It was uncanny, discomfiting, even a little bit alarming. He seemed to be reading my mind, as if my thoughts were being hurled back at me through the ether. Why are we so tired? Why does it feel as though time itself is speeding up, making midlife so much more nerve-wracking an experience than it might otherwise be? Why do you never hear a middle-aged person talking about being bored? Toby Longworth was reading from Marcus Berkmann’s new book, A Shed of One’s Own: Midlife Without the Crisis, for Book of the Week on Radio 4 on Monday morning.
A man, according to Berkmann, who usually writes about music and for this magazine, must have a shed. It’s the only way to deal with the gradual onset of middle age, when if you’re really honest all you want to do is nothing at all. You don’t need a garden for this shed, or have aspirations to grow tomatoes, tobacco, the despised cucumber.
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