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 to do with (ugh) so-called lifestyle. It’s all about tone, and more hacks than you might imagine, not to mention their editors, have a tin ear in this regard. This kind of journalism tends, moreover, to go off faster than fresh fish. All of which makes Between the Covers, a new collection of Jilly Cooper’s journalism, the more remarkable. Yes, there are columns here that will seem painfully dated to 21st-century eyes; women are no longer, thank God, expected to drop their girlfriends when they marry, and thereafter only to socialise as a couple. Some references, too, may be beyond younger readers: you have to be of a certain age (my age, probably) to know what she means when she describes sex as “only the liquid centre of the great New Berry Fruit of friendship”. But in the main, perky, clever and rather wise, these pieces still slip down as easily as a nice cold glass of something crisp and white. A certain kind of self-deprecation – we call it humblebragging now – can be extremely grating over 100 pages, or even, to be honest, over a paragraph. But not only is Cooper’s modesty completely genuine; she’s just as apt to deploy a little quiet pride here and there. She will never patronise her readers by posing as something she is not. Continue reading.........

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