Brian Nicholls
Brian Nicholls

The Books
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

An utterly readable account of a memorable ‘ordinary’ environment. Uncle Vic is a ‘funny bugger’ with a Conradian outlook. ‘Uncle’ Stan is wonderfully disreputable. A charming book…as tender a maternal portrait as you will ever read.

Australian Book Review
A Saucepan in the Sky

I really did enjoy it and – the mark of a good book – I definitely did not want it to end.

D.R. Melbourne.
A Saucepan in the Sky

An absolutely delightful read…fascinating.

Sally Loane, ABC Radio
A Saucepan in the Sky

The world that Nicholls evokes is vivid, full of laughter, triumph and tears.

Authortalk, Berkelouw Bookshop
A Saucepan in the Sky

I particularly empathised with the days which for no reason at all become mood days and that thing about times where nothing “happens”.

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

Many of us have memories of our own innocence abroad.

E.B. Roseville, NSW
Wanderlust

The humour and the entertaining bits make one laugh out loud, but underlying this is the layer of pathos and longing. Hyperbole confronts understatement; sensitive and poetic passages of intense sympathy contrast with brutal reality.

A.R. Applecross, WA
Wanderlust

Simple experiences imbued with charm… dilemmas presented clearly in a way that should strike chords of recognition…this is worth reading.

Canberra Times
A Saucepan in the Sky

Philosophical but not academic. A good read. A tribute to women.

S.A Glebe, NSW
Wanderlust

I reluctantly read the last page and immediately wished for more.

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

I’m definitely going to be reading your book over and over because as well as the history behind it there are the constant stories of mischief and humour.

G.P. Healesville, Vic.
A Saucepan in the Sky

Some of the book was comfortably close to home for me: some uncomfortably so.

Bookchat
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.