We find India Knight’s writing fairly addictive and her Sunday Times columns are often the highlights of our weekend reading. We’re thrilled therefore that she has published a new book, In Your Prime: Older, Wiser, Happier. It’s part memoir, part manual for women aged 40 – 65, and is quite frankly the book Knight was born to write. She takes a no holds barred approach so there are chapters on ailing parents and divorce but also a section on vaginal atrophy. The book, as well as being well-researched and reflective – particularly on parenting teenage children – is also never less than compassionate. She can be wickedly funny, not least on the dangers of looking like a ‘Hampstead Lady’ in middle age (“Vast, shapeless, genderless, sexless Japanese or Scandinavian clothes”), but offers the sort of advice you would expect from an opinionated, well-informed friend – a friend who might tease you or tell you that you need to lay off the Botox, but a friend nonetheless.
It’s unlikely that all of the chapters will be relevant to all women in their prime – if you haven’t had children, then you can skip the chapter on parenting, but you will probably still want to read about HRT or how to look after grey hair or the benefits of yoga. It is quite a bracing read, Knight’s writing tends to be, but is all the better for it. Also, a word on the target audience: if you’re 37, there will be things that are relevant to you and equally so if you are 70 – we’re the younger end of the spectrum and love it ourselves but will also be passing our copy on to our mum, for example.
