Josie Long’s first story collection brims with wry wit, Mark Cocker pays philosophical tribute to the swift, and Mark Vanhoenacker offers a pilot’s-eye view of urban life
John Mortimer’s third autobiography (he was very long-lived; after each one he found he went through a lot of unexpected life, hence the trilogy) opens with the reflection that the marker of elderliness is the moment you realise you cannot put on your own socks. I think the Rubicon of middle-age is when the highlight of your Friday is loading the car with the accumulated debris of the cardboard boxes you’ve unpacked in the house and taking them down to the tip (I suspect that would be a ‘municipal garbage dump’ to my American readers). I hit that landmark today and clearing space in the living room and tidying up was a deeper satisfaction than I got from any cocktail bar I went to in my twenties, let me tell you. A hoarder at heart, I used to laugh at Marie Kondo, but I’ve reached that stage of life where I’m no longer thanking my old possessions before throwing them out so much as cackling gleefully as I hurl them into the landfill.