{"product_id":"9781408841020","title":"Pondlife : A Swimmer's Journal by Al Alvarez","description":"From the author of The Savage God, a unique memoir of growing old, and a lesson in not going gently into that good nightThe  ponds of Hampstead Heath are small oases; fragments of wild nature  nestled in the heart of north-west London. For the best part of his life  Al Alvarez - poet, critic, novelist, rock-climber and poker player -  has swum in them almost daily. An athlete in his youth, Alvarez chronicles what it is to grow old with humour and  fierce honesty - from his relentlessly nagging ankle which makes daily  life a struggle, to infuriating bureaucratic battles with the council to  keep his disabled person's Blue Badge, the devastating effects of a  stroke, and the salvation he finds in the three Ss - Swimming, Sex and  Sleep.   As Alvarez swims in the ponds he considers how it feels  when you begin to miss that person you used to be - to miss yourself.  Swimming is his own private form of protest against the onslaught of  time; proof to others, and himself, that he's not yet beaten. By turns funny, poetic and indignant, Pondlife  is a meditation on love, the importance of life's small pleasures and,  above all, a lesson in not going gently in to that good night.   _____________________'A beautiful unfolding of a story, told in deceptively simple prose but with a great power to move' Sunday Times'The adrenalin still flows in lively extracts' The Times'A marvellous book... it has no business to be as invigorating and absorbing - its success is against the odds' Observer\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback \/ softback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56299376476533,"sku":"9781408841020","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781408841020.jpg?v=1762785407","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/9781408841020","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}