Review:
Ian Sansom applauds Jane Shilling’s clear-eyed view of the disappearing middle-aged woman
THE GUARDIAN, 22 Jan 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/22/stranger-mirror-jane-shilling-review The Stranger in the Mirror by Jane Shilling is a frank, humorous and thoughtful meditation on female middle age. In fact it is HRT in book form, says Melanie McGrath By Melanie McGrath, THE TELEGRAPH, 23 Jan 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8269466/The-Stranger-in-the-Mirror-by-Jane-Shilling-review.html
The Stranger in the Mirror: A Memoir of Middle Age, By Jane Shilling
Reviewed by Stevie Davies, THE INDEPENDENT, 21 January 2011
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-stranger-in-the-mirror-a-memoir-of-middle-age-by-jane-shilling-2189889.html
Pig in the middle
Cressida Connolly, THE SPECTATOR, 22 January 2011
http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/6629198/pig-in-the-middle-.thtml
THE STRANGER IN THE MIRROR by Jane Shilling on the Sunday Times hardback non-fiction bestseller list Number 9 !
Daily Telegraph, Cassandra Jardine, ‘Like Montaigne, the essayist on whom she modeled her early attempts at writing, she elevates navel-gazing into something beyond self absorption’
The Independent, Stevie Davies, ‘Shilling’s style, dashingly cavalier and artfully artless, bubbles with wit and brio. Never was a lament less lugubrious’
The Independent i, If You’re Staying In...’This ‘memoir of middle age’ shuns self-pity and bubbles with wit. The gap between soaring mind and sluggish body becomes a source of rueful comedy’
The Spectator, Cressida Connolly, ‘Jane Shilling is an outstandingly good writer...The Stranger in the Mirror shows that she also has emotional and intellectual courage’
New Statesman, Amanda Craig, ‘Shilling’s thoughts on love and ageing are so wise and so memorably expressed that they would grace a literary novel... Shillings mild obsession with control and with the delicate, the exquisite and the theatrically miniature almost makes her into a latter day Jane Austen’
The Sunday Telegraph, Melanie McGrath, ‘Wry, quietly fuming and often moving memoir of a midlife cri de couer... exceptionally companionable, occasionally bejewelled and richly sustaining broth of a book... Highly recommended’
The Mail on Sunday, Libby Purves, ‘I loved this book so much I gulped it down in just two sittings... Jane Shilling is a peerlessly elegant and evocative writer’
The Scotsman, Claire Harman, ‘Shilling is brave and endearingly frank’
The Sunday Herald, Rosemary Goring, ‘She writes beautifully. Her perceptions are acute, her imagery memorable’
Guardian, Ian Sansom, ‘Imagine Montaigne as a thoroughly modern unmarried mother and freelance journalist living in south London... Everywhere there is detail, and nuance, and care about others, and about words’
Observer, Jenny Eclair, ‘Shilling is a gorgeous writer and there are chunks of this book that I would happily steal... If this woman wrote a novel I would buy it in a heartbeat... Shilling puts the ageing process under the microscope and, as we read, we squirm’
Metro, Tina Jackson, ‘An intelligent discursion on what it means to be a no-longer-youthful female in a world obsessed with staying young... Her thoughts are refreshing, provocative and a pleasure to read’
Publishers of THE STRANGER IN THE MIRROR: Brazil (Brinque Book), Italy (Piemme), Sweden (Ekholm & Tegebjer Forlags), Taiwan (Commonwealth Publishing Co.), UK (Chatto & Windus).