Published by Ebury Press, part of Ebury Publishing
Format: Paperback
£8.99
Author:
Simon Garfield
Format: Paperback
EAN: 9780091897338
£8.99
Available for dispatch within 1-2 working days
EAN: 9780091897338
Published: 7 Apr 2005
In 1936 anthropologist Tom Harrison, poet and journalist Charles Madge, and documentary filmmaker Humphrey Jennings set up the Mass Observation Project. The idea was simple: ordinary people would record, in diary form, the events of their everyday lives. An estimated one million pages eventually found their way to the archive - and it soon became clear this was more than anyone could digest. Today, the diaries are stored at the University of Sussex, where remarkably most remain unread. In Our Hidden Lives, Simon Garfield has skilfully woven a tapestry of diary entries in the rarely discussed but pivotal period of 1945 to 1948. The result is a moving, intriguing, funny, at times heartbreaking book - unashamedly populist in the spirit of Forgotten Voices or indeed Margaret Forster's Diary of an Ordinary Woman.
'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
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I haven't read a more engrossing book in years ... a triumph of sympathetic editing
- Sunday Times
These are invaluable records of quiet lives, sometimes despairing, often moving, occasionally bitter, frequently prescient. Occasionally they are just plain funny
- Sunday Telegraph
***** - Diaries that will rewrite our history ... Our Hidden Lives intertwines modest private lives with historic public events and is by turns poignant, shocking, informative and very funny
- Mail on Sunday
A fascinating and moving portrait of ordinary lives in extraordinary times ... I could not put this book down. Over the course of its 500 or so pages, its characters almost became friends. Once I'd finished the book I missed them
- Evening Standard
A quite magical store of voices from another age
- Observer
Dip in or read cover to cover; five voices reflecting on great events, or single stories ... skilfully edited and intercut ... riveting and often moving book ... it is unrationed delight
- Daily Express
Even in the most depressed post-war years, the Mass Observation diaries of nobodies are profound with the mysteries of the everyday ... This surreal crew are painfully real in their revealed ambiguities ... time has transformed their trivial entries into the sublime; their important days will always resonate
- Guardian
Poignant, compellingly edited ... what really grips are the characters themselves, whose daily entries have a poignancy usually found in only the most engaging of novels
- Sunday Times
There can be no better book than Our Hidden Lives ... Readers of other people's diaries will revel in this delicious book
- Observer
Our Hidden Lives is a marvellous collection of diaries, written by five plain, ordinary - but exceptionally fascinating - individuals for Mass Observation ...These lively, frank records are nostalgic for those who lived through the times, but will be an eye opener for today's affluent and liberated generation of what life was like in that austere and straight-laced period
- Evening Standard
A fascinating treasure-trove of daily-life details which make the rigours and triumphs of this overlooked time come alive
- Quicksilver
Nothing less than a sharp snapshot of Britain's history
- Good Book Guide
The year's most readable book, a rich trove of entertainment and instruction
- Sunday Times
Funny, moving, fascinating and utterly irresistible
- British Life
It's riveting stuff
- TES
The extracts chosen work like the pieces of a mosaic to build a fascinating picture of everyday people and their lives in a time rarely written about
- Daily Mail
An engrossing account of post-war austerity
- Sunday Telegraph
They evoke the poverty and harshness but also the hope and stoicism of those years immediately after the Second World War
- Tribune
The diary extracts achieve the narrative force of novel ... a window on the British temperament during a little-examined period of recent history ... Most engaging
- Literary Review
A compelling picture of a vanished world
- The Veteran
We, the readers, become engrossed in their stories and lives
- Publishing News
A quiet but vivid account of an under-reported era of British life
- Family History Monthly
These 'everyday diaries' scotch the myth that history is only made by the famous or powerful ... Nobody can fail to be moved by the lives revealed here and the spirit of the diarists
- Diplomat Magazine
Stitched together by Garfield's masterful editing, the entries create a beguiling snapshot of a period that has often been overshadowed
- Independent
Richly textured diaries ... what really makes the book is the fresh light it sheds on the immediate post-war years ... it is history from the other end of the telescope - what life was like on the ground
- Financial Times
I love these diaries. They have the attraction of being stories, but Real stories ... Better than any novel
-
A lovely book. It will appeal to ... anyone who appreciates the richness and diversity of human experience
-
Utterly engrossing, better than any kind of reality TV
-
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
-
Simon Garfield is an award-winning feature writer on The Observer and author of two previous books of oral history, both highly acclaimed. His study of Aids in Britain, The End of Innocence, was awarded the Somerset Maugham Prize, and the bestselling Mauve was described by the Daily Telegraph as 'a book about science which also happens to be a miniature work of art'. His most recent work, The Last Journey of William Huskisson, was a Radio 4 Book of the Week.
