This collection is a joy

Helen Simpson is a vital (and pleasurable) voice

These uplifting and sensitive tales act like a guide to ‘the next phase’ – whatever that may bring.

Cockfosters is elegant, sane, and – while remaining firmly rooted in ordinary life – gently ground-breaking.

Over the course of a quarter century, Simpson has assembled a body of work that delivers one of literature’s richest accounts of the post-war lives of girls and women.

[Simpson’s] stories are chamber pieces, acutely observed domestic miniatures, and born of modesty.

Reading Simpson’s stories makes you feel less alone in the world: she’s one of those writers who just seem to hit the nail on the head. She’s funny, too.

Invigorating, aggressive wickedly funny short stories on the modern gender wars, exhausted motherhood and anxieties about work and getting older.

From varifocals to the menopause, a virtuoso of the short story turns her attention to the ageing process.

Elegant, understated and quietly funny stories.

Clever, affecting and frank, but above all, terrifically entertaining.

Sometimes one gets the sense that her stories are some kind of futuristic instruments, wearing the disguise of the short story, planted into the heart of evolving contemporary life to take hyperaccurate readings of the inner weather and shifting equilibria of a certain class of society.

Cockfosters isn’t just carefully crafted stories, Helen Simpson has also tackled some pertinent feminist issues in an incredibly sharp, honest and accessible way.

Sad and tender, sometimes political or formally inventive, and always beautifully observed.

Exhibits a wit and tenderness that makes her one of our best story writers.

In my stocking, to savour during the fug I hope to find [this book].

For Christmas, I’d like [this book].

Warm, funny and acutely observed.

Themes of dealing with the force of ever-looming old age, the ups and downs of friendship, marriage and love, and the strength of female identity are expertly weaved together in Simpson’s crafty concoction of social commentary and character study. This is all of our lives and social taboos laid bare in comedic style, with the trials and oddities of modern life deftly illuminated.

Bitterly comic.

A collection of warm and witty gems reflecting the complexities of modern life.

An unmissable collection of near-perfect short stories.

Humour folded into every story.

Full of minutely observed details of life that sparkle in her hands: funny, knowing, true. She is a master of dialogue… She can get more life onto a page than most can in twenty… An exceptional collection of stories.

Simpson has a fine ear for the cadence of everyday speech.

Simpson sharpens her fiction to a fine point, the better to dig into social wounds

A slim and fairly devastating volume... Simpson is truthful, funny, and sharp… The result is elegant, sane and, while remaining fairly rooted in ordinary life, gently ground-breaking.

A collection of well-turned short fiction.

Helen Simpson has been hailed as a true chronicler of what it means to be a woman. Her new collection explores the menopause years, to which there is no better, braver or funnier guide than Simpson.