A book unlike any other: it's about jokes and brothers and grief; it's about love and death and how much, and how little, you can ever know someone else. And, like all the best autobiographies, its also about the need to remember. Offbeat, obsessive, and often killingly funny.

A very funny, original and touching memoir to a lost brother.

Animal Magic is exactly that... a funny, dark memoir. Think Tommy Cooper describing a painting by Hieronymus Bosch.

With style and wit Jean Carper has assembled all the simple things that people can do to delay the onset of age-related memory loss, an idea that may sound revolutionary to some, but is all research-based. My advice is simple: Read this book!

Fantastic... a darkly witty guide through the birthing hut

Tired all the time? Fed up arguing about chores? Spousonomics says applying some economic rules will transform your relationship...according to the authors, [using] economic theories can be a powerful tool to making your marriage successful.

A brilliant and innovative book.

Practical, compelling and hilarious

Frank, funny, insightful and disconcertingly apt, this book transposes the laws and theories of economics onto emotional relationships with daring but effective aplomb.

Jane Shilling is an excellent writer...this is detailed, personal and memorable

The essay form, with its drifts and lurches, suits Shilling's purposes perfectly as she catalogues her experience of middle-ages confusion and loss... all with detail, nuance, enthusiasm and care

The usual stereotypes about grumpy old women are jettisoned in favour of ironic and nuanced observations about sexuality, identity and death in this crisply written memoir about middle age

An honest midlife memoir of ageing, false expectations and unrealised dreams

Detailed, personable and memorable

Her story may not be unusual, but the elegance and range of her writing most certainly is. The journey is a delight

Fans of this beautifully crafted, critically acclaimed memoir of middle-age might well take the view that it should be distributed free on the NHS to all women over 50... a penetrating analysis of the challenges and heartaches of life's middle phase

Shilling casts a self-critical eye over the events that have shaped her life