No! I Don't Want to Join a Bookclub
Fig Tree
Paperback
: 05 Jul 2007
£8.99
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Synopsis
Too young to get whisked away by a Stannah Stairlift, or to enjoy the luxury of a walk-in bath (but not so much that she doesn't enjoy comfortable shoes), Marie is all the same getting on in years - and she's thrilled about it. She's a bit preoccupied about whether to give up sex - Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! - but there are compensations, like falling in love with her baby grandson, and maybe falling in love with someone else too? Curmudgeonly, acute, touching and funny, this diary is what happens when grumply old women meet Bridget Jones.Interview
Virginia Ironside, author of No! I Don't Want to Join a Bookclub on rotating her friends, Advocaat eaten with a spoon and penguin.co.uk's nasty dose of amnesia.
1. Who or what always puts a smile on your face?
Almost any baby I see in the street.
2. What are you reading at the moment?
Alex Loma’s Jelly Roll Morton, about the great jazz pianist of the 20s and 30s.
3. Which author do you most admire?
It used to be Tolstoy until I re-read Anna Karenina recently and wondered what, exactly, I had seen in him. My favourites now are Nabokov, Graham Greene and Julian Maclaren-Ross.
4. What's your earliest memory?
Sitting on the doorstep of a house in Hampstead with my father, while he showed me how to make “fishbones” out of fern leaves.
5. What is your greatest fear?
That I’ll unwittingly harm someone else.
6. How would you like to be remembered?
I’d like to be remembered as a kind grannie, and a mother who did her best.
7. Have you even done something you've really regretted?
Of course I have! I’m human! And I’m not going to reveal any one of them!
8. How do you spoil yourself?
Disgusting as it may sound, my great treat is a half bottle of Advocaat which I drink/eat with a spoon. I have to say, lest I sound like a terminal alcoholic, that this is something I have only once every couple of years.
9. What's your favourite word/book?
Of Love and Hunger by Julian Maclaren Ross and Lolita by Nabokov
10. Who do you turn to in a crisis?
I turn to whichever of my friends I haven’t recently bored with another crisis. I try to give my friends breaks from my moans now and again, by rotating them.
11. What makes you angry?
I cannot stand seeing children being ignored or shouted at. I think children are our future and should be respected and cherished at all time. Whenever a child I’ve not met comes into a room, I always stand up and shake his or her hand, whatever age they are.
12. Have you ever had any other jobs apart from writing?
I worked as a secretary once to Dame Shirley Williams, who was then working for a left-wing group called the Fabian Society.
13. Are you in love?
Only with my grandsons. And maybe someone else…
14. What's your worst vice?
Checking my emails too often.
15. What are you proudest of?
Having reached the great age of sixty without, so far, dying of gloom.
16. Where do you write?
In my sitting room, in a very comfortable chair with the keyboard on my knees.
17. Where's your favourite city?
My new favourite city is Cadiz, in Spain. I was there recently – it’s a wonderful old-fashioned town, designed on a grid, with the most amazing baroque cathedral and barely a tourist in sight.
18. When was the last time you cried?
Yesterday evening, when someone was telling me about their son. It was rather embarrassing.
19. One wish; what would it be?
To love and be loved by another person.
20. Did you enjoy school?
I hated every single minute of it. That’s one of the reasons that I enjoy life now – life simply could never be as bad as it was when I was young.
Extra questions:
1. Will the printed word endure?
Probably not, but luckily I won’t be around to mourn its passing.
2. Which newspaper do you read?
Independent of course, since I write a weekly column called Dilemmas for it (Mondays if you’re interested).
3. Who/What is your biggest influence?
My father was my biggest influence. He was a very influential figure in my life – and if you want to know more it’s all in my book, Janey and Me, which tells of my childhood with an alcoholic mother.
4. What books are you reading at the moment?
Haven’t you asked this question before? Are you getting Alzheimers? Or is it just Alzheimers Lite as I gather it’s known to us early sixty year olds.
5. What books did you read as a child?
Well Enid Blyton of course, who I loved. Anything by E. Nesbitt. I loved Schoolfriend, the comic, and the Topper. I adored Rider Haggard’s book, and Wilkie Collins Woman in White. I loved Sheridan Le Fanu, too. I was still reading quite Victorian books, like Little Women and Little Lord Fauntleroy, books that no self-respecting child would be seen dead reading these days. There was also a wonderful author called Noel Streatfield, whose books I adored. Not to mention anything by Lorna Hill, whose books used, I remember, to contain a lot of spanking scenes which I, and most other girls I imagine, found rather titillating.
6. Which literary character would you most like to meet?
I don’t think any. I like my characters safely chained into the pages of a book.
7. Which authors do you most admire?
You HAVE got Alzheimers.
8. Where/When do you do most of your writing?
I’ve told you where. When? Whenever I get a moment… when I’m not putting the rubbish out, going to Waitrose, looking after my grandson, chatting on the phone…
Product details
Format :
Paperback
ISBN: 9780141025834
Size : 129 x 198mm
Pages : 256
Published : 05 Jul 2007
Publisher : Fig Tree
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No! I Don't Want to Join a Bookclub
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