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Somewhere Towards the End

Growing old gracefully

Diana Athill
Granta, pp. 183pp, ££12.99,

Anne Chisholm

Wednesday, 2nd January 2008

Ninety may be the new 70, but it is also seriously old, and no picnic. In her short, sharp, disconcerting new book, Diana Athill, the renowned editor turned writer who has just reached her 90th birthday, does not try to pretend otherwise; pretending is not, and never has been, her style. Here, she contemplates her own experience of growing older, compares it with some others, and offers a few tips to the rest of us, as we, or people we love, advance towards the minefield.

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