A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark: The Novel Cure for eating too much

The double-chinned protagonist of Muriel Spark's satire of the post-war publishing industry is a somewhat large 28-year-old war widow who puts herself on a diet that involves eating and drinking the same as always, only half

Ailment: Eating too much

Cure: A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark

However impervious you like to think you are to the new year's resolution bandwagon, we suspect you're not above making a private pledge to reduce your waistline. Who wouldn't like to be a slimmer, fitter version of themselves? What you don't want, though, is a faddish diet that involves ringing up the host before a dinner party to tell him or her that their carefully planned menu doesn't fit with your regime. This novel has a solution: a diet that doesn't involve changing the menu, and is so discreet that even your family may not spot you're on it.

The double-chinned protagonist of Muriel Spark's satire of the post-war publishing industry, Mrs Hawkins, is a somewhat large 28-year-old war widow who describes herself as "motherly". She's untroubled when an older woman gives her her seat on a bus, thinking she's pregnant. It's only when she takes a job at Mackintosh & Tooley, a successful publishing company, that she starts to wonder if something is amiss.

One day it dawns on her that all the firm's more senior staff have something about them that makes you feel sorry for them. One has a dreadful stammer; another a port-wine birthmark. Another turns out to be the daughter of a mass murderer. These traits, she observes, make the authors feel that they can't be cross when they discover errors creeping into their manuscripts. The reason she got her job, she realises, is that she's immensely, pitifully, overweight.

So she puts herself on a diet that involves eating and drinking the same as always, only half. She leaves half of what she is given – be it cake, coffee or banana. Soon she rediscovers her bone structure, and ditched the Mrs Hawkins to become, more racily, Nancy. Follow suit, and don't tell a soul what you're doing. If anyone asks your secret, give them this book.

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