No! I don't want to join a book club

Yes, I did choose this book because of its title. I came across it when shelving some books in the library and decided I had to read it.

Marie Sharp is about to turn 60. She has never regularly kept a diary but decides that this is the time to start in order to record the significant events at this stage of her life. It is soon obvious that Marie has definite ideas about aging and has a list of things she does not intend to do including taking an Open University degree, learning Italian or joining a book club.

The diary records events in the lives of Marie and her friends. Much of the work does reflect on growing older, but is is also a celebration of being free, the joys, and fears, experienced when first becoming a grandmother, and of relationships made by older people. The acceptance of the death of a friend is discussed in the second part of the book but there is also the possibility of a new relationship and hope for a happier future.

The book is often quirky and amusing as the account of eighteen months in the life of Marie Sharp and her friends is recorded. Although Marie did not join a book club there are a number of literary allusions throughout the novel. Penguin has also published a Reader's Guide on the novel as an aid for members of book clubs.

This book had mixed reviews in Good Reads however many of the readers who did not enjoy the book were American and may not have appreciated the English humour.