by Diana Athill
First published 2016
Diana Athill sits in her room at a Highgate care home, approaching her ninety-eighth birthday. The celebrated memoirist has spent nearly a decade as a leading voice on aging since her surprise bestseller made her famous. Now she turns inward to examine what truly matters after a lifetime of extraordinary experiences. She moves through her memories in order, from childhood days in her grandmother's garden to the terror of pregnancy in her forties. Each recollection arrives with startling clarity. The bucolic scenes of youth give way to adult challenges and unexpected joys at every turn. Athill writes with the same precise elegance that made her previous work beloved. She offers no sentiment, only honest observation about the memories that have surfaced to sustain her. This memoir captures both the texture of a remarkable life and the process of distilling meaning from decades of living.
Genres: autobiography, contemporary, memoir, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: introspective, memoir
Setting: Highgate
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
168 pages · Hardcover · W. W. Norton & Company