A Diary of The Lady

Book excerpt: Rachel Johnson takes on the challenge of saving The Lady, Britain's oldest women's weekly, in her hilarious diary, A Diary of The Lady: My First Year and a Half as Editor. 'The whole place seemed completely bonkers: dusty, tatty, disorganized and impossibly old-fashioned, set in an age of doilies and flag-waving patriotism and jam still for tea, some sunny day.' Appointed editor of The Lady - the oldest women's weekly in the world - Rachel Johnson faced the challenge of a lifetime. For a start, how do you become an editor when you've never, well, edited? How do you turn a venerable title, full of ads for walk-in baths, during the worst recession ever? And forget doubling the circulation in a year - what on earth do you wear to work when you've spent the last fifteen years at home in sweatpants? Will Rachel save The Lady - or sink it? 'Action-packed, entertaining, marvellously indiscreet. Johnson is everything you want in a diarist and has a compulsive habit of saying the wrong thing' Sunday Times 'She's a loose cannon. All she thinks of is sex. You can't get her away from a penis' Mrs Julia Budworth, co-owner, The Lady 'A total romp, wonderfully readable, unflinchingly described' Guardian 'HYSTERICAL. For the first time, everyone is talking about The Lady for reasons other than nannies' Piers Morgan Rachel Johnson is a journalist who has written two previous novels and two volumes of diaries. The Mummy Diaries, Notting Hell, Shire Hell and A Diary of The Lady are all available now from Penguin.