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

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

Brian Nicholls creates an array of memorable characters. A lack of sentimentality is a strength of both McCourt’s (Angela’s Ashes) and Nicholls' memoir, but the national humour and idioms of A Saucepan in the Sky stand out as unmistakably Australian.

Independent Scholars Association of Australia Review
A Saucepan in the Sky

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

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

Many of us have memories of our own innocence abroad.

E.B. Roseville, NSW
Wanderlust

Wanderlust talks about things that people think but do not say.

M.B. Coogee, NSW
Wanderlust

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

S.A Glebe, NSW
Wanderlust

An absolutely delightful read from beginning to end. Funny, moving, insightful – and your authorial voice instantly appealed to me.

K.P. St. Leonards, NSW.
A Saucepan in the Sky

So much of it seemed very familiar to my own struggles and wow moments.

A. A. Devon, UK.
A Saucepan in the Sky

Dry, witty, sad, funny and amazingly frank.

E.M. Rozelle, 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

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

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.