The Cost of Living

A Guardian Best Book of the 21st Century

The powerful second memoir from the twice-Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming Home

'Life falls apart.
We try to get a grip and hold it together.
And then we realise we don't want to hold it together . . .'

'At the age of 50 and after decades of north London family-making, Levy finds herself cast adrift from her marriage and, crucially, without any desire to swim back. It is the story of every woman throughout history who has expended her love and labour on making a home that turns out to serve the needs of everyone except herself. Wonderful. Not so much a memoir as an eloquent manifesto for what Levy calls "a new way of living" ' Guardian

'Wise, subtle and ironic, Levy's every sentence is a masterpiece of clarity and poise . . . a brilliant writer' Daily Telegraph

'A graceful and lyrical rumination on the questions, "What is a woman for? What should a woman be?" ' Tatler

'I can't think of any writer aside from Virginia Woolf who writes better about what it is to be a woman' Observer

'Extraordinary and beautiful, suffused with wit and razor sharp insights' Financial Times

'A heady, absorbing read' Evening Standard