Order of Kingsley Amis Books
Kingsley Amis was a prolific author, poet, and critic who was considered to be one of the finest comic novelist of the twentieth century. The Times listed him ninth in their last of the 50 Greatest British Writers since 1945.
Amis went to the City of London School as well as St. John’s college, Oxford. His study was interrupted by World War II, where he served as a lieutenant in the Royal Corps of Signals. He is best known for his first novel, Lucky Jim, and its classic anti-hero Jim Dixon. Amis died in October of 1995 at the age of 73.
Publication Order of Jim Dixon Books
| Lucky Jim | (1954) |    |
| That Uncertain Feeling | (1955) | |
| I Like it Here | (1958) | |
| Lucky Jim's Politics. | (1968) | |
Publication Order of Patrick Standish and Jenny Bunn Books
| Take a Girl Like You | (1960) | |
| Difficulties with Girls | (1988) | |
Publication Order of Spectrum Books
(with Robert Conquest)
| Spectrum I | (1961) | |
| Spectrum II | (1962) | |
| Spectrum III | (1963) | |
| Spectrum IV | (1965) | |
Publication Order of James Bond (Extended) Books
| Colonel Sun | (1968) | |
| License Renewed | (1981) | |
| For Special Services | (1982) | |
| Icebreaker | (1983) | |
| Role of Honor | (1984) | |
| Nobody Lives Forever | (1986) | |
| No Deals, Mr. Bond | (1987) | |
| Scorpius | (1988) | |
| Licence to Kill | (1989) | |
| Win, Lose or Die | (1989) | |
| Brokenclaw | (1990) | |
| The Man from Barbarossa | (1991) | |
| Death Is Forever | (1992) | |
| Never Send Flowers | (1993) | |
| SeaFire | (1994) | |
| GoldenEye | (1995) | |
| Cold Fall | (1996) | |
| Zero Minus Ten | (1997) | |
| Tomorrow Never Dies | (1997) | |
| The Facts of Death | (1998) | |
| The World is Not Enough | (1999) | |
| High Time to Kill | (1999) | |
| Doubleshot | (2000) | |
| Never Dream of Dying | (2001) | |
| The Man With the Red Tattoo | (2002) | |
| Die Another Day | (2002) | |
| Devil May Care | (2008) | |
| Carte Blanche | (2011) | |
| Solo | (2013) | |
| Trigger Mortis | (2015) | |
| Forever and a Day | (2018) | |
| With a Mind to Kill | (2022) | |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| My Enemy's Enemy | (1962) | |
| One Fat Englishman | (1963) | |
| The Egyptologists | (1966) | |
| The Anti-Death League | (1966) | |
| I Want It Now | (1968) | |
| The Green Man | (1969) | |
| Girl, 20 | (1971) | |
| Dear Illusion | (1972) | |
| The Riverside Villas Murder | (1973) | |
| Ending Up | (1974) | |
| The Crime of the Century | (1975) | |
| The Alteration | (1976) | |
| The Darkwater Hall Mystery | (1978) | |
| Jake's Thing | (1978) | |
| Russian Hide-and-Seek | (1980) | |
| Stanley and the Women | (1984) | |
| The Old Devils | (1986) | |
| The Folks That Live on the Hill | (1990) | |
| We Are All Guilty | (1991) | |
| The Russian Girl | (1992) | |
| The Biographer's Moustache | (1995) | |
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
| Bright November | (1947) | |
| A Frame of Mind | (1953) | |
| A Case of Samples | (1956) | |
| A Look Around the Estate | (1967) | |
| Collected Poems, 1944-1979 | (1979) | |
| Collected Short Stories | (1980) | |
| The Pleasure of Poetry | (1990) | |
| Mr. Barrett's Secret and Other Stories | (1993) | |
| Complete Stories | (2011) | |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| New Maps of Hell | (1960) | |
| The James Bond Dossier | (1965) | |
| What Became of Jane Austen? | (1970) | |
| Tennyson | (1972) | |
| On Drink | (1972) | |
| Rudyard Kipling and His World | (1975) | |
| Harold's Years | (1977) | |
| An Arts Policy? | (1979) | |
| Everyday Drinking | (1983) | |
| How's Your Glass? | (1984) | |
| The Great British Songbook | (1986) | |
| The Amis Collection | (1990) | |
| Memoirs | (1991) | |
| Kingsley Amis in Life and Letters | (1991) | |
| You Can't Do Both | (1994) | |
| The King's English | (1996) | |
| The Letters of Kingsley Amis | (2000) | |
| Conversations with Kingsley Amis | (2009) | |
| Raising a Smile | (2019) | |
Publication Order of Anthologies
| The Faber Popular Reciter | (1921) | |
| Writing in America | (1962) | |
| Five-Odd / Possible Tomorrows | (1964) | |
| Spectrum IV | (1965) | |
| The Best of British SF 2 | (1977) | |
| The New Oxford Book of Light Verse | (1978) | |
| Best for Winter | (1979) | |
| The Golden Age of Science Fiction | (1981) | |
| The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories | (1987) | |
| The Amis Anthology | (1988) | |
| The Little Book of Horrors: Tiny Tales of Terror | (1992) | |
| The Young Oxford Book of Nightmares | (2000) | |
If You Like Kingsley Amis Books, You’ll Love…
The novel that Amis is best known for is Lucky Jim. This book follows Jim Dixon as a hapless medieval professor at a university. His story of trying to hold onto this job that he’s not good at and pursuing the girlfriend of a senior professor’s son make up the plot, but they often take a backseat to the pure humor and crazy situations that Jim puts himself in throughout the novel. Despite being published over sixty years ago, the humor in this remains hilarious and the satire is scathing. Jim is a politically incorrect character and very much of his time.
Another classic Amis novel is Girl, 20. This one sees Amis turn his eye to the flower power era of the 1960s. Sir Roy Vandervane is a composer and conductor, a member of the high society, who falls in love with the 60s: bell bottoms, electric guitars, and protest. Vandervane has a taste for younger women and his target in this one is a highborn hippie named Sylvie who isn’t quite 20. The story is told by Douglas Yandell, a music critic and Roy’s much younger drinking buddy. This book is Amis at his best and most hilarious.