Life, Love and The Archers

With her sharp eye for human foibles and unfailing sense of humour, Wendy Cope has long been one of the nation's best-loved poets.

Now, thanks to this carefully curated prose collection consisting of a lifetime of published and unpublished work, readers can finally meet the Enid-Blyton-obsessed schoolgirl, the ambivalent daughter, the amused teacher, the sensitive journalist, the cynical romantic, the savagely funny television critic.

Reflecting on everything from daring to write poetry to weddings, Cope proves that she's a master of the one-liner as well as the couplet, the arch review as well as the sonnet.