Single

Living a Complete Life on Your Own Terms

By: Nicola Slawson

An empowering, comforting, and honest exploration of single life, in all its facets

In her thirties and single, journalist Nicola Slawson was sick of reading narratives about how all single women must be miserable and desperate. She wanted stories that reflected her experience, so she started The Single Supplement, a newsletter for single women that didn’t patronize them or assume that their only goal in life was finding a partner. The newsletter immediately took off, gaining thousands of followers and winning awards and features. Now Slawson is ready to cement everything she’s learned into a book.

Using her personal experiences along with insights gleaned from years of interviews, Slawson offers us an open, witty, and warmhearted exploration of single life, taking an honest look at its challenges but just as keenly celebrating its joys. She writes about feeling left behind and navigating friendships as people get married and have children; managing personal finances, career, ambition, and self-reliance; deciding whether or not to be a single mother; dealing with the shame and stigma of being single; embracing the freedom and happiness that can be found in being single; and so much more.

A vibrant life is within reach for all of us, with or without a partner. Whether you are single long term, recently, keen not to be, happy to be, considering becoming, voluntarily, involuntarily, and so on, Single is an optimistic companion, providing comfort, hope, and understanding to anyone who listens to it. It is a reminder that you are not alone, you have what it takes to handle life’s challenges, and you deserve to squeeze as much joy as you can out of your life right now, instead of feeling like you’re waiting for it to start.

©2025 Nicola Slawson (P)2025 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Single made me feel better about my life—and I’m not even single right now. It’s a warm, joyful book full of solidarity and lots of new ways of looking at single life. I’ll be thinking about this book for a while!"—Radhika Sanghani, author of 30 Things I Love About Myself

"Nicola Slawson is the authority on building the single life you deserve—and she's written the book that every single woman needs."—Rebecca Reid, author of Rude

"Nicola manages to do a rare thing: she shows compassion for single people without pitying them. She celebrates their narrative while also understanding that they might change how they feel about it from one month to the next. And she helps them to search for connection in many different places, as well as to understand themselves better. I wish Single existed when I was single."—Natasha Lunn, author of Conversations on Love