TY - BOOK AU - Nil AU - Rachel Cooke (ed.) TI - VIRAGO BOOK OF FRIENDSHIP SN - 9780349018430 U1 - 305.42 PY - 2024/// CY - Great Britain PB - Virago KW - Female friendship KW - Social sciences, sociology & anthropology KW - Groups of people KW - Women KW - Social role and status of women N1 - A fond, fascinated look at female friendship using the writings - fictional, diaries, letters - of friends. Friendship has never been more talked about. Some of this has to do with the internet (the perils of WhatsApp groups, and of ghosting), and some, with the realisation that loneliness in our society is increasing. Friendship is being written about, and researched, seriously, by therapists and scientists alike. We all now know of the importance of friendship. But it's hard to get inside friendship: its particular intensity; its singular ease; the way it can wax and wane; its ability to cause uncommon pain. This is the territory of novels and letters, poems and graphic novels - which is where The Virago Book of Friendship steps in. Celebratory, but also explanatory and wide in scope - from the Bible to Yellowface, from school friends to the loss of friends in old age - this wonderful book includes Jane Austen, Nora Ephron, Toni Morrison, Vivian Gornick, Helen Garner, LM Montgomery, Dolly Alderton - among nearly one hundred others. This book is truly the first of its kind, looking at female friendship through literature ER -