'Whom to marry and when will it happen - these two questions define every woman's existence.'

So begins Spinster, a revelatory look at the pleasures, problems and possibilities of living independently in the 21st century, reconsidering what it means - what it could mean - for women to 'have it all'.

'I wish I could give this wise and subtle book to my thirty-year-old self; she would have taken heart . . . Bold and intelligent' Rebecca Mead, author of My Life in Middlemarch

'A triumph' Malcolm Gladwell

'Women of the world listen here: drop whatever you're doing and read Kate Bolick's marvelous meditation on what it means to be female at the dawn of the 21st century' Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year

'Moving, insightful and important' Elif Batuman, author of The Possessed