Customer Reviews

No! I Don't Want to Join a Bookclub

5 star:		(19)
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3 star:		(4)
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1 star:		(4)

 

 

Londoner Marie Sharp is the irascible and sarcastic narrator of "No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club," by Virginia Ironside. Marie is a retired art teacher who lives alone and is about to turn sixty, an age that she embraces eagerly. The book, in the form of a diary, gives cranky Marie a forum in which to record her daily activities, thoughts, social encounters, and especially, her gripes. She has a great many gripes. She detests being told that sixty is young, and that it is the perfect time to go to university, try bungee jumping, and learn a new language. Why bother to learn a new language when you will have so few years left in which to speak it? What's great about being old is that it is too late to do much of anything. How liberating!

Marie can be nasty when she chooses, but she has a soft side, as well, which she is reluctant to show. She cares for her family and treasures her circle of friends. Although she has sworn off men, there is a small part of Marie that still years for male companionship. She is a multi-faceted individual: hilarious, profane, critical, and outrageous, but also kind, compassionate, and loving.

"No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club" is touching, witty, and often lyrical. It is a cathartic reading experience for those who are sick and tired of being pigeonholed because of their age. Old people come in all shapes, sizes, and dispositions. They may choose to vegetate or to stay active, to fuss about their health or to ignore it, to bond with friends and family or to retreat from society. There is no one-size fits all rule book for aging.

Ironside's secondary characters include assorted "girlfriends," a gay couple facing a medical crisis, a former crush whom Marie still fancies, and her adorable new grandchild. Marie faces grief, joy, and the inevitable changes that life brings with self-confidence, uncompromising honesty, and a down-to-earth sense of proportion that may stem from, well, growing old.

Finally a book I can read without wanting to throw it at the wall. I can't tell you how many books (new pubs)I've started and put down because they were just awful.

This one is real with good writing and even though I'm not almost 60-something it was highly enjoyable.

It didn't even have the requisite (lately) graphic sex scene, thank God.

When Hugh Grant gets to be 59 he can play Archie.

I'm not a great reviewer, let those who can write write. Just get the book and read it.

diary of a woman, Marie Sharp, celebrating the pleasures of finally being 60 and all the perks that go with having arrived. The author even has a new acronym to go with it: SWELL (Sixty, Well Off and Enjoying Life). No bungee jumping, adventure travels or book clubs for Marie. She just wants to savor 'acting' her age and spending time with her first grandchild. This diary of her 60th year begins shortly before her 60th birthday and continues into the summer of the following year. Marie and her friends are a lively group and it is a pleasure spending time with them. An added bonus is that Marie lives in London and it is fun reading about her journeys around town. While this book is fiction, there is a lot of wisdom included as Marie shares her thoughts with us about the joys of being true to ourselves and where we are at in our life as she gracefully (yeah, right!) ages. Marie is feisty as can be and asking no forgiveness for it as age has its privileges. And, to add to the fun, she has decided that another advantage of age is to embrace celibacy -- so much less stress in her life not worrying about the dating scene. Not wanting to tell all, you will have to read the book to find out the ultimate resolution. This book needs a sequel. Recommended.

This book is smart, sassy, and amusing, just like "Bridget Jones". (Do the British have a monopoly on this sort of writing?) Being of a similar age, I found the author covered many of the requisite topics and in many cases did so with good insights. However...the main character, aka the heroine, seems to have no visible means of support, and to do absolutely nothing, more like an 80 year old than a 60 year old. Nothing, that is, but socialize with her friends and take care of her grandchild. Although the author covers serious subjects, her conclusion, that all can be solved by the birth of a grandchild to 'fall in love with' and the possibility of a romantic relationship with an attractive man, was a real copout. It conjured up visions of those dreadful ladies with their 'Ask me about my grandchild!' bumper stickers, and the love-hungry vulnerable widow in "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone."

Celebrating age 60, what a delightful concept! I'm 52 so I'm boning up now, and this book about a few steps along the way in the aging process was fun to read, and informative too, although I won't go into gorey details here! I would have given it 5 stars but she spends too much time for my tastes going on and on about her little baby grandson, Gene. That doesn't thrill me when it's someone next to me at a dinner party, and it didn't thrill me here. Other than that, I really enjoyed and would definitely recommend this book.

London advice columnist Virginia Ironside has finally crossed the pond with her first U.S. publication, and that's cause for celebration. No! I Don't Want to Join A Book Club! is a touching, fun-filled diary penned by the fictional Marie Sharp, a woman on the brink of her 60th year.

