An extract from my The Young Widow’s Book of Home Improvement appears in the January 2009 issue of Psychologies, a monthly magazine published in the UK. I might be biased, but since learning about this magazine I have been amazed at how much content there is in it that I actually want to read. My usual experience of the articles in “women’s magazines” is that they tend towards the generic – making me think, “Didn’t I just read this article somewhere else?” – or they assume a set of values that I don’t share (for example it’s either “Yes, of course I’ll pay $1500 for a dress” or “Yes, I’ll devote my Saturday afternoon to recycling all my plastic bags into a new doormat”). Happily Psychologies has intelligent and valuable content that both informs and entertains without leaving me feeling at the end of the issue that I’m not “too” anything (fat, poor, dumb etc) – just myself, a work in progress like everyone else.