Self-Contained, Emma John

There is a piece of cod-wisdom regularly dispensed to single women: romance will arrive when you least expect it. I had assumed it would also make its own travel arrangements too. Emma John is in her 40s; she is neither married, nor partnered, with child or planning to be. In her hilarious and unflinching memoir, Self-Contained, she asks why the world only views a woman as complete when she is no longer a single figure and addresses what it means to be alone when everyone else isn''t.

In her book, she captures what it is to be single in your forties, from sharing a twin room with someone you''ve never met on a group holiday (because the couples have all the doubles with ensuite) to coming to the realisation that maybe your singleness isn''t a temporary arrangement, that maybe you aren''t pre-married at all, and in fact you are self-contained. The book is an exploration of being lifelong single and what happens if you don''t meet the right person, don''t settle down with the wrong person and realise the bigges.