_{Virginia Ironside}

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Read extract 1 of No, I don't want to join a bookclub!

The original Saga Magazine article

Extract 2 From No, I Don't Want To Join A Bookclub

In our concluding extract from Virginia Ironside’s new novel No! I Don’t Want to Join a Bookclub, we read more of Marie Sharp’s diary entry for the day she becomes 60 at last

There seems to be a common line which runs: “If you’re old, you’ve got to stay mentally active, physically alive, ever fascinated by life.”

You have to forever poke your brain with a pointed stick to keep it working. But I say: “Why?” I’ve done fascinated, I’ve done curious. I want to wind down. I want to have the blissful relief of not being interested.

I don’t think those oldies who spend their lives bicycling across Mongolia at 80 and para-gliding at 90, are brilliant specimens of old age. I think they’re just tragic failures who haven’t come to terms with ageing. They’re the sort of people who disapprove of face-lifts, and yet, by their behaviour, are constantly chasing a lost youth. I want to start doing old things, not young things.

Like slowly starting to give my property away, instead of spending my time trying to acquire it. Like seeing everything from a distance, rather than close-up and personal. Like not feeling slighted all the time or hating myself 24 hours a day. Like realising that this civilisation, like all civilisations, will one day come to an end.

Obviously I’m too young to get whisked away by a Stannah Stairlift, slip into a Damart vest, go on sea cruises or Enjoy the Luxury of a Walk-In Bath.

Nor do I want to spend my days poring over church registers with a family tree in one hand, to discover that one of my ancestors was a mediaeval wood-cutter in the Forest of Dean, a pursuit that would bore me silly. (Finding out about it, that is. Probably actually being a woodcutter in the Forest of Dean had its good points). As for joining a bookclub – no thanks!

Extracted from No! I Don’t Want to Join a Bookclub by Virginia Ironside. Published by Fig Tree on September 28 at £12.99. Copyright © Virginia Ironside 2006. You can save money by buying it online

This article was created: 23 October 2006.
This article was last edited: 13 November 2006.

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