No, I don't want to join a bookclub

'the answer better be, it pleases me.' - Nina Simone, Do I Move You

Yes yes, I know there are other, more important, life changing, breaking-news things to write about and here I am with books and fashion.

Books, books, books.

Today's book, 'No I don't want to join a Bookclub' by Virginia Ironside is hysterically funny.

It's so humorously engaging that lying in the quiet room at the sauna and reading it was not really an option for me. Not really an option due to the eruption of giggles and hysterical snorting and general inability to keep my good humour to myself.

Nothing like lying naked in a quiet room with a whole lot of other people and shaking with laughter to make the other people look at you funny. Never mind the jiggling when you try and keep the giggles in when giggles really will out, at all costs.

What I like about this book is that there are these moments of acute hilarity, interspersed with really astute views on how life is. It's written from the point of view of a 60 year old woman who starts a diary. Fascinating.

A funny excerpt (familiar with this feeling, anyone?):

'Woke feeling absolutely terrible, all the 1,001 muscles in my face still trapped in a rictus of insincerity. Knew, even worse, that I would have to suffer this cramped feeling till the following morning when the ghastly evening had finally drained from my body.
   
    To make matters worse, I looked terrible. Last night before I went to the party I saw in the mirror a raging beauty, with incredible olive skin, high cheekbones, a sensitive mouth, utterly ravishing. But when I glanced in the mirror this morning, I couldn't believe what started back at me - I looked grotesque; Charles Laughton in a dressing gown. My face was like an uncooked doughnut. Piggy eyes, small, pursed, pale-lipped mouth, deep frown-marks, all puff. Revolting. What is it that happens in the night? Clearly Something - God knows what - Collects. Or perhaps it was the Rioja. Or perhaps, more likely, the therapist, quite understandably, had put a curse on me.'

And this is one of the astute ones:

'I remember only recently realising that you could hold two feelings in yourself at the same time, that you could both like someone and dislike them in one go, that you could both want a cigarette and want to give up smoking.
   
    As one who sees life rather in black and white - strong hates and loves - I have always tried to compromise by seeing everything in a kind of grey. The trick is not to do that at all, but to manage to hold the contrasts in oneself at exactly the same time. That results in a much more lively and invigorating approach. Very late in the day to discover that thought, but it has made relationships with people far, far easier. And oddly, kinder.'

Haven't got even to the middle of the book yet but absolutely loving it.

I hope I'm just like this heroine at 60: eccentric, bloody-minded and outspoken.

In fact, I'll just start now, shall I?