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The New Granny’s Survival Guide
The New Granny’s Survival Guide
Jan 12, 2025 6:46 PM

Author:Gransnet,Janet Ellis

The New Granny’s Survival Guide

With half of the UK’s grandparents aged under 65, being a granny is no longer all blue rinses, hip replacements and bingo. Happy, healthy and energetic, the modern gran is worlds away from the little old biddy stereotype.

If you’re a new gran, or about to become one, The New Granny’s Survival Guide is your essential handbook for grandparenting. Packed full of sanity-saving advice from Gransnet – the number one online platform for grannies – this book covers everything you need to know to be a brilliant gran.

With practical guidance, hilarious insights and fresh ideas, you’ll discover:

· Top tips for entertaining your grandchildren

· Advice on building great relationships with in-laws

· Guidance on how to cope with broken families, competitive grannies and difficult situations

· Suggestions for how to juggle your own social life with being a hands-on gran

With a foreword by Janet Ellis and full of wit and wisdom, The New Granny’s Survival Guide is the perfect companion for today’s dynamic grannies.

Reviews

A mesmerising jumble of jokes, drawings and elderly gripesAll human life – and death – is here in this lucky dip of memories and fears, irritations and idle thoughts… [Time For Lights Out] has black humour galore…and, as always, Briggs’s drawings have a touch of magic about them, conjuring human beings and their foibles out of a few precious lines.

—— Craig Brown , Mail on Sunday

[Time for Lights Out is] direct and personalon the tragi-comedy of growing old. [Briggs] looks on ageing with a beady but sympathetic eye…and mordant humour all the way throughthere are plenty of excellent jokes in this book.

—— Nicholas Tucker , The Times

Many congratulations to The Oldie's Raymond Briggs on his elegiac new book, Time for Lights Out. The great author and illustrator takes a funny, sombre, bittersweet approach to old age, with fond thoughts of his grandchildren, parents, childhood and his partner Liz. The book is illustrated with his characteristic understanding of real life... Bliss.

—— The Oldie

A beloved genius of storytelling and illustration.

—— Rachel Cooke , Observer, *Graphic Novel of the Month*

A humblingly honest and human war-report from the front lines of mothering, psychosis and recovery: there is no other book like it, and it is so desperately needed.

—— Caitlin Moran

Amazing. This book is proof that although Laura’s mind was her undoing, it is also an incredible asset which is going to help so many people.

—— Clemmie Telford

Laura’s raw, honest book gets to the core of postpartum psychosis. Her style is blunt, graphic, diary-like, unflinchingly confessional - at times so colloquial that we feel we know her, or we want to know her: for her bravery in writing this book, for her humanity, for her sisterhood. She has emerged with a greater understanding of self, with deeper compassion for those who suffer from mental illness, and with a determination to combat stigma and ignorance by speaking out. Ultimately I hope this book will give women and their families confidence that the brain and body will heal. And I hope it will encourage other women to speak out.

—— Dr Jessica Heron, CEO, Action on Postpartum Psychosis

An incredibly powerful book. Brave, brilliant and so, so important.

—— Jessie Ware

This book will bring hope to many women and their partners who have struggled with their mental health during this already nerve-wracking and overwhelming time.

—— Becca Maberly, @AMotherPlace

Raw, powerful, visceral: this book has so much to offer to anyone who reads it, whether they be a pregnant woman, new mother, partner, midwife, or someone recovering from mental illness. It is so important on so many levels to hear experiences like Laura’s to widen our understanding of these issues and how they can affect us.

—— Isabelle Bourton, midwife

I cried, laughed and cried again. It’s therapeutic to read and bloody amazing. This book will help to raise awareness and help people understand what it’s like to go through this, to see light at the end of the tunnel and know you won’t always feel like this.

—— Jessie Hunt, postpartum psychosis survivor

I absolutely loved this book. It’s so honest I related to the rawness of it all. There was so much I could identify with.

—— Helen Grimes, postpartum psychosis survivor

An important book and I have no doubt it will have a significant impact.

—— Dr Chi-Chi Obuaya, Psychiatrist

This is a generous, humane, brave gift of a book. Its guts and humour spoke to me loud and clear. I wept for Laura, women I love, and ones I’ve never met, many times throughout. There’s a conspiracy of silence around so many of areas of birth and new motherhood, and Laura is breaking the glass ceiling of it, with glorious honesty, humour and humility. I salute you, Laura - you’re a fucking warrior!