Marie doesn't quite go gently into her sixth decade as "the best is yet to be" turns out to be merely a poet's dream. Those around her place the emphasis on youth, especially good friend Penny who is about to take up with a man some 30 years younger. And, Marie's much adored friend, Hughie, is quite ill. As if this weren't enough to contend with well wishers insist that she use her new leisure to study, travel or better yet, join a book club. Never vows Marie who is quite happy to be old and needs absolutely no advice about how to spend her time. Besides, she has a definite opinion about book club members: "They feel they've forever got to poke their brain with a pointed stick to keep it working."

Author Ironside delivers a plethora of pungent comments about the state of today's world, especially the Internet. She doesn't gloss over the downside of aging but faces adversities with equanimity and good humor.

The joy of her life is found in being a first time grandmother (although she does have a tendency to obsess about the welfare of her grandson.) And then, there's Archie, the fellow she had a teenage crush on. He's a widower now. Marie has sworn off men, but.......

One of the most recognizable voices on British radio, stage and screen actress Sian Phillips gives a sterling reading as Marie shares her very private thoughts with her diary.

- Gail Cooke

Some books expand our horizons by taking us far away, in time or space or situation. Others shed a light on the place where we are.

One of my favorite recent reads is No! I Don't Want to Join A Book Club: Diary of a 60th Year by Virginia Ironside. It so happens that several of my friends will turn sixty this year, or in the next year or two. A few have already done so. So I do have an interest in this age group. (The Book Goddess is timeless. Don't ask.)

This novel falls into a category that the British do extremely well: the humorous fictional diary. If you liked The Adrian Mole books by Sue Townsend or Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding, and you're, let's say, aware of the passage of time in your life, I think you should hurry up and read this book.

The heroine and narrative voice of this saga is Londoner Marie Sharp, retired art teacher and single mother of a grown son. As she approaches sixty, she strongly resists the urging of her friends to take up a hobby, enroll in university courses, or learn Italian. She's about to become a grandmother, one of her oldest friends seems to be seriously ill, and another has taken up online dating. These events, along with bunion surgery and renting her spare room to a young French girl, are inspiration for witty, sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant commentary.

I don't agree with all of her choices, though I think she's right about bungee jumping (and we even wear the same brand of comfortable shoes). I, on the other hand, would love to take classes and learn Italian, and you know how I feel about book clubs. But the important point is that she's not letting other people tell her how she ought to feel or live or conduct her life, and she tells us about it in a lively and assertive style. The book is a delight, and I think you will love it, too.

Great! Great! Great!

Fresh, honest and insightful this book has a heart and a mind.. and a sense of humor that is authentic and not forced. I didn't want it to end, contary to other books of this genre that i tend to skip through and rush to the end.Look For The Moon In The Morning

Although librarians certainly encourage joining book clubs, author Ironside's point is that one shouldn't feel obliged to join in predictable "senior" activities like a book club or learning a foreign language. Instead, retired London art teacher and singleton Marie Sharp embarks on her 60th year with a sense of entitled crabbiness and gallows humor. Marie believes that she should be free to be old, rather than being a slave to the youthful activities with which oldsters often cram their retirement years. Young readers will get an insider's view of their mother's or grandmother's lives, and the elders will laugh with recognition as Marie shares her foibles, her challenges, and her point of view via posts in her journal. Those who don't often read British fiction may want a glossary of Marie's British slang and jargon. (A British baby's "dummy" is an American baby's "binky" or pacifier). Marie may be compared to the younger Bridget Jones because their stories are told with diary entries, but where Bridget is naïve, Marie is snarky.

It's difficult for me to laugh and think at the same time, particularly when I'm laughing so hard I have to reach for the tissue. But I managed all the way through my consumption of Virginia Ironside's fictional diary of Marie Sharp's journey through her sixtieth year (and a bit).

Marie's not fighting it, rather she is planning to embrace it. She'd love to "start doing old things," if people would only let her. Hence the name of the book. It's not only a book club she doesn't want to join, she doesn't want to learn Spanish or any other language, she doesn't want to take exotic trips... Leave her alone!

And she doesn't want to look, act, or be young. She is not "sixty going on twenty." (No Botox here, I'd hazard.) It's not that she didn't enjoy being young, not by any means. She even slept with a Beatle! "Been there, got the T-shirt, wore it to death and put it in a bag for Age Concern." She's ready for this new adventure.

An adventure it turns out to be. She learns new loves--a new grandson and a more romantic relationship. She relishes and enlarges friendships while bidding others goodbye. After Penny, her best friend, hears Marie's report on yet another funeral, she comments, "Now we just have to make do with the people who are left." Certainly, enough people are left to keep Marie doing "old things" for some time.

Ironside, who has spent a career as an "agony aunt," writing advice columns for English newspapers, has a keen insight into the human (old woman) condition and the talent to leaven it with plenty of English humor. Any appreciator of good, humorous writing will enjoy this book. Ironside's contemporaries (of whom I am one) will relish it.

by Patricia Nordyke Pando

for Story Circle Book Reviews

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