{"product_id":"pondlife","title":"Pondlife","description":"From the author of The Savage God, a unique memoir of growing old, and a lesson in not going gently into that good night\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe ponds of Hampstead Heath are small oases; fragments of wild nature nestled in the heart of north-west London. For the best part of his life Al Alvarez – poet, critic, novelist, rock-climber and poker player – has swum in them almost daily. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn athlete in his youth, Alvarez chronicles what it is to grow old with humour and fierce honesty – from his relentlessly nagging ankle which makes daily life a struggle, to infuriating bureaucratic battles with the council to keep his disabled person’s Blue Badge, the devastating effects of a stroke, and the salvation he finds in the three Ss – Swimming, Sex and Sleep.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Alvarez swims in the ponds he considers how it feels when you begin to miss that person you used to be – to miss yourself. Swimming is his own private form of protest against the onslaught of time; proof to others, and himself, that he’s not yet beaten. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy turns funny, poetic and indignant, Pondlife is a meditation on love, the importance of life’s small pleasures and, above all, a lesson in not going gently in to that good night.\u003cbr\u003e_____________________\u003cbr\u003e''A beautiful unfolding of a story, told in deceptively simple prose but with a great power to move'' Sunday Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''The adrenalin still flows in lively extracts'' The Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''A marvellous book... it has no business to be as invigorating and absorbing – its success is against the odds'' Observer","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing PLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57828081860943,"sku":"9781408841020","price":18.95,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0061\/0372\/8217\/files\/9781408841020_1-pondlife.jpg?v=1780242449","url":"https:\/\/www.suomalainen.com\/products\/pondlife","provider":"Suomalainen.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}