At fifty the guarantee runs out.

Obsessed with sex, increasingly cocaine-fuelled and gripped by a crippling fear of death, Professor Michael Cole finds his life spinning out of control. He's supposed to be writing the definitive biography of his literary hero, John Donne, yet barely manages a few hundred words a week. He knows he really shouldn't seduce his prettier female students but it's hard to stop because they're only young once. And the failure of a colleague to succumb to his waning charms is a challenge he could well do without. Throw in a fight for promotion, a wife to lie to and two small children to look after and it's no wonder his blood pressure has soared to life-threatening heights. Something has to give.

But Michael is a creature of habit and old habits die hard, especially the bad ones. It's only when he's caught in the act of adultery by his grandmother that he sees the writing is on the wall. After all, she's been dead for twenty-five years...

Funny, compelling, tender and truthful, While the Sun Shines confirms John Harding as a wonderfully shrewd and provocative chronicler of the human condition.