From the beloved and acclaimed novelist, a collection of witty, moving essays.In her two decades of writing, Elinor Lipman has populated her fictional universe with characters so utterly real that we feel like they’re old friends. Now she shares an even more intimate world with us—her own—in essays that offer a candid, charming take on modern life. Looking back and forging ahead, she considers the subjects that matter most: childhood and condiments, long marriage and solo living, career and politics. Here you’ll find the lighthearted: a celebration of four decades of

All My Children

, a reflection on being Jewish in heavily Irish-Catholic Lowell on St. Patrick’s Day, a hilariously unflinching account of her tiptoe into online dating. But she also tackles the serious and profound in eloquent stories of unexpected widowhood and caring for elderly parents that use her struggles to illuminate ours. Whether for Lipman’s longtime readers or those who love the essays of Nora Ephron or Anna Quindlen,

I Can't Complain

is a diverting delight.

It's the 1970s and newly qualified GP Edward Vernon has taken a job as an assistant to an elderly general practitioner in a small town in the English midlands. It is his first job in general practice; his first brave excursion into the dangerous world where patients walk round in their clothes. Dr Vernon soon finds himself bemused, fascinated and exhausted as he copes with the procession of ailing humanity that streams into his surgery and awaits his visits. A confused old lady, timid vet, puzzled diabetic, lonely housewife, hypochondriac, tipster with an ulcer, nun with dandruff and a persistent young lady with abundant charms and nothing wrong with her.
Just published as an e book, exclusive to Amazon, this book was a huge hit in England and America when first published in the 1970s.
Edward Vernon is a pen name of a well known British doctor/author.
Here's what the critics said about the series:
Thoroughly delightful - Fresno Bee
Hilarious - Titbits
A delightfully funny book that keeps the reader laughing and appeals to one's sense of the ridiculous - Sunday Advocate, Baton Rouge
For entertainment, a chapter or two before bedtime is just what the doctor ordered - Sacramento Bee
Does for British GPs what Herriot has done for vets - Booklist
Hilarious, written with skill and zest - Grimsby Evening Telegraph
Very funny - Citizen, Gloucester
Thoroughly enjoyable, genuinely funny - South Wales Echo
Wise, funny, sad and heartwarming - Chattanooga Times
Good fun - Homes and Gardens
Most of his adventures are funny, some hilarious; but he has the good sense to leven the comedy lump with some that are sad, some touching. All are written lightly, easily, entertainingly - Oxford Times
The funniest of the funny doctor books - Richard Gordon
Jolly good reading - Publishers Weekly
Views the human species he treats with much the same affection, compassion and humour as Herriot brings to the animal world - Cleveland Plain Dealer
Sometimes serious, sometimes hilarious - Lancashire Evening Post
Truthful, well observed and consistently readable - Daily Telegraph
Perceptive and witty - Surrey Advertiser
Will amuse, amaze and entertain - Yorkshire Post
etc etc

“A painfully beautiful memoir….Written with such restraint as to be both heartbreaking and instructive.”

—E. L. Doctorow

A revered, many times honored (George Polk, Peabody, and Emmy Award winner, to name but a few) journalist, novelist, and playwright, Roger Rosenblatt shares the unforgettable story of the tragedy that changed his life and his family. A book that grew out of his popular December 2008 essay in The New Yorker, Making Toast is a moving account of unexpected loss and recovery in the powerful tradition of About Alice and The Year of Magical Thinking. Writer Ann Beattie offers high praise to the acclaimed author of Lapham Rising and Beet for a memoir that is, “written so forthrightly, but so delicately, that you feel you’re a part of this family.”