Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29219 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Review
"'I love these diaries. They have the attraction of being stories, but Real stories... Better than any novel.' Margaret Forster; 'A lovely book. It will appeal to... anyone who appreciates the richness and diversity of human experience.' Tony Benn; 'Utterly engrossing, better than any kind of reality TV.' Gavin Esler; 'Funny, vivid, touching, angry, thoughtful - every page is a delight. This is definitely no. 1 on my present list to give to everyone in the coming year.' Jenny Uglow, author of The Lunar Men"

Jenny Uglow
"Funny, vivid, touching, angry, thoughtful – every page is a delight"

Tony Benn
"A lovely book. It will appeal to…anyone who appreciates the richness and diversity of human experience."

Customer Reviews

Our hidden lives - revealed
I am a voracious reader of anything to do with the lives of ordinary people during and immediately after the post war period and this is an absolutely fascinating book. It feels as if you are looking over the shoulders of the people writing the diaries and these diaries (by modern standards) pull no punches. Much of what is said is both politically incorrect (and hooray for that) and especially, with the opinions about Jewish people, deeply upsetting and disturbing.

That said this compilation gives a compelling picture of what life was like in the immediate post war period, the ongoing dreariness of every day life with food rationing getting worse rather than better. The sheer difficulty of replacing the most ordinary articles, the tiresomeness of having to make do and mend and the grinding knowledge that things were not going to get better anytime soon. In the event rationing went on until 1953, eight years after the war ended!

If you want to know what life was really like for the ordinary man and woman in the street at this time, then this is the book for you, it is entertaining, amusing and as previously mentioned, occasionally upsetting, but it is always fascinating. It will give you an enthralling look into other lives in a very time and a very different Britain.

Wonderful
You wouldn't think that the diaries of five people commenting on shopping trips, gardening, their health and jobs could be much of page turner, but somehow this is. I have loved every sentence so far and am so dreading reaching the end, that I have just ordered the other two books in the series. I just wish that I had read them in order. I seem to have started at the end!

Good Read
I really enjoyed this book, I read it over a long period but was deeply engrossed into it each time I picked it up. Perhaps it's the pure nosyness of being "allowed" to read a diary, the great interest in what was happening to people at the time, seeing the shifts in society and opinions of how "community" lives together and knowing where it was headed in the reality of what we have today. Really recommend this one.