Just read it!, 26 Feb 2008
I can only add to the unalloyed praise of others and wish that Nella Last could know what pleasure and enlightenment her "scribbling" would bring to others over 60 years later.

She writes beautifully and naturally, but what's most interesting is the way she changes as the war progresses. At the beginning she is sickly and weak, plagued with arthritis, and refers to a "breakdown" she had a few years before. But she determines to "do something" for the war effort and joins the WVS. From there she goes from strength to strength, and the evolution of her ideas is fascinating; she comes to see her conventional marriage to an old stick of a husband as "slavery". She's also very observant and perceptive of the people around her.
She writes lyrically of walks home by moonlight, and trips out to the countryside at Coniston Water, but also of the stresses of the blitz, the challenges of getting palatable meals on the table every day, and everyday squabbles and power games at the WVS. She has a truly open mind, always questioning and wondering what the future holds for her sons and the other young people she knows.

I don't want to say too much about it; just read it. It's one of those books where you long to meet the author; she really does seem like someone you know and admire.

Quite Incredible - read it, 20 Feb 2008
A fantastic book, I couldn't put it down. Nella could never have imagined that her diaries would have such meaning so many years after she wrote them. The detail is interesting in it's own right and well written. I love the ins and outs of Nella's life and difficulties. I am interested in the people she writes about. I worry for her sons with her. But beyond that, she has made me look at myself. I have started to look at the way I cook, wastage, how to make things last and go further. The book has made me consider some of my own personal relationships and opened my eyes to the way a mother feels and thinks about her son. It has had me thinking about my grandmother and how she would have gone through the same thing. I hope Nella can look down and know how wonderful this book is.

An Ordinary Woman living through an Extraordinary time. , 09 Feb 2008
This is a book that I really enjoyed. Nella Last is an ordinary housewife aged 49 in the second world war, and it is the story of her everyday life, and how the war affected it, and how she coped. I have total admiration for the people who lived through world wars, in whatever capacity, whether military or civilian. I think that we really don't appreciate their efforts enough, and speaking for myself, I really don't know very much about what it was like in war-time, other than what I have read or seen on tv. I empathised with her so much when her boys went to do their military service, and she tried to keep a 'stiff upper lip' while quietly breaking her heart. I loved the fact that she didn't just allow herself to be dominated by her husband, that she found her niche in the shop and the canteen, and she never lost sight of what she thought was important. These people went through so much, yet never lost their sense of humour, or their ability to make the best of a very bad situation. It is a great read, and a marvellous insight into the British personality, I feel. I wonder how Nella Last would feel, knowing that her 'scribblings' as she called them, were being read avidly 60 years after the war, and appreciated and enjoyed by people whose lives would be so altered had the outcome of that war been different.

Utterly engrossing, 18 Sep 2007
Like many other reviewers here, I bought this book having enjoyed the TV dramatisation so much. I was not disappointed! There is a great deal to enjoy as the diaries give so much detail about many different aspects of life during the Second World War. Nella's growing awareness of her own abilities and her increased self-confidence as she has to tackle new challenges are an indication of the changes in women's lives that would eventually surface during the following decades. She speaks to us so directly through these diaries, that you feel totally involved in her experiences. She also displays humour and perception, and I was sorry to come to the end of the book.

what a wonderful book, 29 Jul 2007
Without a doubt this has got to be one of the most wonderful, thought provoking, emotional yet rewarding books I've ever read. There wasn't a single part of this book I didn't like, I wanted to savour every bit of it. Nella Last is someone who I came to greatly admire. She was resourceful, kind, helpful and very sensitive and thoughtful.
She always strived to do the best by her family and look after others - and despite her own nerves, depression and anxiety she did a sterling job. I felt such empathy with her when she described her anxieties, her tears and her down days - even though our experiences are poles and decades apart - nothing really changes in the human psyche.
I loved her vivid descriptions of the food she cooked, how she scrimped and saved and put by and still managed to create all these nourishing meals so that her husband and her sons didn't go hungry. How she found time to do all she did is a mystery, but she did it and it was people like her that kept our country going.
I'm really sorry to have finished the book and not have any more of it to read such was the quality of the writing. I felt as though I knew all the family, and was party to so many secrets.
I can't really find enough superlatives to describe it - a required read for anyone interested in history or anything to do with the Wars. Nella's beautifully honed prose is a delight to read, and something that Victoria Wood also captured beautifully in her reworking of the diary for TV.

