'The book I've been waiting for my entire life' DOLLY ALDERTONIs it possible that life without romantic love isn't so bad?When poet Amy Key was growing up, she looked forward to a life shaped by romance, fuelled by desire, longing and the conventional markers of success that come when you share a life with another person. But that didn't happen for her. Now in her forties, she sets out to explore the realities of a...

Brought to you by Penguin.When poet Amy Key was growing up, she looked forward to a life shaped by romance, fuelled by desire, longing and the conventional markers of success that come when you share a life with another person. But that didn't happen for her. Now in her forties, she sets out to explore the realities of a life lived in the absence of romantic love.Using Joni Mitchell's seminal album Blue - an album that shaped Key's expectations of ...

Tucked away along a shady path towards the north-east edge of Hampstead Heath is a sign: Women Only. This is the Kenwood Ladies' Bathing Pond.Floating in the Pond's silky waters, hidden by a canopy of trees, it's easy to forget that you are in the middle of London. On a hot day, thousands of swimmers from eight to eighty-plus can be found waiting to take a dip before sunbathing in the adjoining meadow. As summer turns to autumn and then winter, the Pond is still visited by a large ...

Poetry Book Society Wild Card Choice. Amy Key’s Isn’t Forever is a grimoire for feminine selfhood in a world where a sense of self is flimsy, elusive and unrequited. The poems in this book are obsessive in their desire to construct and breach the terms of their own intimacy. They have their own ‘narrative costume’ but are vexed with it, not quite able to master the ‘diligence of having a body’. This is a book where a tender and sabotaging shame of aloneness has taken root. Where wants clus...

When Ethel's grandmother dies, Ethel goes to live with her father, brother, and the stepmother and little siblings she has never met. She also must live with, and endure, the spitefulness of Aunt Sophie, who rules the house under a cloud of bad-temper and bitterness. Ethel’s Text is a Victorian story edited gently for a modern audience. It is a simple, heart-warming tale of overcoming grief and adversity through the guiding lights of past love, new friends and family and the words of the S...

When Ethel's grandmother dies, Ethel goes to live with her father, brother, and the stepmother and little siblings she has never met. She also must live with, and endure, the spitefulness of Aunt Sophie, who rules the house under a cloud of bad-temper and bitterness. Ethel’s Text is a Victorian story edited gently for a modern audience. It is a simple, heart-warming tale of overcoming grief and adversity through the guiding lights of past love, new friends and family and the words of the S...

'Every night when I turn the lights out in my sixteenth-floor living room before I go to bed, I experience a shock of pleasure as I see the banks of lighted windows rising to the sky, crowding round me, and feel myself embraced by the anonymous ingathering of city dwellers.' Set in New York, The Odd Woman and the City explores the rhythms, chance encounters, and ever-changing friendships of urban life that forge the sensibility of a fiercely independent woman. Running through the book is V...