In this intriguing & very personal book, part diary, part memoir, P. D. James considers the twelve months of her life between her 77th & 78th birthdays, & looks back on her earlier life. With all her familiar skills as a writer she recalls what it was like to be a schoolgirl in the 1920s & 1930s in Cambridge, & then giving birth to her second daughter during the worst of the Doodlebug bombardment in London during the war. It follows her work, starting out as an administrator in the National Health Service, then on to the Home Office in the forensic & criminal justice departments. She later served as a Governor of the BBC, an influential member of the British Council, the Arts Council & the Society of Authors, & eventually entering the House of Lords. Along the way, this diary & personal memoir deals with her burgeoning reputation as a novelist, starting with Cover Her Face in 1962, & with the craft of the classical detective story. She also details the writing of one of her most intriguing & carefully researched books, A Certain Justice. This wonderful memoir will enthral aficionados of detective fiction, & will also appeal to anyone who lived through those turbulent years of the twentieth century.