Dangerous Women - interview with Clare Conville

Dangerous Women, The Guide to Modern Life is a brilliant book that all women should pick up and read, in my opinion.

The hilarious lexicon runs through all of the things that women are put up against in modern life and gives tips on how we can handle certain situations, such as stepchildren.

Clare Conville speaks to us about the possibility of a follow-up, which points women should pick up and take on board and which book all women should read.

Do you want to sum up what the book is all about?

It's about a generation of women who have enormous choice on the one hand, but are facing all sorts of challenges on the other. It's a complicating life as we all know. The book, in a way, is to be funny about the life we're leading but also giving insight and practical fact and have a little bit of sort of, heavyweight advice behind the fun.

How did you come up with the idea for the book?

I have these two very good friends, Liz Hoggard, who is a journalist and Sarah-Jane Lovett who is a journalist and poet, and we used to go out and have a drink on a Friday night and start talking about life and the universe and everything and I began to think: 'How do we get all of the discussions we have, you know about everything, from camiknickers, to divorce, to technology, I'm thinking how do we get this down in a book? You know, there is something here.' This is the stuff that women talk about all the time, whether it's friends, mothers and daughters, sisters, you know women up and down the land talk about this stuff a lot but nobody actually put it into a book.

You've worked in the literary business for years, was it always a desire to write a book yourself?

I'm a literary agent, yes. Yes, I think it was but I didn't want to, I was always very busy looking after other people's writing careers. So, I've always just kind of scribbled stuff down, and come up with ideas but I'd never really acted upon it. But this very much sprang out at me and I'm a very bad insomniac and a year or so ago I was awake at four in the morning and I thought that this is what the book is and this is how it should work. It should be a lexicon, it should be alphabetical, it should be cross referenced. So you don't have to just read the book as an A-Z, you're cross-referenced to other entries that relate to what you've just read. So it kind of creates a narrative through the book, which I hope makes it fun to read.

Have you got any idea of any more books?

We have yes, we want to write a history of Dangerous Women. We've just started working on that idea, that would kind of be thoughtful, funny but detailed biographies of Dangerous Women through history. But not just women who are historical figures, but women who have lived dangerously one way or another and impacted on our lives as a result.

You were recently nominated as one of the Observers top 50 players in the world of books - congratulations - what does that mean to you?

Obviously it's terribly nice to be nominated for these kinds of things. I do what I do because I'm passionate about writers and writing, so it's very nice to be told ones successful but on a day-to-day basis it's not something that preoccupies me.

I love the world of books, that's my lifelong passion and I'm very luck to work within it.

The book is a guide for modern women - but which would you say are the most important to abide by?

There is an entry called, Bien dans ta peau, which is French for 'being happy with ones self' and I think that's the message for the book. You know, live as well as you dare, have ernormous fun and be happy with yourself, you know a sense of self worth and acceptance is the key to a happy life.

One of my favourite extracts from the book is 'Accepting a compliment' I just think so many women can learn from it and relate to it.

I agree with you, I think that women are trained, we are biologically pre-disposed and culturally and socially sort of trained to think about other people; so to compliment your friends, your children, your partner, whoever it is. And I for one find it very hard to accept a compliment. I'm learning to do it, but it is a lifetimes work for some people.

Ofcourse the book says stuff about make-up and wearing nice clothes and feeling sexy and things like that, but I do think that the message is that beauty comes from within.

Which book - apart from your own - do you think that all women should read?

That's a tough one. I think that my favourite novel is Persuasion by Jane Austen. And yes, if I had to say which book women should read then I'd say that.

What are your top three books about Dangerous Women?

I've just read Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff, published by Random House, which was a wonderful biography of Cleopatra, I thought that was fantastic.

I loved, which is an old biography now Mary Wollstonecraft, who was the first great feminist really, by Clare Tomlinson.

There are so many, I suppose...

One of the Dangerous Women that I most interested in, and who is very hard to write about well, because there is no primary source material available about her, is Eleanor Aquitaine. There was a biography, written by, I think she's called Alison Weir. But I do have to say that I don't think it was a very good book, it was the closest that you could get to Eleanor Aquitaine so far.

