52 S MAGAZINE ★ 25 AUGUST 2019
players (SAPs for short) – rich men in their
sixties, seventies and eighties who date just
as keenly as they did in their prime.
This first-hand account of ageing in
our youth-obsessed society is a light, easy
read. But the author doesn’t shy away from
difficult subjects and there are moments of
genuine sadness when a friend who is about
to marry her MNB (my new boyfriend) takes her
own life.
In the most insightful part of the book
she compares the uninhibited middle-aged
women of today with previous generations.
As she points out, in years gone by people
approaching retirement would never have
dreamt of exercising, beginning new
businesses, having sex with strangers and
starting all over again.
This frank, no-holds-barred tale won’t appeal
to everyone – a few scenes may be too raunchy
for some readers – but Sex And The City fans
will love it. And so will women who think youth
is wasted on the young.
Emma Lee-PotterSex Power Money ***
by Sara Pascoe
(Faber, £14.99)
Although she seems to be legally obliged to
appear on every comedy panel show on
television, comedian Sara Pascoe somehow
found time a few years ago to publish a very
good book called Animal.
It combined evolutionary history, jokes andCharlotte
Heathcote
Rules of
at traction
Two thought-provoking
writers take a fresh look
at women’s lives
To p f i v e s
Fiction
Non-fiction
Children’s
Is There Still Sex In The City? ***
by Candace Bushnell
(Little, Brown, £16.99)
More than two decades have passed since
Sex And The City first took the world by storm.
Candace Bushnell’s bestselling book was an
anthology of her newspaper columns about life
as a young, single woman in New York and was
later turned into a hit TV series. Millions of us
were transfixed by Carrie Bradshaw and her
three best friends, Miranda, Charlotte and
Samantha: their action-packed sex lives, their
dating disasters, Carrie’s bold fashion sense
and her sky-high stilettos.
Now Candace Bushnell is back with a new
memoir about being middle-aged and single
in New York. Despite her blonde hair and
smooth complexion (she admits she has
regular Botox), Bushnell is now a 60-year-old
divorcée who left Manhattan after parting from
her husband and retreated to a Connecticut
farmhouse where she wrote, rode horses
and was single for several years.
Is There Still Sex In The City? is her account
of returning to the Big Apple as “a middle-aged,
single white woman driving a sensible SUV with
two large standard poodles in the back”.
It follows a group of female friends, most
of them fifty-something divorcées, as they
navigate the complicated world of midlife
dating and relationships. Along the way
they try the dating app Tinder, spend an
extortionate amount on Russian face cream
and discover a dress in an upmarket store
costing a mind-blowing $20,000.
Bushnell gives an entertaining lowdown
on the different types of men the middle-aged
friends encounter. There are the cubs, the
young men who pounce on wealthy, older
women (known as catnips), the “hot-drop” men
who find themselves unintentionally single
through death or divorce, and the senior-age- Pinch Of Nom
by Kay Featherstone
and Kate Allinson
(Bluebird, £20) - Time To Eat
by Nadiya Hussain
(Michael Joseph, £20) - This Is Going To Hurt
by Adam Kay
(Picador, £8.99) - Battle Scars
by Jason Fox (Corgi, £8.99) - The Secret Barrister
by The Secret Barrister
(Picador, £9.99) - The World’s Worst Teachers
by David Walliams
(HarperCollins, £14.99) - Top Marks For Murder
by Robin Stevens
(Puffin, £6.99) - Diary Of An Awesome
Friendly Kid by Jeff Kinney
(Puffin, £12.99) - The Land Of Roar
by Jenny McLachlan
(Egmont, £6.99) - The Wonky Donkey
by Craig Smith and Katz
Cowley (Scholastic, £6.99) - The Reckoning
by John Grisham
(Hodder, £7.99) - The Fox
by Frederick Forsyth
(Corgi, £8.99) - Absolute Proof
by Peter James
(Macmillan, £8.99) - Run Away
by Harlan Coben
(Arrow, £8.99) - The Holiday
by TM Logan
(Zaffre, £7.99