Search results for ""Author Judith Bruce""

Muriel Newmarch was born in North London in 1903. She died in 2009, aged 106. Judith Bruce is her daughter, and Funny How Things Turn Out- part biography, part memoir - tells the story of both women, which in turn traces the unprecedented changes to women's lives during the 20th Century. The first half of the book chronicles Muriel's world through the Zeppelin raids of WW1, a painfully stilted class system, and marriage and motherhood in the 1930s - then her daughter, Judith, picks up the first-person narrative as a mischievous child in the 1940s and we stay with her until the end of the book. Woven artfully through the episodic chapters are the loves, aspirations and disappointments of two 'ordinary' women. Written with an understated elegance, Judith Bruce brings to life a barely remembered England of satin dresses at Swan & Edgar's, liberty bodices at grammar school, and English summer days where silent fathers mowed the lawn in polished shoes and unsuitable boyfriends smoked Player's Navy Cut. As we move through the post-war years from austerity and to prosperity, and Judith's working life at the BBC, the voice could almost be that of Alan Bennett. Even more so when charting the poignancy of Muriel's fading days, failing body and disappearing memory. A remarkable and accomplished portrait of life, love and changing fortunes.

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A challenge to economic theories that view the household as a harmonious unit with a single decision-maker, this book shows that in the Third World the household is an arena of conflict marked by inequality and negotiation over income and expenditures. Dwyer and Bruce's introduction is followed by eleven field studies: four in Asia, four in Africa and the Middle East, and three in the Caribbean and Central America. These twelve essays, by economists, sociologists, anthropologists and demographers provide a cogent analysis of household structure dynamics and women's bargaining context. This book will be of interest not only to specialists in gender studies but also to ethnologists and other social scientists.

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