Brian Nicholls is the author of four distinctive books.

Two memoirs. A novella. A novel. 

Scroll down and check them out...

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) based his judgement on books on the Roman poet Horace’s division of good authors who ‘simply delight’ us and the great ones who ‘mix the useful with the sweet’. This notion was so current in the Renaissance that great authors such as Rabelais and Ronsard were often called utiles-doux (‘useful-delightful’).

Useful and delightful. This is what I aim for.

Wanderlust

Tess is experienced and erotic.
Gretl wilful and illusive.
Vicky perverse, vulgar and wounded.
Julie a tantalising trickster...

A provocative and disarmingly honest memoir of a young Australian’s romantic misadventures in 1960s London at the beginning of the Permissive Age. A beguiling and powerful story of love, infatuation, folly, despair and guilt.

A Saucepan in the Sky

‘The most you can expect,’ Uncle Stan said, ‘is for things to almost make sense.’

A Saucepan in the Sky is the story of a boy who thinks anything can be explained if you have the right word − hence his quest for a really big dictionary. But through his family he gets an inkling that a thing called paradox plays a great part in the workings of the world.

A Suitcase in the Desert

Two lost children
A man in search of himself
An unforgiving land
An unlikely romance
A murder...

Matt Hudson is an emotionally damaged homicide detective who has dented his code of honour and lost a clear purpose in life.

Darkling

A Journey Among Heroes in Search of Final Things.

On a plane bound for London George Brent reveals to a stranger-confidant a plan that is calculated and rational yet filled with poetic imagination. He becomes a knight-errant believing his death is the last remarkable thing that will happen to him.

What readers say

This is the first time in my long life that I have felt IMPELLED to convey to a writer my opinion of his/her work. I began reading A Saucepan in the Sky at 6 am and finished it at 11.30 am. Couldn’t put it down. Haven’t been able to do anything else since then except think about it and read extracts to my husband over tea and lunch breaks.

J.W. Tumbarumba, NSW.
A Saucepan in the Sky

A classic. A lovely book.

A.M. Canberra.
A Saucepan in the Sky

I laughed the whole afternoon as I read it. How delightful in this grim world to find such humour.

P.W. Berwick, Vic.
A Saucepan in the Sky

I liked the surprise of it, the feeling that anything could happen. There is a time in life when one enters any open door. I guess that’s how you grow up.

R.W. Leura, NSW
Wanderlust

Never a dull moment.

50 something
A Saucepan in the Sky

Nostalgic as well as immediate… and thoroughly engrossing.

A.T. Glebe, NSW.
A Saucepan in the Sky

Paints a vivid picture of a colourful extended family. A compelling tale.

Sunday Age
A Saucepan in the Sky

Your book is an affirmation of something or other that is probably too big to put a label on.

P.J. Paddington, NSW.
A Saucepan in the Sky

Your book has helped me understand the men in my life so much more… and recognise the enormous value of parenting and mentoring the unique nature of boys.

C.S. Pymble, NSW.
A Saucepan in the Sky

What a mixture! An awkward Aussie, a few screwball mates and four fascinating women. I don't think I've ever read a book before that so revealingly describes the influence a woman can have on a man - for better and for worse!

J.P Murrumbeena, Vic
Wanderlust

A Saucepan in the Sky has a lot more going for it than just a great title. Nicholls gets the child’s voice just right, no mean feat without getting mawkish

Marrickville Heritage Society Newsletter
A Saucepan in the Sky

Comic and loving…the reader is hooked from the beginning. You’ll want to raise your glass to Brian and his gang of relatives.

Geelong Advertiser
A Saucepan in the Sky

About ClarrieMay Publishing

The ClarrieMay Publishing photo-logo shows Brian’s father Clarence George Nicholls (1915-2004) and mother Eileen May Nicholls (nee Hudson) (1919-1989) on their honeymoon at Luna Park, Sydney in 1935.

They were married for over fifty years. They survived many set-backs and difficult years including the Great Depression of 1929-1933, and long separations during the Second World War.

They are major influences in Brian’s childhood memoir A Saucepan in the Sky.