These books are three brilliant and dangerous women, I think.

Finally, why should women read this book?

I think that lot's of women have to do a lot of stuff, that's the nature of being a woman. If they don't want to read it, then they shouldn't read it. If women are attracted to reading it, I hope that it makes them laugh, I hope it inspires them and I hope that it gives to them. We feel we're sharing life experience and that might be helpful for them. I find talking to my friends on a daily basis and sharing their experience of the world around them of enormous help to me. So if we can offer that in a book it's better. But as I say nobody should read it, I just hope that they will.

Published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on 3 November 2011

Femalefirst Taryn Davies

Dangerous Women, The Guide to Modern Life is a brilliant book that all women should pick up and read, in my opinion.

The hilarious lexicon runs through all of the things that women are put up against in modern life and gives tips on how we can handle certain situations, such as stepchildren.

Clare Conville speaks to us about the possibility of a follow-up, which points women should pick up and take on board and which book all women should read.

Do you want to sum up what the book is all about?

It's about a generation of women who have enormous choice on the one hand, but are facing all sorts of challenges on the other. It's a complicating life as we all know. The book, in a way, is to be funny about the life we're leading but also giving insight and practical fact and have a little bit of sort of, heavyweight advice behind the fun.

How did you come up with the idea for the book?

I have these two very good friends, Liz Hoggard, who is a journalist and Sarah-Jane Lovett who is a journalist and poet, and we used to go out and have a drink on a Friday night and start talking about life and the universe and everything and I began to think: 'How do we get all of the discussions we have, you know about everything, from camiknickers, to divorce, to technology, I'm thinking how do we get this down in a book? You know, there is something here.' This is the stuff that women talk about all the time, whether it's friends, mothers and daughters, sisters, you know women up and down the land talk about this stuff a lot but nobody actually put it into a book.

You've worked in the literary business for years, was it always a desire to write a book yourself?

I'm a literary agent, yes. Yes, I think it was but I didn't want to, I was always very busy looking after other people's writing careers. So, I've always just kind of scribbled stuff down, and come up with ideas but I'd never really acted upon it. But this very much sprang out at me and I'm a very bad insomniac and a year or so ago I was awake at four in the morning and I thought that this is what the book is and this is how it should work. It should be a lexicon, it should be alphabetical, it should be cross referenced. So you don't have to just read the book as an A-Z, you're cross-referenced to other entries that relate to what you've just read. So it kind of creates a narrative through the book, which I hope makes it fun to read.

Have you got any idea of any more books?

We have yes, we want to write a history of Dangerous Women. We've just started working on that idea, that would kind of be thoughtful, funny but detailed biographies of Dangerous Women through history. But not just women who are historical figures, but women who have lived dangerously one way or another and impacted on our lives as a result.

You were recently nominated as one of the Observers top 50 players in the world of books - congratulations - what does that mean to you?

Obviously it's terribly nice to be nominated for these kinds of things. I do what I do because I'm passionate about writers and writing, so it's very nice to be told ones successful but on a day-to-day basis it's not something that preoccupies me.

I love the world of books, that's my lifelong passion and I'm very luck to work within it.

The book is a guide for modern women - but which would you say are the most important to abide by?

There is an entry called, Bien dans ta peau, which is French for 'being happy with ones self' and I think that's the message for the book. You know, live as well as you dare, have ernormous fun and be happy with yourself, you know a sense of self worth and acceptance is the key to a happy life.

One of my favourite extracts from the book is 'Accepting a compliment' I just think so many women can learn from it and relate to it.

I agree with you, I think that women are trained, we are biologically pre-disposed and culturally and socially sort of trained to think about other people; so to compliment your friends, your children, your partner, whoever it is. And I for one find it very hard to accept a compliment. I'm learning to do it, but it is a lifetimes work for some people.

Ofcourse the book says stuff about make-up and wearing nice clothes and feeling sexy and things like that, but I do think that the message is that beauty comes from within.

Which book - apart from your own - do you think that all women should read?

That's a tough one. I think that my favourite novel is Persuasion by Jane Austen. And yes, if I had to say which book women should read then I'd say that.

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