India Knight

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BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR


Title: Don't You Want Me: Description:
India Knight busted the happy-ever-after cliché in her divorce novel, My Life on a Plate. This time it’s sex and the single mum that’s on Ms Knight's knowing agenda. Forget gritty realism though, in Don’t You Want Me the only element of kitchen sink drama in this frothy tale is whether there’ll be enough roasted leg of lamb and rosemary to go round. And it’s an important question to Estella de la Croix, she’s a woman of appetites. Leading lady Stella has two ex-husbands, a very large house, gorgeous clothes and a sweetly blonde toddler called Honey. She even has an artist lodger, who is lovely, but too ginger to be fanciable. Everything is superficially perfect, except for one thing, the lack of sex. "I have no-one to sin with" wails Stella, and decides to do something about it. There follows a gruesomely confessional account of over-age drinking and drugs. And one-night-stands with a perma-tanned plastic surgeon--(sleeping with him is like "contorting an Action Man into unlikely positions") or an equally unappealing DJ, a thirtysomething man who thinks he’s 17. And although Stella can be very witty on the dating game and middle-class laissez-faire parenting, less amusing is her scatological humour, or bad taste jokes about the handicapped. By the end of the novel Stella has decided that casual sex is not for her, a relationship is what she really, really wants. And her lucky partner? Well let’s just say that ginger Frank isn’t a red herring.--Eithne Farry

Title: My Life On A Plate: Description:
Clara Hutt (known to herself as "Jabba the ...") is a size 16 with a secret liking for kitten heels and organza tops. Life isn't what it should be, her 6-year-old thinks he has nits, of all the mothers at the school gate, only Clara is in pyjama trousers - and - why is her husband so mysterious? From the Publisher Rave reviews for My Life on a Plate!'My Life on a Plate...allows India Knight to lay about her with glorious elan. Clara Hutt could eat Bridget Jones for breakfast. Actually, she'd be looking around for seconds before she'd finished.' Evening Standard'This witty writer has written a snappy account of modern marriage with an underlying seriousness.' Sunday Times'Sunday Times columnist India Knight extends her empire to include this first sharp, witty novel...groundbreaking in current women's fiction in that it attempts to investigate modern marriage: what it does to women, to their sex drive and their sense of self.' Marie Claire Excerpted from My Life on a Plate by India Knight. Copyright © 2000. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved What should happen is, I should somehow catch my reflection in a mirror, or a shop window, fifty or so pages in, and describe myself to you that way. Seems a bit contrived to me, that method, besides which if I catch my reflection in shop windows, I tend to scream with horror, rather than tip my head to one side and make measured, composed observations. Also, I always want to know what people look like right at the start, don't you? You'd feel pretty peeved if you discovered, much later on, that I was a psychopathic two-ton Tessie with flat feet and a moustache, or - worse - some hateful, eating-disordery twig that wafts around in Prada smelling of sick.So let's get things straight. I don't smell of sick. (That's my friend Amber, whom you'll meet later. Her hobbies are bulimia and self-help books. My hobby is being compassionate.) And I don't weigh two tons, although as a ripe size 16, I'm hardly what you'd call frail and reedy either. What else? Five nine, dark hair, green eyes - oh look, I'm sounding all sexy, which isn't quite right. Let's see. If you asked Kate, my mother, she would shake her head very sadly, as if I were an especially precious kitten that had died in tragic circumstances, and tell you I've 'let myself go disgustingly'. And I suppose she would be right. I mean, I've got the man, the house, the children: why not celebrate by tucking into a doughnut or two of a morning? Or an apricot Danish, or indeed a whole tube of Pringles... As a consequence, I favour elasticated waists and lose tops, although I have a sneaky liking for vulgar shoes and organza (which I try to curb, as nobody wants to look like White Trash SlutMum at the PTA meetings). The best way I can think of describing myself is: we're not talking control pants yet, but we're not going to pretend that they haven't struck us as being a pretty damned handy kind of garment either. My name is Clara, which is quite pretty, and my surname is Hutt, which isn't, although it enables me to think of myself as Jabba the Hutt in my more self-loathing moments. This is useful. I have two children, Charlie, who is six, and Jack, who is three. I have a husband, Robert, who is a mystery (does anybody actually know what goes on in their husband's head, or is it just me?) but quite attractive. I have a part-time job as a magazine writer, a big house and nice clothes, and friends that don't smell of sick as well as some that do. I am thirty-three. And some days I wake up with the sneaky feeling that my life isn't all it should be. In the current climate, you probably want to know how I Got My Man. I do feel quite pleased with myself, sometimes, actually. I look at my friend Tamsin, thirty-four, single and desperate, and feel a worm glow of intense smuggery. Sometimes, though, I am so overwhelmed with jealousy - I can't remember the last time I was out all night, drinking martinis and flirting with strangers - that I feel compelled to initiate lectures, masquerading as conversations, about all the things that might go wrong if one were - perfectly hypothetically, of course - trying to have a child past the age of thirty-five. This is because, despite external appearances, I am a) on the childish side and b) not very nice. Getting my man: why, the trick is to be young and attractive. No, not really. The trick is not to look. Robert and I were twenty-five when we got married, which is comparatively young these days, and I weighed three stone less and was a bit of a minx, which helped. I can say it, now that I am an Old Married Lady, with my minxdom very much behind me - rather like my cellulite. I don't know quite what happened. We met, we fell in love, we got married. It helps not to be desperate, as I'm so fond of telling Tamsin in my meaner moments. Anyway, eight years! Isn't that amazing? And I haven't strayed. Well, I haven't got naked. I kissed someone I used to go out with, at a party, two years ago, but I don't think that counts. Does it? It was only a peck, though it was pecking with intent. I try not to think about it too often. Married women pecking exes with intent is like opening a tiny window and letting in a shaft of light. People in my position rally oughtn't to do it. Or think about why they might have wanted to.

Title: Dont You Want Me: Description:
sex, there is a lot of it about and stella is deff not getting her fair share. she also has a few handi caps, wrong side of 35, single mum etc, read on to laugh out load about her experiances,

Title: The Shops: Description:
Some people, the author included, love shopping so much that even the weekly trawl round Waitrose is a treat. In this guide and memoir, India Knight dissects the singular pleasures afforded by this favourite pastime: from dragging your mother around TopShop aged 14, to feeling your entire life would somehow be perfect if only you bought that battered leather sofa. Part series of essays, part lists of essential information, you will never wonder about where to get the perfect 2-inches-off-the-waist pants again. "The Shops" is a book for anyone who's ever had to part with cash, which is to say, a book for everyone. Full of crucial information, the book is designed to turn even the most reluctant purchaser into a devoted, converted happy shopper. About the Author India Knight was born in 1965. She lives in London with her boyfriend and two children. She is the author of two bestselling novels, My Life On A Plate and Don't You Want Me?, both of which are published by Penguin.

Title: My Life On A Plate: Description:
Does secretly fantasising about buying slut shoes and see through tops make you a bad mother? What about wearing pyjama bottoms on the school run? Clara Hutt (known to herself as Jabba the) has put her foxy single days very much behind her (rather like her cellulite), and has Got Her Man. She has a nice house, adorable children who only annoy her 90% of the time, a large, eccentric and charming family, and an attractive (but increasingly mysterious) husband. And she gets to have regular sex... well, -ish. Anyway, what the hell, it's only loins... Everyone wants to be married - dont they?

Title: The Shops- How, Why And Where To Shop: Description:
a guide to shopping, a guide-cum-memoir dissects the pleasures afforded by everyones favourite pastime from teenagedom to present