DIARY OF THE LADY: My First Year As Editor

Sister of the former Prime Minister Boris, Rachel Johnson was appointed Editor of the oldest women's magazine in the world. 'All I knew about The Lady was what all middle-class mothers of a certain age and income bracket knew about The Lady. It was where you got your nanny from. End of.' Facing the challenge of a lifetime, Rachel tried to find out how to become an editor when she really never had edited before. How do you turn around a venerable title, full of gloomy articles on watery eyes and ads for walk-in baths into a totally cookin' property? And during the worst recession ever. And forget about doubling the circulation in a year. What on earth do you wear to work when you've spent the last 15 years sitting at home in sweatpants? As Rachel puts on her best Bree Van de Kamp silk blouse and penetrates the time-capsule six-storey cream and pink HQ in Covent Garden, with its Fred West basement, Ladies' Smoking Room, Anne Frank annexe and wall-safe filled with custard creams, she soon realises that if The Lady was ever to become more hip than hip replacement, it would need emergency surgery, fast. Here is Rachel's riotous and alarmingly frank account as she redesigns the magazine, persuades big names to write for peanuts, attempts to sell advertising space to bewildered executives and tackles her dreaded in-tray. Will she sink or survive? We think that she meant well but she really is an insufferable snob in the opinion of many readers. Read at your peril! 323pp. Illus.