The Virago Book of Friendship

Rachel Cooke

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Paperback

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English

Virago
10 December 2024

Literature, Poetry & Criticism; Anthologies (non-poetry)

A fond, fascinated look at women's friendship through the fiction, diaries, and letters of friends

'A highly entertaining, often instructive anthology bursting with every kind of amicable - or inimical - anecdote . . .

Cooke has dug deep and uncovered nuggets of pure gold in every form of writing

. . . a delicious book about the great power and strength of real friendship' TABLET

Friendship, a timeless subject, has never been more debated, something that has to do both with the internet - the perils of WhatsApp groups, the agony of ghosting - as well as with a growing awareness that loneliness is increasing in our society. Friendship has become a matter of urgent inquiry to therapists, scientists and sociologists. We understand its importance more and more, not only as a comfort and a privilege, but as vital to our health. But it's hard to get inside friendship: its particular intensity and its miraculous ease; its tendency to wax and wane; its ability to inspire both delight and despair.

This is the territory of novels and poems, diaries and letters, comics and graphic novels - and it is where the innovative and wide ranging Virago Book of Friendship steps in, bringing together work by more than 100 writers. From Jane Austen to Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf, from Dolly Alderton to Sarah Waters and Meg Wolitzer and, it celebrates and investigates friendship between women from first encounters to final goodbyes, from falling out to making up again.

By: Rachel Cooke
Imprint: Virago
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 218mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 36mm
Weight: 540g
ISBN: 9780349018430
ISBN 10: 034901843X
Pages: 400
Publication Date: 10 December 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Rachel Cooke is an award-winning journalist and author. She writes for the Observer, and is the television critic of the New Statesman. Her book, Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties, was published by Virago in 2013. Her most recent book is Kitchen Person: Notes on Cooking & Eating.

Reviews for The Virago Book of Friendship

A highly entertaining, often instructive anthology bursting with every kind of amicable - or inimical - anecdote . . . Cooke has dug deep and uncovered nuggets of pure gold in every form of writing: letters, diaries, poems, novels - conventional and graphic - children's comics and even a newspaper agony aunt . . . this delicious book is about the great power and strength of real friendship, whether of besties at school, students sharing digs, suffragettes, WAAFs in freezing barracks, feminists, work colleagues or members of like-minded groups * Tablet *