{"product_id":"pondlife-book-al-alvarez-9781408841020","title":"Pondlife","description":"From the author of The Savage God, a unique memoir of growing old, and a lesson in not going gently into that good night  The  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","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49541788631313,"sku":"GOR006713008","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49664675217681,"sku":"GOR012899976","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49732481843473,"sku":"NGR9781408841020","price":16.79,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50022885261585,"sku":"CIN1408841029A","price":7.28,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50325973532945,"sku":"GOR007095968","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50380366872849,"sku":"CIN1408841029G","price":8.18,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51142785138961,"sku":"GOR010319913","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1408841029.jpg?v=1751419417","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/pondlife-book-al-alvarez-9781408841020","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}