Michele Hanson

In Michele Hanson's bittersweet columns in the Guardian, collected here, she explores the physical deterioration of her spirited and resilient elderly mother. From bowel trouble to views on Camilla Parker-Bowles, life is never dull in the Household from Hell! Speaking with emotional candour and gentle poignancy, Michele tells it like it is: somewhere between anguish and hope, tragedy and comedy, tears and laughter.

Michele Hanson grew up an 'oddball tomboy disappointment' in a Jewish family in Ruislip in the 1950s - a suburban idyll of neat lawns, bridge parties and Martini socials. This hilarious and wonderfully evocative memoir charts Michele's childhood and coming of age in a Britain that was emerging from post-war austerity.