Margaret Drabble

In a newly swinging London, Rosamund Stacey indulges in a premarital sexual encounter-and soon thereafter finds herself pregnant. Despite her fierce independence and academic brilliance, Rosamund is in fact naïve and unworldly, and the choices before her are terrifying. But in the perfection and helplessness of her baby she finds an unconditional love she has never known before-and as she navigates a situation still considered scandalous in her circles,...

A novel about a woman's psychological battle with the realities of midlife. Witty and endearingly neurotic, Kate Armstrong has hit a certain age-and the crisis that goes along with it. She has a career as a successful journalist, specializing in feminist issues, but she struggles to challenge herself at work. She's a mother, but her children have all left the nest, and her marriage has ended in divorce. She has a lively circle of friends, but...

Sweeping from smart London townhouses to a rundown embassy in the Middle East, from the splendors of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris to drowsy afternoons in the hills of sunny Italy, this novel tells the intertwined stories of three Cambridge-educated women living in Margaret Thatcher's England. Whether it is a conscientious social worker's quest to befriend a convicted killer; an affair with a stranger after a husband's suicide; or an attempt to rescue...

"Francesca Stubbs has a very full life. A highly regarded expert on housing for the elderly who is herself getting on in age, she drives restlessly round England, which is 'her last love'. She wants to 'see it all before she dies'. Amid the professional conferences she attends, she fits in visits to old friends, brings home-cooked dinners to her ex-husband, texts her son, who is grieving over the sudden death of his girlfriend, and drops in on her...

Jessica Speight, a young anthropology student in 1960s London, is at the beginning of a promising academic career when an affair with her married professor turns her into a single mother. Anna is a pure gold baby with a delightful sunny nature. But as it becomes clear that Anna will not be a normal child, the book circles questions of responsibility, potential, even age, with Margaret Drabble’s characteristic intelligence, sympathy, and wit.--Dust...

Emma Woodhouse imagines that she dominates those around her in the small town of Highbury, but her inept matchmaking creates problems for herself and others.