Alive, alive oh! and other things that matter
By: Diana Athill
Edition: First American edition.
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 168
ISBN-13: 9780393253719
Subjects: Aging; Life; Women editors; Editors; English Authors; Memory in old age; Old age; English Women authors; Biography
Description: "A luminous, wise, and joyful insight into what really matters at the end of a long life, from the beloved author of the award-winning Somewhere Towards the End. What will you remember if you live to be 100? Diana Athill charmed readers with her prize-winning memoir Somewhere Towards the End, which transformed her into an unexpected literary star. Now, on the eve of her ninety-eighth birthday, Athill has written a sequel every bit as unsentimental, candid, and beguiling as her most beloved work. Writing from her cozy room in Highgate, London, Diana begins to reflect on the things that matter after a lifetime of remarkable experiences, and the memories that have risen to the surface and sustain her in her very old age. 'My two valuable lessons are: avoid romanticism and abhor possessiveness,' she writes. In warm, engaging prose she describes the bucolic pleasures of her grandmother's garden and the wonders of traveling as a young woman in Europe after the end of the Second World War. As her vivid, textured memories range across the decades, she relates with unflinching candor her harrowing experience as an expectant mother in her forties and crafts unforgettable portraits of friends, writers, and lovers. A pure joy to read, Alive, Alive Oh! sparkles with wise and often very funny reflections on the condition of being old. Athill reminds us of the joy and richness of every stage of life--and what it means to live life fully, without regrets" --
Notes: "First published in Great Britain by Granta Publications" [2015] -- Verso title page.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: My grandparents' garden; title: Post-war; title: 'Oh tell me gentle shepherd, where . . .' thoughts; title: On the attempted revolution in trinidad and tobago; title: Alive, alive-o!; title: This bit ought not to be true; title: The decision; title: A life of luxuries; title: Lessons; title: Beloved books; title: Dead right; title: What is.