Diana Athill

As she approaches her 100th year, Diana Athill reminds us what really matters, and of the joy to be found at every stage of life. With vivid memories of the past mingled with candid, wise and often very funny reflections on what it's like to be very old.

In August 1947, Diana Athill travelled to Florence by the Golden Arrow train for a holiday with her friend Pen. In this playful diary of that trip, she recorded her observations and adventures - admiring architectural sights, sampling delicious pastries, eking out their budget and getting into scrapes.

An honest autobiography embracing her country childhood, bleak boarding school, Oxford, a publishing house career, and a pervading preoccupation with love and its loss.

Diana Athill's letters to the American poet Edward Field reveal a sharply intelligent woman with a brilliant sense of humour, a keen eye for the absurd, a fierce loyalty and a passionate zest for life. The letters cover 30 years of Diana's life.

Diana Athill recounts tales from a long life in publishing, in which she edited some of the most celebrated writers in the English language, such as V.S. Naipaul, Jean Rhys and Gitta Sereny. She also provides an account of her own writing career.

The 89-year-old publishing veteran Diana Athill reflects on the disadvantages and occasional benefits of old-age, and the prospect of impending death.

A portrait of the author's childhood growing up in a pre-war English country house where upper middle class codes of behaviour prevailed.