of errors.
Fascinating author though. Can't fault the content.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- K. Sewell
- 31-07-18
Sobering
I love AAGill's way with words, and his own story is no exception. Amazing that he managed to bring himself back from the brink with no remission for the rest of his life. Smoking 60 a day is telling of his addictive personality and most likely contributed to his final illness. If you enjoyed his stark writing, this book will make you both laugh and cry.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- gro bennett
- 17-10-17
Disappointing
Nothing much here. The narrator has a completely different accent to A.A.Gill and just reads it out like he is reading out some boriing rules. Why choose someone with a regional accent? Only stories from when he was very young - nothing about his later life.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tommy Ripley
- 08-08-17
Blood and Wine
Engaging but uneven narrative, for what made AA Gill a great columnist restrains his longer prose, here and elsewhere. He is insightful and often sardonically amusing on a range of subjects, from his own alcoholism to education, but - as he admits - he can't quite rein himself in. The result is wildly uneven, yet there are deeply affecting, perceptive passages such as his account of his lost brother, Nick. Dougray Scott seems a slightly strange choice for narrator, with some bizarre pronunciations throughout, yet he keeps the pace brisk and lively. Gill's untimely death adds poignancy to the recording. An affecting, honest yet optimistic memoir, and not too long.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mark
- 04-08-17
A Man of Letters reflects...
Wistful and poignant with great passages of warmth and humour amidst the sadness. His parents, his brother and the Tatler stand out. Also, the war reporting. The depiction of alcoholism is gut wrenching like watching a train wreck.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- cashmere
- 22-04-22
superb
Thoughtful and lyrical narration of a full and complex life. AA Gill, a journalist that WILL be remembered.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 06-02-22
Rambling and tedious
Could have been a good book but ruined for me by constant rambling on and going off on tangents - just not for me
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- s j moulson
- 28-01-22
Pour me a life.
I absolutely loved it. Recommended by a good friend. I wonderful moving book. A fantastic writer and great Narrator. Thoroughly recommend!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Florence
- 11-08-21
Sumptuously written and read
Going to listen to this again, it’s piece of literary art, I love Adrian’s voice, his thoughtfulness, ideas and raw honesty. There’s great humour too.
Dougray Scott is a wonderful actor and reader, he brings the book and characters alive with his accents, emphasis, and timing - just sumptuous the book and his voice are a perfect match. Loved it and highly recommend it.