Böcker av Virginia Ironside

The bestselling picture book to help children deal with worries and anxiety.

The final instalment in the diaries of Marie Sharp, the Bridget Jones for the SAGA generation - still growing old disgracefully

Marie is back, courting laughter and disaster in equal measure. In her own inimitable style, she's getting older... and loving every minute of it.

Grumpy Old Women meet Bridget Jones in the continuing story of Marie Sharp, first met in the bestseller No! I Don't Want to Join a Bookclub.

When she started to clock up the years in earnest, everyone tried not to mention it. But now Virginia Ironside is actually sixty-five she can't see what all the fuss was about. It's great to be old.Growing ancient is not a loss but a gain. You're more confident, and if your memory's going, at least you forget the bad times, like all those ghastly men you slept with in the other sixties. And isn't now the time to take lots of drugs, and not just the ones prescribed by the doctor (which are, now you're old, completely free)?There's nothing more fun than comparing your various ailments with other oldies ('I take so many fish oils I'm thinking of joining an aquarium'), curtain-twitching, complaining or (Virginia's preference) just mooching about.From Grandchildren ('The reward for not killing your children'), and Being a Bore ('You're in your anecdotage, so nobody can complain') to Sex ('I don't know about you, but I've had enough sex to last me a lifetime'), Virginia Ironside tackles all the issues that face today's elegant and distinguished oldies with optimism and enthusiasm - and makes you want to cheer!

Too young to get whisked away by a Stannah Stairlift, or to enjoy the luxury of a walk-in bath (but not so much that she doesn't enjoy comfortable shoes), Marie is all the same getting on in years - and she's thrilled about it. She's a bit preoccupied about whether to give up sex - Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! - but there are compensations, like falling in love with her baby grandson, and maybe falling in love with someone else too? Curmudgeonly, acute, touching and funny, this diary is what happens when grumply old women meet Bridget Jones.

The death of a loved one is the most traumatic experience any of us face. No two people cope with it the same way: some cry while others remain dry-eyed; some discover growth through pain, others find arid wastes; some feel angry, others feel numb. Virginia Ironside deals with this complicated and sensitive issue with great frankness and insight, drawing on other's people's accounts as well as her own experiences.