WH Auden wrote that “literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money”. We needn’t ask what he would make of the wellspring of confessional books on offer today, each hawking its own particular brand of self-laceration. Don’t miss the opportunity to bring your own best friends or newest acquaintances along to this unforgettable evening of intimate, enlightening and important conversation. It surveyed over 10,000 people across the world and found that the average age for meeting a best friend was twenty-one. The cultural perception of what a best friend was, and how many one should have, varied across countries. In India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, people reported having three times the number of best friends as those in Australia, Europe and the US. Saudi Arabians had the highest average number of best friends at 6.6, while Britons had the lowest at 2.6. Americans are most likely to report having only one best friend. Fourteen percent had no best friend at all."

Having lots of friends meant you were loved, popular and safe. She was determined to become a Good Friend. And, in many ways, she did. Items are left in our cloakrooms at the owner’s risk, and we cannot accept any responsibility for loss or damage, from any cause, to these items. We're cash-free

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A generous, companionable guide to a part of life every bit as crucial - and as fraught - as romance or family.’THE OBSERVER - Then, when a global pandemic hit in 2020, she was one of thousands of people forced to reassess what friendship really meant to them – with the crisis came a dawning realisation: her truest friends were not the ones she had been spending most time with. Why was this? Could she rebalance it? Was there such thing as…too many friends? And was she the friend she thought she was? I loved the exploration of not just what friendship is and means to people but that it's okay to end friendships, just as it is to end other relationships. And that it's not all about how many friends you have but the value you bring to your life. I was in hospital over the weekend. When I was discharged, it felt as though I were viewing the world through the bottom of an emptied pint glass. The horizon was distorted. Noises were muted. My marriage started to disintegrate. Seeing babies being pushed along the street in buggies caused me a stab of psychic pain.

As a society, there is a tendency to elevate romantic love. But what about friendships? Aren't they just as – if not more – important? So why is it hard to find the right words to express what these uniquely complex bonds mean to us? In Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict, Elizabeth Day embarks on a journey to answer these questions. Elizabeth Day is a former journalist, now author and podcaster. She is also a self-confessed Friendaholic. In this book, she examines her friendship and her addiction. It is a reflection of her connection to her friends, a compilation of studies of relationships throughout history. (The studies mentioned include Nietzche and Aristotle). Intertwined within the book are the "Friendship Tapes," various interviews with other people about their feelings in friendships.So why is it hard to find the right words to express what these uniquely complex bonds mean to us? In Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict, Elizabeth Day embarks on a journey to answer these questions. Amidst birthday joy, thesis submission anxiety, and bittersweet farewells, this book was placed in my hands by my beloved friends. I felt it as a symbolic gesture that marked the end of an era and the beginning of a new one, that is now forever imprinted in my memory, heart and soul. This book embodies a chapter of life we shared, some that proceeded it and the unwritten ones yet to come. Friendship is unique in not having anything - no birthdays, no anniversaries, no ceremonies to mark it. This means it's also uniquely difficult to manage the development of a friendship in a careful and caring fashion.

Please be aware that the delivery time frame may vary according to the area of delivery - the approximate delivery time is usually between 1-2 business days. If you want to be a mother, Elizabeth, you will find a way,” she said. “And if it doesn’t happen, you can, in the fullness of time, be at peace with that, too.”Perceptive, compassionate and filled with relatable insights into all that is beautiful about friendship, with its most valuable point being that it should be about quality, rather than quantity.’THE DAILY MAIL -

One way of taking a stand against the spread of this mechanical language would be to stop lining the caps of confessional beggars like Elizabeth Day. For, as Auden says, though such writers are contemptible, they’re “not so contemptible as the public who buys their books”. As I read Elizabeth Day’s latest work of non-fiction, Friendaholic, I found myself texting friends, making plans. We’ll call it guilt. If Day was addicted to friendships, I was ambivalent. I had good friends but had never thought deeply about this social institution we were enacting. Had I been doing it wrong? Likely, the book exists to provoke this sort of concern – to draw attention to an aspect of life that has gone unexamined because “we’ve spent so much time heroising romantic love”. Whether it’s wise to scrutinise friendship in the way we’ve scrutinised romantic love is debatable but Day does a good job of convincing us the topic is interesting and worthy of at least some analysis. We sipped bellinis and talked about our childhoods, our hopes and fears. By the end of those seven days, I’d made one of my dearest friends’: Elizabeth with Joan As a society, there is a tendency to elevate romantic love. But what about friendships? Aren't they just as - if not more - important? So why is it hard to find the right words to express what these uniquely complex bonds mean to us? In Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict, Elizabeth Day embarks on a journey to answer these questions.Then, when a global pandemic hit in 2020, she was one of thousands of people forced to reassess what friendship really meant to them. With the crisis came a dawning realisation: her truest friends were not the ones she had been spending most time with. Why was this? Could she rebalance it? Was there such thing as…too many friends? And was she the friend she thought she was? As a society, there is a tendency to elevate romantic love. But what about friendships? Aren't they just as – if not more – important?