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Whatever Next?

Lessons from an Unexpected Life

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1 of 1 copy available

Bracing honesty, rare insight, and more revelations: theNew York Timesbestselling author ofLady in Waiting shares everything she's learned from her extraordinary and unexpected life.

Lady in Waiting brought us royal magic, beguiling insight, and jaw-dropping stories from life inside Anne Glenconner's privileged circle, which though golden didn't always glitter. As she revealed in her memoir, it has been one of stark contrasts—from growing up in the splendor of Holkham Hall to living in a tent in the jungle of Mustique, from traveling the world with Princess Margaret to coping with her wildly unpredictable husband Lord Glenconner. She has also survived the tragic loss of two of her sons and nursed a third son back from a coma.

Now in her ninth decade and at her happiest, she's keen to share everything her unexpected life has taught her—the wise, the hilarious, the poignant, and the illuminating. As a wife, she became a master in the art of keeping the peace, knowing when to pick her battles, when she needed help—and when to take a lover. As a hostess, she acquired great practical skills in throwing marvelous parties and looking after magnificent homes, and, as a lady in waiting, became well versed in diplomacy and etiquette. It was as a mother she learnt the toughest lessons of all, and through them the value of friendship, family, and laughter to get her through the worst moments in life, as well as celebrate the best of them.

Whatever Next? is a treasury of hard-won wisdom, and richly entertaining proof that staying open to every new adventure sets an inspiring example for us all.
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    • Library Journal

      July 1, 2022

      From the 1970s to 2020, when Cecchi-Azzolina proclaimed Your Table Is Ready, he meant it; he was ma�tre d' for sparkly New York restaurants like River Caf�, Minetta Tavern, and Le Coucou (50,000-copy first printing). Critic, journalist, and author of the National Book Award finalist Lifting as We Climb, Dionne uses personal experience--from harassment to health issues--to plumb issues of size, race, and gender in Weightless (100,000-copy first printing). A vending-machine entrepreneur by age nine now famed for TikTok's Her First $100K, Dunlap was surprised to learn in college how many female friends lacked money-management skills and now seeks to bring out the Financial Feminist in every woman (100,000-copy first printing). Following nine sometimes glamorous, sometimes painful decades and publication of the New York Times best-selling memoir Lady in Waiting, Glenconner asks Whatever Next, then delivers lessons learned while living in proximity to the Crown (50,000-copy first printing). In Why We Meditate, internationally best-selling author Goleman (Emotional Intelligence) and Tibetan Buddhist meditation master Rinpoche join forces to explain why and how meditation can help practitioners push back destructive emotions. In Screaming on the Inside, New York Times opinion writer Grose examines 200 years of unrealistic, even morally questionable parenting expectations to reveal the damage done to generations of mothers in particular (100,000-copy first printing). In Smitten Kitchen Keepers, her much anticipated third book, star food blogger Perelman tests and retests classics to offer failproof recipes for cheddar broccoli quiche, lemon poppy seed cake, and more. Quilter's Hatching draws on both reportage and personal experience to explore the impact of assisted reproductive technology today. From Forbes staffer Sorvino, Raw Deal details the current crisis facing the U.S. meat industry, flailing after consolidation, price fixing, and supply-chain issues even as alternative meat producers emerge.

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Kirkus

      January 1, 2023
      A nonagenarian member of the minor British nobility delivers a sometimes-self-satisfied, sometimes-moving memoir. The takeaway from Glenconner's memoir is that in many respects, it is quite smashing to be rich and entitled' the latter in both the sense of holding privilege and bearing a royal title. In the author's case, the title comes from having married a man named Colin Tennant, bestowed with the sobriquet "Lord Glenconner," who bought a Caribbean island and turned it into "a luxurious retreat, famous for its privacy, its glamorous visitors and its parties. Among those visitors were Mick Jagger and David Bowie, of whose work she remarks, "I know the transformative effect of great music and a thumping tune." Calling herself "an unofficial agony aunt as well as a gay icon," Glenconner raises a matter that, she suggests, is of burning interest to a large audience--namely, "if Colin was gay or bisexual." Granted, she notes, Colin did leave his entire estate to his male valet, but while she has no direct evidence, "I was painfully aware of the multiple affairs that he had with women." Named lady-in-waiting to her friend Princess Margaret, Glenconner enumerates some of the "lovely perks" that come with the job, including free passes to Wimbledon and Royal Ascot and gaining access to doctors devoted to the royal household. "I don't have to go often as fortunately I am quite healthy," she writes, "but it certainly makes getting one's flu jab more of an occasion." Less superciliously, Glenconner recounts the difficult fates of several of her children. While one son is the current Lord Glenconner, another died of AIDS and still another of hepatitis C, "a result of his struggles with heroin addiction." Though her book is often glancing, the author has clearly made much of life, even if the world today is "very different...from the one in which I was brought up." Will appeal to royal watchers and those who delight in tales of the idle rich.

      COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Booklist

      Starred review from February 1, 2023
      Glenconner, the nonagenarian daughter of the Earl of Leicester, coronation maid of honor to Queen Elizabeth, and long-time lady in waiting to Princess Margaret, penned the memoir Lady in Waiting (2020), which became a surprise international hit. Her stories about her public experiences ran from glamorous events like coming-out balls to more mundane adventures like her work as a traveling pottery saleswoman. Her private reminiscences detailed her marriage to the wildly unpredictable Lord Glenconner--magically charismatic one moment, dangerously out of control the next--and the tragic deaths of two of their children. Throughout it all, Glenconner soldiered on with a stiff upper lip. Since that book's publication, numerous readers reached out, asking for Glenconner's advice on managing their own tumultuous lives. This book is a more nuanced re-visitation of her life as she shares how she applied the diplomatic qualities instilled in her by her mother: always do your best, put others first, concede the limelight, and consider your own needs last. Fans will be happy to know that Lady Anne is delighted with her current roles as best-selling author, gay icon, mother, and grandmother. Readers will also be happy to follow along and see where she goes next.

      COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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