—— Sophie Dahl

A humblingly honest and human war report from the front lines of mothering, psychosis and recovery: there is no other book like it, and it is so desperately needed.

—— Giovanna Fletcher

This moving book was a pleasure to read and I didn't want to put it down. If anyone is going through a similar experience it will make them feel less alone.

—— Philippa Perry

Dockrill's raw yet ultimately hopeful account of her experience with postpartum psychosis shines an important light on a rarely discussed experience.

—— iNews

Bold, brave and raw, it must have taken immense courage to write this phenomenal memoir… It’s a tough read, but hugely inspiring…told with a winning dash of humour, and provides desperately needed insight into postnatal mental health

—— Eithne Farry , UK Press Syndication

What Have I Done? is heartbreaking and brutal in its honesty, and it is remarkable that Dockrill has managed to wring black comedy out of so much suffering… [the book] offer[s] a hand of solidarity to other women, as well as the assurance that there is a way through

—— Stephanie Merritt , Observer

I tore through EXPECTATION at the weekend. Exceptional gorgeously written and reads like a love letter to London. I highly recommend it

—— STACEY HALLS, bestselling author of THE FAMILIARS

I absolutely loved this. What really appealed to me was the depiction of the parents, about legacy and about what the mother's generation leaves for the one that comes after

—— ANNE YOUNGSON

An intimate and touching portrayal of female friendship that shows it's okay to just be

—— NINA POTTELL

So fresh, human, kind and relatable

—— JENNY COLGAN

Such a dark, relatable, elegant take on how time alters female friendships: how we become THESE people and our friends become THOSE people. Anyway, I loved it. You probably will, too

—— LIZA KLAUSSMANN, author of Tigers in Red Weather

A must-read. Will make you want to hug the women in you life

—— FABULOUS MAGAZINE Book of the Year

A deftly crafted hymn to the comfort and frustration of female friendship from one of our most gifted contemporary writers

—— WATERSTONES

Sensual and evocative, deeply attuned to both the inner lives of the protagonists

—— CULTUREFLY

The prose is beautiful, the characters achingly real, their flawed decisions enraging and yet somehow still relatable. This wonderful book will resonate with every woman who reads it

—— LOUISE O'NEILL

A quietly political story that suggests historic battles have left women with new impossible burdens of expectation. A marvellously tangy London novel

—— DAILY MAIL

Hope beautifully examines how female friendship, its issues entirely relatable, ebbs and flows over time in this wise and engaging read

—— SUNDAY EXPRESS

Hugely absorbing, massively enjoyable

—— LISSA EVANS

A deftly crafted hymn to the comfort and frustration of female friendship from one of our most gifted contemporary writers

—— WATERSTONES

Sensitive, resonant, addictive

—— DAILY MIRROR

A story that resonates with anyone who has tried and failed and tried again as they contemplate that gap between what is possible and what is not.

—— RTE GUIDE

Compulsive and beautifully told storytelling - an ode to 21st century London and an examination of the pressures of modern society

—— IRISH TIMES Book of the Year

completely redefines the friendship novel. I am in awe of the way Anna Hope captures what it means to be a woman, right here, right now.

—— RED MAGAZINE Book of the Year

Hope is adept at characterisation. The friends are fantastically well-realised.

—— Daily Times

The story of 3 college friends, if you're a fan of Sally Rooney, you'll love EXPECTATION

—— Irish Examiner

A grown-up, honest take on female camaraderie. Packed with talking points

—— Mail on Sunday

Fantastic. Beautifully written, sharply observed and saying important things

—— ELIZABETH DAY

BOOK OF THE YEAR. It's the book we're all buying for our sisters and besties this Christmas.

—— Fabulous

Brings to vivid life that particular tension one feels just before middle age, when it begins to become clear that life won’t end up looking exactly they way we thought it would. An outstanding novel

—— MARY BETH KEANE

Anna Hope's beautifully observed study of female friendship is a moving account of the collision between aspiration and reality

—— DAILY MAIL

Fantastically well-realised portrait of female friendship's joys and pains from an exciting new voice in British fiction

—— DAILY TELEGRAPH
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