I was given a promotional copy of the first couple of chapters of One Day as part of a marketing giveaway last year. It’s only recently that I’ve read the full book and realised what an ingenious ploy that giveaway really was – the first and last chapters being pretty good.

This book was EVERYWHERE this summer. So many people on my train to work were reading it that the cover became more familiar to me than the pattern on my duvet cover. So that you can join in the inevitable conversation about this novel (or the film adaptation, which I haven’t seen but I hear is pretty much the same) without reading it, I did it for you.

If you do want to read this book then beware – there are massive spoilers ahead. But really, don’t bother.

Over the last fortnight I have developed a bruise on my right hip, a swollen right hand and a bruise just below my little finger. On what I like to call the anti-palm, because I’m sure there must be a word for ‘the top of the hand’. I’ve also pulled a muscle in my back.

What’s caused all this destruction? Well. In a betrayal to my P.E phobic teenage self, I’ve taken up a demanding sport.

Taking our lead from the Baby Boomers and Generation X’s refusal to grow up, Squeamish Louise and I have enrolled in a 6 week hoola-hooping course.

I mean I have signed up to a course that requires ‘loose, comfortable clothing’. 

How to be a Woman is one of my picks for the top book of 2011. If you were trekking through Siberia all summer and missed it, this is Caitlin Moran’s feminist memoir – each chapter detailing a different stage of her life. The focus shifts from losing weight to abortion, sexism at work to masturbating to Chevy Chase.

A quick disclaimer: I’ve been a massive fan of Moran’s writing for years. I was excited to read this book before it even came out. But I wasn’t disappointed: it blew me away.

There is quite possibly more to disagree with in the book than I noticed either time I read it; I was swept away by the sheer, air-punching, laugh-on-the-train joy of reading it. At last, feminist jokes about feminism. It’s a refreshing change to reading boring tirades that pillory “humourless feminists”.