How to Age Disgracefully

When age makes you invisible, secrets are easier to hide Lydia imagines her new job running a Senior Citizen''s Social Club three afternoons a week will involve drinking tea while playing gentle games of cards, listening to The Beatles and reminiscing about food rationing and The Blitz. She does not expect to find a failed actor addicted to shoplifting, a woman who''s been hiding from a mysterious and very chequered past, and a prolific yarn-bomber. It turns out that their ideas about how to spend their afternoons are very different. After a tragic accident means the council threatens to sell the community centre, the Social Club, aided by their friends in the nursery next door and a geriatric orphaned mongrel, set out to save it. They might not be able to save the hall, but they might just save each other - if their pasts don''t catch up with them first...

Autorentext

Clare Pooley graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge and spent twenty years in the heady world of advertising, before becoming a full-time writer.

Clare's dark but hilarious memoir, The Sober Diaries, has helped thousands of people around the world to quit drinking.

The Authenticity Project, Clare's debut novel, was a BBC Radio 2 bookclub pick, a New York Times bestseller, the winner of the RNA debut novel award and a Babelio award. It's been translated into 29 languages.

The People on Platform 5 is Clare's second novel, inspired by her fascination with inventing stories about her fellow passengers on her commute to work.

Clare lives in Fulham, London with her husband, three children and two border terriers.

Klappentext

'Uplifting, heartwarming and joyful. Restored my faith in humankind' RUTH JONES
'A celebration of life at every stage' JENNIE GODFREY
''Joyful, life-affirming and full of heart ... an absolute riot of a read' FREYA SAMPSON

When age makes you invisible, secrets are easier to hide

Daphne knows that age is just a number. She also knows that society no longer pays her any attention - something she's happy to exploit to help her hide a somewhat chequered past.

But finding herself alone on her 70th birthday, with only her plants to talk to and neighbours to stalk online, she decides she needs some friends. Joining a Senior Citizen's Social Club she's horrified at the expectation she'll spend her time enduring gentle crafting activities. Thankfully, the other members - including a failed actor addicted to shoplifting and a prolific yarn-bomber - agree.

After a tragic accident, the local council threaten to close the club - but they have underestimated the wrong group of pensioners...and with the help of a teenage dad and a geriatric, orphaned dog, the incongruous gang set out to prove it.

As long as their pasts don't catch up with them first...

Readers LOVE How to Age Disgracefully:

* 'Surprising, inspiring and hilarious!!'
* 'A breath of fresh air . . . funny and entertaining'
* 'A fantastic read'
* 'If you're looking for a feel-good book, look no further!'
* 'A joyful read from beginning to end'

Clare Pooley, The Bookseller bestseller, April 2023