The Virago Book Of Grandmothers - Softcover

Farmer, Penelope

9781860498480: The Virago Book Of Grandmothers

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1860498485 ISBN 13: 9781860498480

Publisher: Virago, 2002

Penelope Farmer has invented that new genre, the autobiographical anthology. Following on from her book of twins (for Virago) and sisters (for Penguin) this book of grandmothers describes the tentative beginnings of her own relationship to two small granddaughters, in a family where she is the first grandmother to survive in four generations. In a mass of sometimes startling, always interesting material that she has gathered from literature, science, history, biography, anthropology, she looks for the role models - and awful warnings! - missing from her own experience, and attempts to define and redefine the role of grandmotherhood in an age when fewer and fewer women fit the traditional model of sweet old grey-haired gran - if they ever did. And to show grandmothers, good, bad, old, young, happy, and sometimes wretched, as seen by themselves and by their grandchildren in all eras and from all parts of the world. In the words of one authority she quotes. 'What everyone needs in the millennium, is access to the internet - and a grandmother'...

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Review:

In her timely anthology, Penelope Farmer sets out to acknowledge the different ways of being a grandmother...two things shine through its generous clutter. The first is the 'A remarkable collection of writings...a thoroughly useful book (SCOTSMAN)

This book would make an excellent present for someone who had just become a grandmother (INDEPENDENT)

Two things shine through...The first is the poignancy of growing older. The second is overwhelming joy. (OBSERVER)

A delightful anthology, wide rangins and a perfect present. (DAILY EXPRESS)

Book Description:

* A delightful autobiographical anthology on Grandmothers from the much-acclaimed
author of TWINS AND DOUBLES

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