Experience (book)

Experience is a book of memoirs by the British author Martin Amis.

Publication history
The book was written primarily in response to the 1995 death of Amis's father, the famed author Kingsley Amis, and was first published in 2000.

Reception
Critical response to Amis's memoir was very warm. In aggregating reviews from the British press upon the book' publication, The Guardian found it received an average rating of 8 out of 10. The book was also generally well-received amongst American press. According to Book Marks, the book received "rave" reviews based on 6 critic reviews with 3 being "rave" and 3 being "positive". Globally, the work was received generally well, with Complete Review saying on the consensus: "Very positive, with many touched by the book. Complaints vary (the teeth, the arrogance, etc.), but by and large most were very impressed.".

James Wood wrote in The Guardian: "Experience is a beautiful, and beautifully strange book, and it is unlike anything one expected." Terence Baker, in The Sunday Times, called it a "careful, heartfelt tribute". Jackie Wullschlager wrote in the Financial Times: "The core here is family, and it is movingly, beautifully, evoked... The raw materials – neurotic, outrageous genius of a father; gorgeous earth-mother Hilly; sophisticated step-mother Elizabeth Jane Howard; stunning girlfriends dropped along the way like a shattering string of pearls; an unknown daughter emerging at 18 – are unbeatable, and Amis makes of them a loving, perceptive, comic portrait."

Awards and Lists
Experience was awarded the 2000 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography. The book has appeared on some critics' lists after and during its time of release. According to The Greatest Books, a site that aggregates book lists, it is "The 1257th greatest book of all time".