Somewhere towards the end

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Diana Athill

"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" --

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Jeanette Winterson

Memories of the author about her difficult childhood as the adopted daughter of an English mother with strong religious convictions, and her subsequent search for her biological mother.

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Navin Chawla

Mother Teresa's name immediately conjures up a vision of a small, frail woman in a white sari, offering love and compassion to the poorest of the poor who live in the slums of Calcutta, in cardboard boxes in London, in the ghettos of New York, and in the shadow of the Vatican itself. In recognition of her unique work, the world has lavished on her its highest honors and awards, from the Nobel Peace Prize to the Order of Merit presented by Queen Elizabeth. These she has accepted only in the name of the poor, whom she and her Missionaries of Charity so devotedly serve - 'I am but a pencil in the hands of the Lord, it is his work', she has repeatedly said. Starting out with no resources or preconceived ideas, armed only with her faith, Mother Teresa has created an enormously successful religious order that has spread to over a hundred countries, setting up institutions for the destitute, the handicapped, orphans, the leprosy-affected and the dying. Yet her main work remains in the midst of the slums and the dirt of the streets.

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Hannah Rothschild

A biography of the author's great-aunt, jazz patroness Nica de Koenigswarter, drawing on family records to examine the traditions that shaped her youth, her marriage to Baron Jules de Koenigswarter, and her role in supporting the New York jazz world.