Showing results by narrator "Marcus Berkmann" in All Categories

Marcus Berkmann's funny, instantly recognisable description of middle-age in A Shed of One's Own struck a chord and turned it into a bestseller. Now he looks at life ten years on. Well, as Marcus describes, the body continues to fall apart, along with the bank balance - but it's certainly not all doom and gloom. You have come to terms with your deficiencies and eccentricities (and if you have a partner they may be better adjusted to them too); you might have finally conquered your FOMO; and you have embraced the notion of the Power Nap.

For many men, middle age arrives too fast and without due warning. One day you are young, free and single; the next you are bald, fat and washed-up, with weird tendrils of hair growing out of your ears. None of it seems fair. With age should come dignity and respect, but instead everyone makes tired jokes about buying a motorbike. Marcus Berkmann isn't having it. Having marked his fiftieth birthday by hiding under the duvet for six weeks, the author of the cricket classics Rain Men and Zimmer Men is now determined to find some light in the all-consuming darkness