Virago Book of Friendship
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€18.50
A01=Rachel Cooke
adulthood
Alison Bechdel
anthology
Author_Rachel Cooke
Bernardine Evaristo
Category=DNT
childhood
connection
Curtis Sittenfeld
diaries
Dolly Alderton
Elena Ferrante
Elizabeth Taylor
eq_anthologies-novellas-short-stories
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
female
fiction
friends
friendship
growing up
Helen Garner
Her Brilliant Career
internet
Jane Austen
journalist
Judy Blume
letters
Margaret Atwood
Maya Angelou
modern life
Muriel Spark
Nan Goldin
Nancy Mitford
Nora Ephron
novels
plays
poems
psychology
R F Kuang
Rachel Cooke
relationships
Rose Tremain
Sally Rooney
Sarah Waters
school
Sheila Heti
short stories
technology
Virago
Virginia Woolf
Vivian Gornick
Zadie Smith
Product details
- ISBN 9780349018423
- Weight: 316g
- Dimensions: 126 x 196mm
- Publication Date: 05 Feb 2026
- Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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A fond, fascinated look at women's friendship through the fiction, diaries, and letters of friends
'A highly entertaining, often instructive anthology bursting with every kind of amicable - or inimical - anecdote . . . Cooke has dug deep and uncovered nuggets of pure gold in every form of writing . . . a delicious book about the great power and strength of real friendship' TABLET
'There is a lot of joy in this book . . . The late Rachel Cooke anthologises the experience of female relationships in all their myriad complexity - from the tender to the toxic' OBSERVER
Friendship, a timeless subject, has never been more debated, something that has to do both with the internet - the perils of WhatsApp groups, the agony of ghosting - as well as with a growing awareness that loneliness is increasing in our society. Friendship has become a matter of urgent inquiry to therapists, scientists and sociologists. We understand its importance more and more, not only as a comfort and a privilege, but as vital to our health. But it's hard to get inside friendship: its particular intensity and its miraculous ease; its tendency to wax and wane; its ability to inspire both delight and despair.
This is the territory of novels and poems, diaries and letters, comics and graphic novels - and it is where the innovative and wide ranging Virago Book of Friendship steps in, bringing together work by more than 100 writers. From Jane Austen to Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf, from Dolly Alderton to Sarah Waters and Meg Wolitzer and, it celebrates and investigates friendship between women from first encounters to final goodbyes, from falling out to making up again.
'A treasure chest' THE TIMES
'An uplifting anthology' HARPER'S BAZAAR
'A fascinating document' LITERARY REVIEW
'An exhilaratingly wide array' SPECTATOR
RACHEL COOKE was born in Sheffield 4 July 1969. A journalist for the Observer for twenty-five years, she reviewed books, interviewed celebrities, politicians and writers, championed graphic novels, and wrote a weekly TV column for the New Statesman. In 2006, Rachel Cooke was named Interviewer of the Year at the British Press Awards.
Her first book, Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary Women of the Fifties published by Virago in 2013, was followed by Kitchen Person: Notes on Cooking & Eating, a collection of her pieces from her Observer column, published by Weidenfeld in 2023. The Virago Book of Friendship was published in hardback in 2024. All three of her books reflect the passion and the wit of a great and beguiling writer. Clever, wide-ranging and inspiring, her knowledge and sheer appetite for life was shared with millions of readers.
Rachel Cooke died in London on 14 November 2025 aged 56.
