Customer Reviews

Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman

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This book has been my great travel companion during a recent trip. Although not a literary masterpiece (and does not intend to be one), it is witty, very funny and thought provoking (in the sense that some of Townsend's perception of life stays with you after you finished the book). This is really an assortment of short, 2.5 page long pieces (which appeared as monthly columns on the Sainsbury's Magazine), thus making it a perfect book for travel. The reader has to concentrate for a short while, is able to leave the book and come back later for another part (order is not very important).
And yet, although the pieces are not connected to each other, after a few chapters you feel as if you are reading (or talking to) a familiar person whose life, or rather his life philosophy you are beginning to share and enjoy.
Off course Susan Townsend has chosen what she would like to share with the reader and what to leave out. In fact she swears never to join these columnists who write about their "damned cats" (or family members), etc. only to break this rule time and again, to reader's full enjoyment. Ms. Townsend writes about her writing problems, travels, people she meets, domestic issues and writing problems again... Still, what she writes is close to heart as she always writes about her failures, fashion mistakes, health problems (is there anyone who cannot identify with back pain?), dreams of a better house.... Townsend is always intelligent, and you find yourself laughing out loud. The issues are varied, from a disturbing piece about the behavior of a British tourist during a Greek funeral to having no ideas for this month's column.
I think I liked this book because it was so down to earth, with a very un-assuming approach to living and to yourself.

Pick up this book of short essays (each being only about 800 words) and before you know it, 100 pages has gone by. Ranging from the hilarious (fending off a burglar using a biography of Tolstoy) to the heartbreaking (the treatment of the elderly in British hospitals), Sue Townsend manages to share tidbits from her very interesting life in small, easily digestible portions.

First written as a monthly column for Sainsbury's Magazine, these pieces are slice-of-life affairs. Sue's battles with her expanding waistline, her diminishing eyesight and the ticking clock are covered here in touching and very funny detail. I found this book impossible to put down, yet it would be relatively easy to dip in and out of on a long train journey or a flight. Not demanding, surely, but very satisfying; sort of like a natter with a good friend.