Diana Athill wrote Somewhere Toward The End in 2008. She was already retired as a book editor by then, the job she had all her life. She edited the likes of John Updike, Margaret Atwood, Naipul, writers I have slept with this last decade. Well, slept with their work, is what I meant. She is one of the greatest book editors in the 20th Century.
This is just one of her memoirs, concentrating on how she felt as a woman.
In 182 pages she lays out some stark realities:
1. Regretting not being a sexual thing anymore
2. Cheered up by sexual experiences even without love
4. Open to the ebbing of all desire
5. Understanding that relationships change all the time
6. Accepting that a human life can contain both good and bad
And lastly, the interpretation of religious texts:
When we read, whatever is needy in us takes in whatever the text offers to assuage that need.
