A Shed Of One's Own: Midlife Without the Crisis

Description

For many men, middle age arrives too fast and without due warning. One day you are young, free and single; the next you are bald, fat and washed-up, with weird tendrils of hair growing out of your ears. None of it seems fair. With age should come dignity and respect, but instead everyone makes tired jokes about buying a motorbike. Marcus Berkmann isn't having it. Having marked his fiftieth birthday by hiding under the duvet for six weeks, the author of the cricket classics Rain Men and Zimmer Men is now determined to find some light in the all-consuming darkness. Musing over birth, death and all the messy stuff in between, he concludes that however dreadful you look in the mirror today, it will be much worse in ten years' time. His brutally candid despatch from the frontline is not for the faint-hearted, which is to say anyone under thirty-five.

Marcus Berkmann has spent more than thirty years sitting in front of various television screens swearing at incompetent England batsmen. In his leisure time he has written columns on sport for Punch, the Independent on Sunday and the Daily Express. He is a regular contributor to Private Eye and has been the Spectator's pop music critic for over twenty years. His books include Rain Men: The Madness of Cricket, Zimmer Men: The Trials and Tribulations of the Ageing Cricketer, Fatherhood: The Truth and A Matter of Facts: The Insider's Guide to Quizzing

Wise, touching and funny . . . Berkmann is a master of observation. On every page you will find yourself nodding in agreement at some thought you've shared but never expressed quite so pithily . . . Middle-aged men should read this book for all the bumps of recognition - Express - Christopher Silvester A laugh or carefully crafted insight on almost every page - Mail on Sunday - Jonathan Maitland Warm, funny and wise . . . A sort of Zen and the Art of Midlife Management - Independent on Sunday Will reconcile every bloke to the remorseless lawnmower of Time - Independent