For the past four years Jane Miller, author of Crazy Age: Thoughts on Being Old, has been writing a column for an American magazine called In These Times. Her beautifully observed pieces about life, politics and Britain open a window to her American readers of a world very different from their own.

''Her erudition is both dazzling and lightly borne, the personal often illuminating the political . . . Miller''s is a welcome, necessary voice - readable, informative and entertaining'' Times Literary Supplement

Jane Miller, author of the acclaimed Crazy Age, has for the past few years been writing a column for an American magazine based in Chicago called In These Times. Now, these beautifully observed pieces about life, politics and Britain, which opened a window for Americans on a world rather different from their own, are collected and published for the first time for her British readers.

''Miller is a fantastic companion'' Viv Groskop, Telegraph