Search results for ""Margaret Forster" "Hidden Lives""

Book SynopsisMargaret Forster''s grandmother died in 1936, taking many secrets to her grave. Where had she spent the first 23 years of her life? Who was the woman in black who paid her a mysterious visit shortly before her death? How had she borne living so close to an illegitimate daughter without acknowledging her? The search for answers took Margaret on a journey into her family's past, examining not only her grandmother''s life, but also her mother's and her own. The result is both a moving, evocative memoir and a fascinating commentary on how women's lives have changed over the past century.

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Book SynopsisIn 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 bTrade ReviewI 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 -- Melanie McGrath * Evening Standard *A quite magical store of voices from another age * Observer *

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Book SynopsisBorn in Carlisle, Margaret Forster was the author of many successful and acclaimed novels, including Have the Men Had Enough?, Lady's Maid, Diary of an Ordinary Woman, Is There Anything You Want? , Keeping the World Away, Over and The Unknown Bridesmaid. She also wrote bestselling memoirs Hidden Lives, Precious Lives and, most recently, My Life in Houses and biographies. She was married to writer and journalist Hunter Davies and lived in London and the Lake District. She died in February 2016, just before her last novel, How to Measure a Cow, was published.Trade ReviewI was truly moved by Margaret Forster's ingeniously structured and beautifully written memoir... A really wonderful book -- Juliet Nicolson * Evening Standard BOOKS OF THE YEAR *A beautiful exploration of her life in relation to the homes she has made' -- Rachel Joyce * Observer BOOKS OF THE YEAR *Such a clever idea. It's a memoir sited in bricks and mortar... social and personal history spliced together -- Penelope Lively * Guardian BOOKS OF THE YEAR *Until its shocking, throat-catching end, this latest book is a deceptively simple trek evoking everywhere [Margaret Forster] has lived -- Melanie Reid * The Times *Reads like one of Forster's well-loved novels: full of sharp observation and gentle wit -- Bel Mooney * Daily Mail *In both books and homes, we find wry humour and a great deal of poignancy -- Sarah Franklin * Sunday Express *Like sitting down for tea with a highly intelligent woman and chatting, not so much about "a room of one's own" as "a home of one's own"... fascinating and touching * Spectator *This is a lovely and touching evocation of what home means to one woman, and within this is a universality that many will connect with -- Shirley Whiteside * Herald *

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Book SynopsisBorn in Carlisle, Margaret Forster was the author of many successful and acclaimed novels, including Have the Men Had Enough?, Lady's Maid, Diary of an Ordinary Woman, Is There Anything You Want? , Keeping the World Away, Over and The Unknown Bridesmaid. She also wrote bestselling memoirs Hidden Lives, Precious Lives and, most recently, My Life in Houses and biographies. She was married to writer and journalist Hunter Davies and lived in London and the Lake District. She died in February 2016, just before her last novel, How to Measure a Cow, was published.Trade ReviewA brilliant exploration of choice and consequence * Mail on Sunday *Enthralling... readers will plunge happily into the kind of family story for which Margaret Foster is celebrated and which she executes so well -- Anita Brooker * Spectator *An unfailingly intelligent novel, full of lucid observation of a phenomenon, mother-love, too often seen through a gilded haze of false feeling and wishful thinking... Forster is a fine storyteller * Sunday Times *Intricate, romantic and full of suspense * Observer *An excellently funny, moving novel... a text for our times -- Auberon Waugh * Independent *

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Book SynopsisStunning reissue of the phenomenal worldwide bestseller: Frank McCourt''s sad, funny, bittersweet memoir of growing up in New York in the 30s and in Ireland in the 40s.It is a story of extreme hardship and suffering, in Brooklyn tenements and Limerick slums too many children, too little money, his mother Angela barely coping as his father Malachy''s drinking bouts constantly brings the family to the brink of disaster. It is a story of courage and survival against apparently overwhelming odds.Written with the vitality and resonance of a work of fiction, and with a remarkable absence of sentimentality, Angela's Ashes' is imbued on every page with Frank McCourt''s distinctive humour and compassion. Out of terrible circumstances, he has created a glorious book in the tradition of Ireland''s literary masters, which bears all the marks of a great classic.Trade Review‘’Angela's Ashes’ out Roddy Doyles Roddy Doyle. I was amazed by it.’ Margaret Forster, author of ‘Hidden Lives’ ‘Once opened, this brilliant and seductive book will not let you rest until Frank emerges, more or less reared, at the close of boyhood.’ Thomas Keneally, author of ‘Schindler's List.’ ‘Frank McCourt's lyrical Irish voice will draw comparison to Joyce. It's that seductive, that hilarious. In the annals of memoir, his name will be writ large.’ Mary Karr, author of ‘The Liar's Club’. ‘I was moved and dazzled by the sombre and lively beauty of this book; it is a story of survival and growth beyond all odds; a chronicle of surprising triumphs, written in language that is always itself triumphant.’ Mary Gordon, author of ‘The Shadow Man.’

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