Instead of a Book
Letters to a Friend
Published on 3. February 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
352 pages
978-1-78378-789-0 (ISBN)
Description
Written with an intimacy and spontaneity even more revealing than her celebrated memoirs, Diana Athill's correspondence with the American poet Edward Field covers thirty years of pleasure and pain, fame and gossip, relationships and ailments. Edited, selected and introduced by Athill, this collection of those letters covers her career as an editor and the adventure of her retirement, revealing a sharply intelligent woman with a keen eye for the absurd, a brilliant turn of phrase and a wicked sense of humour. Vivid, direct and entertaining, Instead of a Book is a wonderful insight into a woman growing older without ever losing her zest for life.
Reviews / Votes
Fascinating and surprising ... Athill is a wonderful letter writer - always aware of the need to entertain and beguile the reader ... Every page of this book shows that Athill's eye is as beady as ever -- Daisy Goodwin * Sunday Times * Encounter again, the sheer joy of her brisk, wry and hugely energetic prose -- Christina Patterson * Independent * These are vivid reports on life in late 20th-century Britain as experienced by a writer, editor, daughter, partner and pensioner with an extraordinarily "beady eye" on human relations and a phenomenal capacity for making the most of everything that comes her way ... She owes us nothing. She has given a very great deal -- Alexandra Harris * Guardian * She documents her dotage with affecting candour ... Athill is never remotely maudlin or self-pitying, and she describes beautifully those "lovely moments of pure being" that make it all worthwhile -- David Evans * Financial Times * A joy to read ... Grand, splendid and wonderfully entertaining, Athill makes you hope that letter-writing is not a lost art -- Tina Jackson * Metro * Athill is wonderful - always aware of the need to entertain and beguile her reader ... Fascinating and surprising -- Daisy Goodwin * Sunday Times * A superb description of a woman growing older without losing her sense of humour or enthusiasm for life * Daily Telegraph * Spirited sketches of OAP life... tackles the big questions through the small increments -- Alexandra Harris * Guardian * A revealing document... There's a disarming honesty in the detail of [her] daily struggles with domesticity and mortality * Big Issue in the North * The keenly intelligent letters between Athill and her friend, the American poet Edward Field, provide an intimate insight into the relationship between the two writers * Good Homes *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 502 mm
Thickness: 31 mm
Weight
246 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78378-789-0 (9781783787890)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Previous edition
Book
10/2012
Granta Books
€32.37
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Person
DIANA ATHILL was born in 1917. She helped Andre Deutsch establish the publishing company that bore his name and worked as an editor for Deutsch for four decades. She is the author of eight volumes of memoirs - Stet, Instead of a Letter, After a Funeral, Yesterday Morning, Make Believe, Somewhere Towards the End, Alive, Alive Oh!, A Florence Diary - a collection of letters, Instead of a Book, and a novel, Don't Look At Me Like That, all published by Granta, as well as a collection of short stories, Midsummer Night in the Workhouse (Persephone Books). In January 2009, she won the Costa Biography Award for Somewhere Towards the End, and was presented with an OBE. She died in January 2019.