London – the view from outside
How does London appear to those who do not live there? Culturally vibrant, exciting and diverse? Overpriced, polluted and self-important? On the eve of the mayoral elections, we ask cultural figures...
View ArticleBattle for the bulge: Jilly Cooper's Mount! is no return to saucy covers
Her publisher controversially cleaned up last year’s reissue of Riders. Will readers keep their cool over the 50-Shadesian packaging of her new book?The talk on the books desk this morning has strayed...
View ArticleJilly Cooper: ‘People were always coming up to us at parties and asking us to...
The doyenne of the bonkbuster talks about her latest doorstopper, her marriage and the days before political correctness“I think,” says Jilly Cooper, managing to seem both nervous and delighted, “that...
View ArticleMount! by Jilly Cooper review – daft, boozy joy
A whirlwind of parties, hairdos and horses hails the return of one of fiction’s most lusted-after charactersThere is a single word, about three quarters of the way through this book, spoken at the...
View ArticleJilly Cooper: ‘My books are my babies’
The novelist talks about her pride in her father, her mother – who taught her to read at four – and how writing novels saved her from loneliness after the death of her husbandMy father, Bill, was very,...
View ArticleCan you match the house to the writer it inspired? – quiz
The residence that helped Stephen King conceive a horror classic has gone on sale in the US. We have some other properties for you to view …Continue reading...
View ArticleJilly Cooper: modern men have beards and cry all the time
Author tells Hay festival of phenomenon of ‘married men wanting to have gay affairs’Jilly Cooper, the doyenne of the posh bonkbuster, has given her observations on modern men: they cry too much, always...
View ArticleKatharine Whitehorn: This is how you changed our view of the world
It was revealed last week that the veteran Observer journalist, Katharine Whitehorn, now aged 90, has advanced Alzheimer’s. Four women – three writers and a reader – tell how her radical brand of...
View ArticleGermaine, your shock-jock musings just alienate today’s young feminists |...
With her views on rape, Germaine Greer has torpedoed the chance for women of all generations to find common causeHow can older women, even fiendishly brainy, internationally celebrated feminist...
View ArticleIf having a dog means you can never have another holiday, is it worth it?
Jilly Cooper hasn’t been away for 22 years because she can’t bear to leave her greyhound – but every day is like a holiday when there’s a dog in your lifeJilly Cooper says she hasn’t had a holiday in...
View ArticleA new start: Jilly Cooper on the night in a Kama Sutra room that led to her...
While struggling to write the novel that would transform her career, she discovered the country pile that would prove inspirationalBeing a very horsey little girl, I always dreamed about writing a...
View ArticleOver 40 and loving it: let's celebrate fiction with positive older characters
Too many books feature sterotypical older women who can’t use phones and don’t like sex. Gransnet and imprint HQ are looking for writers to change all thatThere is a passage from Jilly Cooper’s Rivals...
View ArticleBonkbusters are about so much more than sex and shopping
Judith Krantz, who has died at 91, was a queen of the genre, putting confident women and their friendships to the foreIt was hard not to see the death of Judith Krantz at the age of 91 last week as the...
View ArticleJilly Cooper tops inaugural Comedy women in print awards
The Rutshire Chronicles author received the lifetime achievement honour, with prizes for rising stars Laura Steven and Kirsty EyreReigning queen of the pun Jilly Cooper has been awarded the inaugural...
View ArticleThe Guardian view on a book glut: to the victor go the spoils? | Editorial
Many publishers are enjoying record sales – but not all. We must take care that those with the biggest names and deepest pockets are not the only beneficiariesAs the weather turns and the days shorten,...
View ArticleBetween the Covers by Jilly Cooper review – as fresh as ever
This collection of Cooper’s newspaper columns from the 60s and 70s is bitchy, saucy, insightful and, most of all, great funGood journalism is easier to read than to write, especially the kind that has...
View ArticleJessie Greengrass: 'Frog and Toad Are Friends contains one of the best jokes...
The author on underrated ‘great of feminist literature’ Gaudy Night, looking forward to every Ian Rankin novel, and never finishing MiddlemarchThe book I am currently readingDanielle Evans’s The Office...
View ArticleThe return of the bonkbuster: how horny heroines are starting a new sexual...
I longed for novels about female desire - women empowered by sex and their expressions of lust. So I sat down and wrote my ownThe idea for my novel Insatiableemerged from a simple question: where were...
View ArticleJilly Cooper bestseller Rivals set for eight-part TV adaptation
The second novel in Cooper’s Rutshire Chronicles – following Britain’s sex and power-mad elites of the 1980s – will have a ‘2020s lens’ in a new Disney+ seriesOne of Jilly Cooper’s best-loved novels,...
View ArticleTop 10 cads in fiction | Charlotte Vassell
Dangerously handsome young men carelessly ruining women’s lives are a rarer breed than they were. But their hatefulness still makes compelling readingYou don’t see many cads in the wild any more: they...
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