‘The Panic Years’ by Nell Frizzell

What’s it about:

This features all the topics a woman is bombarded with in her 20’s and 30’s – babies, marriage, relationships, careers. It’s honest, personal, funny and also has facts.

What Lynn learned:

• This topic was the focus of my university dissertation so the content was familiar – but I learned that I am just as passionate about it.

• Fizzell suggests that all women in the ‘Flux’ years should spend time with those who are too old for babies and such. This explains why I find elderly company so soothing right now.

• Hey it’s okay to think that your peers’ successes and landmarks are a reflection on your own choices. It’s okay to have loads of feelings about their good things, including jealousy and grief. It’s all part of the limited-resource-mindset age we live in. (p. 53)

• It is pretty understandable that work and your career forms a big part of these years, as it often is the reason to get out of bed.

• Marriage is an admin-heavy breakup choice.

• IVF is expensive and sore.

Fave quotes:

• ‘Without Nick's brick wall to kick against, I may have been forced to confront my own ambivalence, concerns, doubts about motherhood’

• ‘Throughout my twenties and into my thirties, I tried desperately to appear casual and carefree, believing that any hint at my true, complicated desires—in my case, for love, commitment, independence, a successful career, and ultimately a baby too—would render me single forever. I silenced myself, because I thought it made me more attractive. I tucked my weaknesses, my wants, and my womb out of sight’

• ‘It is about why you find yourself doing the Panicked Math that if you meet someone, and you date for a year, and if it takes two years to get pregnant, but if you were to aim for this job, and if your period started at thirteen, and your mom's eggs ran out at forty... until suddenly you're not doing math anymore but asking something bald and blank and unending: Who am I and what do I want from life?’

Why relevant right now:

This book will continue to, regrettably, be relevant as long as gender inequality lasts.

Interest factor: 5/5

Coffee table cred: 3/5

Ignorance of external world while reading: 4/5

Book cover design: 4/5

Help the existential crisis: 5/5

‘Angry People in Local Newspapers’, Cut and pasted by Alistair Coleman

What’s it about:

A humorous compilation of local news stories that are ridiculous (but obviously important to those impacted).

What Lynn learned:

• Local people care about very similar things – litter, roads, shops shutting…

• Perspective is not found in local newspapers.

Fave quotes:

• ‘Biscuit lover stunned to find plain digestive in milk chocolate pack’ (p. 179).

• ‘Hull man’s anger as he is fined for visiting Asda twice in one day’ (p. 133).

• ‘Here’s my parking fine – in 1p pieces)’ (p. 124)

• ‘I’m so angry that charity shop didn’t let me buy blouse’ (p. 11).

Why relevant right now:

When the world feels so big and scary, this gives some mental escape to simpler things.

Interest factor: 3/5

Coffee table cred: 3/5

Ignorance of external world while reading: 2/5

Book cover design: 2/5

Help the existential crisis: 2/5