Just read it!, 26 Feb 2008
I can only add to the unalloyed praise of others and wish that Nella Last could know what pleasure and enlightenment her "scribbling" would bring to others over 60 years later.

She writes beautifully and naturally, but what's most interesting is the way she changes as the war progresses. At the beginning she is sickly and weak, plagued with arthritis, and refers to a "breakdown" she had a few years before. But she determines to "do something" for the war effort and joins the WVS. From there she goes from strength to strength, and the evolution of her ideas is fascinating; she comes to see her conventional marriage to an old stick of a husband as "slavery". She's also very observant and perceptive of the people around her.
She writes lyrically of walks home by moonlight, and trips out to the countryside at Coniston Water, but also of the stresses of the blitz, the challenges of getting palatable meals on the table every day, and everyday squabbles and power games at the WVS. She has a truly open mind, always questioning and wondering what the future holds for her sons and the other young people she knows.

I don't want to say too much about it; just read it. It's one of those books where you long to meet the author; she really does seem like someone you know and admire.

Quite Incredible - read it, 20 Feb 2008
A fantastic book, I couldn't put it down. Nella could never have imagined that her diaries would have such meaning so many years after she wrote them. The detail is interesting in it's own right and well written. I love the ins and outs of Nella's life and difficulties. I am interested in the people she writes about. I worry for her sons with her. But beyond that, she has made me look at myself. I have started to look at the way I cook, wastage, how to make things last and go further. The book has made me consider some of my own personal relationships and opened my eyes to the way a mother feels and thinks about her son. It has had me thinking about my grandmother and how she would have gone through the same thing. I hope Nella can look down and know how wonderful this book is.

An Ordinary Woman living through an Extraordinary time. , 09 Feb 2008
This is a book that I really enjoyed. Nella Last is an ordinary housewife aged 49 in the second world war, and it is the story of her everyday life, and how the war affected it, and how she coped. I have total admiration for the people who lived through world wars, in whatever capacity, whether military or civilian. I think that we really don't appreciate their efforts enough, and speaking for myself, I really don't know very much about what it was like in war-time, other than what I have read or seen on tv. I empathised with her so much when her boys went to do their military service, and she tried to keep a 'stiff upper lip' while quietly breaking her heart. I loved the fact that she didn't just allow herself to be dominated by her husband, that she found her niche in the shop and the canteen, and she never lost sight of what she thought was important. These people went through so much, yet never lost their sense of humour, or their ability to make the best of a very bad situation. It is a great read, and a marvellous insight into the British personality, I feel. I wonder how Nella Last would feel, knowing that her 'scribblings' as she called them, were being read avidly 60 years after the war, and appreciated and enjoyed by people whose lives would be so altered had the outcome of that war been different.

Utterly engrossing, 18 Sep 2007
Like many other reviewers here, I bought this book having enjoyed the TV dramatisation so much. I was not disappointed! There is a great deal to enjoy as the diaries give so much detail about many different aspects of life during the Second World War. Nella's growing awareness of her own abilities and her increased self-confidence as she has to tackle new challenges are an indication of the changes in women's lives that would eventually surface during the following decades. She speaks to us so directly through these diaries, that you feel totally involved in her experiences. She also displays humour and perception, and I was sorry to come to the end of the book.

what a wonderful book, 29 Jul 2007
Without a doubt this has got to be one of the most wonderful, thought provoking, emotional yet rewarding books I've ever read. There wasn't a single part of this book I didn't like, I wanted to savour every bit of it. Nella Last is someone who I came to greatly admire. She was resourceful, kind, helpful and very sensitive and thoughtful.
She always strived to do the best by her family and look after others - and despite her own nerves, depression and anxiety she did a sterling job. I felt such empathy with her when she described her anxieties, her tears and her down days - even though our experiences are poles and decades apart - nothing really changes in the human psyche.
I loved her vivid descriptions of the food she cooked, how she scrimped and saved and put by and still managed to create all these nourishing meals so that her husband and her sons didn't go hungry. How she found time to do all she did is a mystery, but she did it and it was people like her that kept our country going.
I'm really sorry to have finished the book and not have any more of it to read such was the quality of the writing. I felt as though I knew all the family, and was party to so many secrets.
I can't really find enough superlatives to describe it - a required read for anyone interested in history or anything to do with the Wars. Nella's beautifully honed prose is a delight to read, and something that Victoria Wood also captured beautifully in her reworking of the diary for TV.

