Diana Athill was born in 1917. After a distinguished career as a book editor, she won the National Book Critics Circle and Costa Biography Awards for her memoir Somewhere Towards the End. In January 2009, she was presented with an OBE. She lives in Highgate, London.
Somewhere Towards the End: A Memoir
by Diana Athill
Paperback
(Reprint)
$13.95
- ISBN-13: 9780393338003
- Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
- Publication date: 12/07/2009
- Edition description: Reprint
- Pages: 208
- Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.60(d)
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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.
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The Costa Award Judges
A perfect memoir of old age—candid, detailed, charming, totally lacking in self-pity or sentimentality and above all, beautifully, beautifully written.Michael Dirda - Washington Post Book World
Unusually appealing. . . . To readers Athill delivers far more than modest pleasure: Her easy-going prose and startling honesty are riveting, for whither she has gone many of us will go as well.The New Yorker
A spry dispatch on the condition of being elderly.Erica Jong - The New York Times Book Review
She writes as a person of wide-ranging learning, a generalist, a lover of men and animals and a garden enthusiast, a person intoxicated with life.Dwight Garner - The New York Times
Welcome and original.N. Heller McAlpin - San Francisco Chronicle
There is something terrifically comforting about a nonagenarian writing with clarity, wit and verve about getting old and facing death. . . . [Athill] evokes another grande dame of British letters in her uninhibited lifestyle and no-holds-barred, clarion voice: last year’s Nobel Prize winner, Doris Lessing.Laura Miller - Salon
To paraphrase Shakespeare, wisdom is bred in neither the heart nor the head, but in the bones that carry us through the decades. A few very talented artists, like Diana Athill, may persuade their old bones to yield up a glimpse or two of what they’ve learned.People
Bracingly frank…joyful rather than grim… she offers clear-eyed wisdom of the grandma-you-wish-you’d-had variety.Susan Salter Reynolds - Los Angeles Times
A great gift. . . . This is a warm, inspiring book.Carole Angier - Literary Review
Jean Rhys said that literature was a lake, and what mattered was to contribute to it, even if only a trickle. She contributed a narrow boiling river. Diana Athill has contributed a cool clear burn.Emma Jacobs - Financial Times
Life, not death, is her preoccupation…Reflections on old age, rather than on a long life lived are rare…It is rarer still for a woman to write such a book: so Athill’s candor and economic prose on religion, regrets, and sex are invigorating.Barbara Fisher - Boston Globe
Athill writes…with clarity, calm, and common sense.Financial Times
Life, not death, is her preoccupation…Reflections on old age, rather than on a long life lived are rare…It is rarer still for a woman to write such a book: so Athill’s candor and economic prose on religion, regrets, and sex are invigorating.— Emma JacobsBoston Globe
Athill writes…with clarity, calm, and common sense.— Barbara FisherLiterary Review
Jean Rhys said that literature was a lake, and what mattered was to contribute to it, even if only a trickle. She contributed a narrow boiling river. Diana Athill has contributed a cool clear burn.— Carole AngierSalon
To paraphrase Shakespeare, wisdom is bred in neither the heart nor the head, but in the bones that carry us through the decades. A few very talented artists, like Diana Athill, may persuade their old bones to yield up a glimpse or two of what they’ve learned.— Laura MillerThe New York Times Book Review
She writes as a person of wide-ranging learning, a generalist, a lover of men and animals and a garden enthusiast, a person intoxicated with life.— Erica JongThe New York Times
Welcome and original.— Dwight GarnerLos Angeles Times
A great gift. . . . This is a warm, inspiring book.— Susan Salter ReynoldsWashington Post Book World
Unusually appealing. . . . To readers Athill delivers far more than modest pleasure: Her easy-going prose and startling honesty are riveting, for whither she has gone many of us will go as well.— Michael DirdaSan Francisco Chronicle
There is something terrifically comforting about a nonagenarian writing with clarity, wit and verve about getting old and facing death. . . . [Athill] evokes another grande dame of British letters in her uninhibited lifestyle and no-holds-barred, clarion voice: last year’s Nobel Prize winner, Doris Lessing.— N. Heller McAlpinAnn Hood
With the wisdom of nine decades, Diana Athill gives us a memoir that faces aging unflinchingly. From the end of sexual desire to her thoughts and fears on dying and God, Athill deals with growing old with bravery, humor and honesty. What a woman! What a life! What a gorgeous book!Alice Munro
An honest joy to read.Mary Russell - The Irish Times
An astute editor, she writes with precision and clarity, using one word to convey an idea that a lesser writer might expand into a paragraph….[Athill is] an enlightened woman.Val Hennessy - Daily Mail
[A] little literary gem, penned by a marvelous, feisty old character whom, quite honestly, I’d just love to have as my grandmother…What a treasure.The Irish Times
An astute editor, she writes with precision and clarity, using one word to convey an idea that a lesser writer might expand into a paragraph….[Athill is] an enlightened woman.— Mary RussellDaily Mail
[A] little literary gem, penned by a marvelous, feisty old character whom, quite honestly, I’d just love to have as my grandmother…What a treasure.— Val Hennessy