One's Company: Reflections On Living Alone

by Barbara Holland

A feisty, heartening, eloquent anatomy of being on one’s own.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

255 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Barbara Murray Holland was an American author who wrote in defense of such modern-day vices as cursing, drinking, eating fatty food and smoking cigarettes, as well as a memoir of her time spent growing up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, near Washington, D.C.

Reviews

[Sue]

Holland tackles the solo life in this book. I don’t know how to classify it. Memoir? Humor? Advice? It is certainly full of truths about living alone. For example: the silence ticks like a bomb, solitude is a lot more enjoyable if it’s voluntary, dining alone is the pits, and children and cats are with you only temporarily but cats are cheaper to take care of. Chapters cover friends, lovers, children, home, work, depression, anxiety and alternatives to living alone. Although many sections made me chuckle, I found her light treatment of serious issues such as depression and anxiety off-putting. She also assumes we all live in apartments in big cities, which is not the case. Her take on feminism seems dated. But she nails the feeling of isolation that comes with being alone, the wondering if anyone knows or cares that we’re here. Reach out to other people, she urges; we need them to feel connected to the world. Overall, I enjoyed this book.

[Kim Ibara]

I can’t remember where I came upon the recommendation for this book. All I know is I’m very glad I did. As the original publishing date was 1996, some things are outdated. However, the substance of the book is absolutely applicable to these times, and surprisingly prescient in many areas. The delights in reading Barbara Holland are many: her biting wit, social insight, and the mastery of her prose. I would compare her to Fran Lebowitz, with a little more humor and a little less sarcasm… but not much. This book is somewhere between memoir, self help, social commentary, and poetry. In other words, very hard to define.
Whether you are actually living alone or simply feel isolated, or just want to read something that will make you laugh at times and give you reasons to reflect deeply as well, I highly recommend adding this book to your reading list.

[Linda]

All right. Some good ideas. Mostly not much help.

[luminele285]

4.69/5

[Kate]

One of the great pleasures of reading is that someone else, somewhere else, has felt exactly as we have felt-- and has expressed those feelings as vibrantly as we could ever hope to do.

Outside of self-help books and perhaps some contemporary chic-lit. there seem not to be many books that speak to the life of a single person. Barbara Holland does so with understanding, kindness, and droll humor.
A perfect book for reading while drinking coffee (alone)in the sunshine. Or when at home (alone), under the covers on a dark and stormy night.

"Even without sex, it's probably a good idea for the genders to stay in touch,meet, play, gossip, and cook in each other's kitchens from time to time. When either foes too long without the other we tend to get peculiar in our separate ways; the natural differences between us grow and accrete, like coral reefs, without the abrasive contact to keep the bristles smoothed down. Intimacy across the gender barrier is hard enough at the best of times-- the best of times is about age 18, on campus-- but after we've been separated from each other too long, when we do meet it's less like the bees and the flowers then like the clang of two suits of armor colliding on a darkling plain."

[Tiff]

It's interesting that's for sure. Her takes on single women living alone are a little out dated but it's insightful none the less. I have a very early edition so maybe later editions give a different take. Actually as single woman completely unattached and soon to enter my 30's, it actually scared me a bit.

[Avis Black]

This is not a book about solitude, it's a book about how the author hates being alone. She's approaches the state with extreme timidity and lots of mediocre reflection. It's not often I despise a book but I can't stand this one.

[Yamanda]

This really is the perfect post-breakup book. The cover makes it look like a bad self-help manual from the 80s, but there's actually a lot of witty, insightful, and non-cliched advice on how to draw personal power from the single life.

[June]

One of the bleakest books I've read and without reason. Holland takes an unneccessarily depressing, and often unrealistic, tone about living alone.