National Network for Equitable Library Service

'Certainly not!' says Marie Sharp, when a friend suggests she join a bookclub when she turns sixty. 'Bookclub people always seem to have to wade through Captain Corelli's Mandolin, or groan, The God of Small Things. They feel they've forever got to poke their brain with a pointed stick to keep it working. But either you've got a lively brain or you haven't. And anyway, I don't want to be young and stimulated any more. Those oldies who spend their lives bicycling across Mongolia at age eighty and paragliding at ninety aren't brilliant specimens of old age. No, they're just tragic failures who haven't come to terms with ageing. I want to start doing old things, not young things.' To 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 all over again - but this time with her baby grandson, Gene.