After a Funeral.

Politics & Social Sciences

ATHILL, Diana

Social Sciences

JONATHAN CAPE.

This epistolary memoir―rich with Diana Athill's characteristic wit, humor, elegance and honesty―describes a warm, decades-long friendship. Diana Athill is one of our great women of letters. The renowned editor of V. S. Naipaul, Jean Rhys, and many others, she is also a celebrated memoirist whose Somewhere Towards the End was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award winner. For thirty years, Athill corresponded with the American poet Edward Field, freely sharing jokes, pleasures, and pains with her old friend. Letters to a Friend is an epistolary memoir that describes a warm, decades-long friendship. Written with intimacy and spontaneity, candor and grace, it is perhaps more revealing than any of her celebrated books. Edited, selected, and introduced by Athill, and annotated with her own delightful notes, this collection―rich with Athill’s characteristic wit, humor, elegance, and honesty―reveals a sharply intelligent woman with a keen eye for the absurd, a brilliant turn of phrase, and a wicked sense of humor. Covering her career as an editor, the adventure of her retirement, her immersion in her own writing, and her reactions to becoming unexpectedly famous in her old age―including gossip about legendary authors and mutual friends, sharp pen-portraits, and uninhibited accounts of her relationships―Letters to a Friend describes a flourishing friendship and offers a portrait of a woman growing older without ever losing her zest for life.

Letters to a Friend

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

W.W.Norton&Company

Winner of the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography and a New York Times bestseller: a prize-winning, critically acclaimed memoir on life and aging ―“An honest joy to read” (Alice Munro).
Diana Athill is one of the great editors in British publishing. For more than five decades she edited the likes of V. S. Naipaul and Jean Rhys, for whom she was a confidante and caretaker. As a writer, Diana Athill has made her reputation for the frankness and precisely expressed wisdom of her memoirs. Now in her ninety-first year, "entirely untamed about both old and new conventions" (Literary Review) and freed from any of the inhibitions that even she may have once had, Athill reflects candidly, and sometimes with great humor, on the condition of being old―the losses and occasionally the gains that age brings, the wisdom and fortitude required to face death. Distinguished by "remarkable intelligence...[and the] easy elegance of her prose" (Daily Telegraph), this short, well-crafted book, hailed as "a virtuoso exercise" (Sunday Telegraph) presents an inspiring work for those hoping to flourish in their later years.

Somewhere Towards the End: A Memoir

History

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.

Alive, Alive Oh!: And Other Things That Matter

Self-Help

Motivational

Winner of the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography and a New York Times bestseller: a prize-winning, critically acclaimed memoir on life and aging ―“An honest joy to read” (Alice Munro).
Hailed as “a virtuoso exercise” (Sunday Telegraph), this book reflects candidly, sometimes with great humor, on the condition of being old. Charming readers, writers, and critics alike, the memoir won the Costa Award for Biography and made Athill, now ninety-one, a surprising literary star.
Diana Athill is one of the great editors in British publishing. For more than five decades she edited the likes of V. S. Naipaul and Jean Rhys, for whom she was a confidante and caretaker. As a writer, Athill has made her reputation for the frankness and precisely expressed wisdom of her memoirs. Now in her ninety-first year, "entirely untamed about both old and new conventions" (Literary Review) and freed from any of the inhibitions that even she may have once had, Athill reflects candidly, and sometimes with great humor, on the condition of being old―the losses and occasionally the gains that age brings, the wisdom and fortitude required to face death. Distinguished by "remarkable intelligence...[and the] easy elegance of her prose" (Daily Telegraph), this short, well-crafted book, hailed as "a virtuoso exercise" (Sunday Telegraph) presents an inspiring work for those hoping to flourish in their later years.

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

A classic memoir by the author of the New York Times bestseller Somewhere Towards the End.
As a young woman, Diana Athill was engaged to an air force pilot―Instead of a Letter tells how he broke off the engagement, married someone else, and, worst of all, died overseas before she could confront or forgive him. Evoking perfectly the picturesque country setting of her youth, this fearless and profoundly honest story of love and modern womanhood marks the beginning of Athill’s brilliant literary career.

Instead of a Letter: A Memoir

A classic memoir by the author of the New York Times bestseller Somewhere Towards the End. When Diana Athill met the man she calls Didi, she fell in love instantly and out of love just as fast. Didi’s quirks, which at first appeared so charming and sweet, soon revealed a darker side―he was a gambler, a drinker, and a womanizer, impossible to live with but impossible to ignore. After a Funeral explores the years of their friendship; a period that culminated in Didi’s suicide (in Athill’s apartment). This bravura work “gives a new dimension to honesty, a new comprehension to love” (Vogue).

After a Funeral: A Memoir

“What a feast. Diana’s work compels me. . . . She’s got her teeth into life!”―Alice Munro Diana Athill is one of our great women of letters. The renowned editor of V. S. Naipaul, Jean Rhys, and many others, she is also a celebrated memoirist whose Somewhere Towards the End was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award winner. For thirty years, Athill corresponded with the American poet Edward Field, freely sharing jokes, pleasures, and pains with her old friend. Letters to a Friend is an epistolary memoir that describes a warm, decades-long friendship. Written with intimacy and spontaneity, candor and grace, it is perhaps more revealing than any of her celebrated books. Edited, selected, and introduced by Athill, and annotated with her own delightful notes, this collection―rich with Athill’s characteristic wit, humor, elegance, and honesty―reveals a sharply intelligent woman with a keen eye for the absurd, a brilliant turn of phrase, and a wicked sense of humor. Covering her career as an editor, the adventure of her retirement, her immersion in her own writing, and her reactions to becoming unexpectedly famous in her old age―including gossip about legendary authors and mutual friends, sharp pen-portraits, and uninhibited accounts of her relationships―Letters to a Friend describes a flourishing friendship and offers a portrait of a woman growing older without ever losing her zest for life.

“An invitation to sit a spell with an intractable and witty friend.” ―New York Times Book Review
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.

Arts & Literature

Yesterday Morning

By the author of the successful STET. For nearly five decades, Diana Athill helped shape some of the finest books in modern literature, working alongside Andre Deutsch, establishing many of the most prolific writers of the 20th century. She has written three memoirs, which have been acclaimed as classics for their insight, candour and wit. In YESTERDAY MORNING she goes back to the beginning, in a sharp evocation of a childhood unfashionably filled with happiness - a Norfolk country house, servants, the pleasures of horses, the unfolding secrets of adults and sex. This is England in the 1920s, seen, with a clear and unsentimental eye, from the vantage point of England today. It was a privileged and loving life - but did it equip her to be happy?

Reminiscence Large Print

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by ATHILL, Diana. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by ATHILL, Diana

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by ATHILL, Diana. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

After a Funeral.

Letters to a Friend

Somewhere Towards the End: A Memoir

Alive, Alive Oh!: And Other Things That Matter

Somewhere Towards the End: A Memoir

Instead of a Letter: A Memoir

After a Funeral: A Memoir

Letters to a Friend

Alive, Alive Oh!: And Other Things That Matter

Yesterday Morning