Can you feel nostalgic for a life you''ve never known?Suffused with her much-loved warmth and wit, Emma John''s memoir follows her moving and memorable journey to master one of the hardest musical styles on earth - and to find her place in an alien world.Emma had fallen out of love with her violin when a chance trip to the American South introduced her to bluegrass music. Classically trained, highly strung and wedded to London life, Emma was about as country as a gin martini. So why did it feel like a homecoming?Answering that question takes Emma deep into the Appalachian mountains, where she uncovers a hidden culture that confounds every expectation - and learns some emotional truths of her own.

There is a piece of cod-wisdom regularly dispensed to single women: romance will arrive when you least expect it. I had assumed it would also make its own travel arrangements too. Emma John is in her 40s; she is neither married, nor partnered, with child or planning to be.In her hilarious and unflinching memoir, Self Contained, she asks why the world only views a woman as complete when she is no longer a single figure and addresses what it means to be alone when everyone else isn''t.In her book, she captures what it is to be single in your forties, from sharing a twin room with someone you''ve never met on a group holiday (because the couples have all the doubles with ensuite) to coming to the realisation that maybe your singleness isn''t a temporary arrangement, that maybe you aren''t pre-married at all, and in fact you are self-contained.The book is an exploration of being lifelong single and what happens if you don''t meet the right person, don''t settle down with the wrong person and realise the biggest commitment is to yourself.

Can you feel nostalgic for a life you''ve never known?Suffused with her much-loved warmth and wit, Emma John''s memoir follows her moving and memorable journey to master one of the hardest musical styles on earth - and to find her place in an alien world.Emma had fallen out of love with her violin when a chance trip to the American South introduced her to bluegrass music. Classically trained, highly strung and wedded to London life, Emma was about as country as a gin martini. So why did it feel like a homecoming?Answering that question takes Emma deep into the Appalachian mountains, where she uncovers a hidden culture that confounds every expectation - and learns some emotional truths of her own.

There is a piece of cod-wisdom regularly dispensed to single women: romance will arrive when you least expect it. I had assumed it would also make its own travel arrangements too. Emma John is in her 40s; she is neither married, nor partnered, with child or planning to be.In her hilarious and unflinching memoir, Self Contained, she asks why the world only views a woman as complete when she is no longer a single figure and addresses what it means to be alone when everyone else isn''t.In her book, she captures what it is to be single in your forties, from sharing a twin room with someone you''ve never met on a group holiday (because the couples have all the doubles with ensuite) to coming to the realisation that maybe your singleness isn''t a temporary arrangement, that maybe you aren''t pre-married at all, and in fact you are self-contained.The book is an exploration of being lifelong single and what happens if you don''t meet the right person, don''t settle down with the wrong person and realise the biggest commitment is to yourself.