A Doll's House is a masterpiece, 08 Mar 2005
I read this book not knowing what to expect (my partner is studying Enlish Lit' with the Open University and it is on her reading list).

I think it is a masterpiece, so much drama and suspense trapped inside such a small play, it is very clever and also leaves you feeling that you are a better person for having read it.

My partner paid £0.99 for this book, I would say this price does the book an injustice. A classic to rival 'The Medea'

A brilliant play on Marrige, Supression and Feminisme., 22 Jan 2003
Henrik Ibsen in one of the most famous Norwegian writers thoughout the world. And he is known for his plays where he gives a critical view upon the society.
In this play, everything happens around the main character Nora. She is innocent, naiv and has no education at all, just like most women of her social rank had at that time. Her husband, Torvald, is well known in the city, and his wife is just a "doll". She isn't supposed to have opinions on anything, just smile and look pretty in this male dominated world.
When Torvald Helmer finds out that his wife has "stole" money from her father to be able to pay for a health insitution for him, he's shocked. Nora, not understand what she might have done wrong, was only trying to help her husband, and yet protect her dying father. She wakes up, starting feel independant, wanting to discover herself...
Ibsen was a master of showing different sides of the social levels, and giving a critic view on what he didn't like. He has done it yet again, focusing on the marriage of these two people. Supression and a male dominated world is central aspects, and also the growing feminisme.
The book is worth reading for anyone how loves to read. It is truly one of Ibsen's best plays!

Themes and images I enjoyed thinking about., 26 Jan 2001
When I completed reading, "A Doll's House", by Henrik Ibsen, I had thoroughly enjoyed, this particluar piece of literature and thought about how its themes and images, relate to my own personal experiences. Not only does the play have its motives for the past, but it also serves as a revealing a moral message for modern day society.

Whilst reading the text, Ibsen allows me to mentally picture, "A Doll's House", by so many walls and "doors", which confined the chararcters to becoming alienated within their own environment.

From beginning to end, the text focuses on how Nora becomes isolated by her husband's dominance, which is portrayed through his patronizing behaviour. He calls her, "little spendrift", "little squirrel" and manipulates his, "doll wife" when he articulates her moves, for practicing the "Tarrantella". Overall, Nora becomes the, "songbird" trapped within a cage.

Krogstad is symbolic for bringing the threat of the outside world, into Nora's idealized home, through his blackmailing behaviour. It is frightening to know the damage it causes to ruin a beautiful relationship, which is based on a lie, that metophorically contaminates and poisons individuals within an enclosed home.I found that the atmosphere was so stifiling for the characters,I felt symapthetic towards them.

Ibsen's moral message entails, in order for women to feel independent, they need to get to know themselves, so they are able to experience, develop knowledge and deal with the outside world alone. This is what Ibsen wanted to portray to a Nineteenth Century audience.Ibsen's play relates to everyday experiences, such as, "debt", causing a home to, "never be a place of freedom and beauty". This piece of literature is so powerful, that I believe it is one of Ibsen's most striking master pieces, I have ever read that deals with conventions and norms of women living in a Victorian masculine society.

An interesting and insightful text which I enjoyed studying, 22 Oct 2000
As a part of my A level studies I have concentrated on this text. I have found it most interesting and insightful if a little hard to comprehend at first. This edition is very good for the price but is by no means upto the standard of other texts which boast analysis and also the alternative ending. I have yet to find a good sudy guide to this text so it is perhaps worth investing in a more facilitative original text if your intention is for study.

Be inspired to read Ibsen's plays!!, 22 Oct 2000
This is a great version of the play. The notes and charcter information is really useful and I would reccommend this version to anyone studying A Doll's House. The translation is good and easier to follow than some other versions. It is also useful if you are studying the Victorian period because Ibsen had great insight into his society. It has inspired me to read more of Ibsen's plays.

Just read it!, 26 Feb 2008
I can only add to the unalloyed praise of others and wish that Nella Last could know what pleasure and enlightenment her "scribbling" would bring to others over 60 years later.

She writes beautifully and naturally, but what's most interesting is the way she changes as the war progresses. At the beginning she is sickly and weak, plagued with arthritis, and refers to a "breakdown" she had a few years before. But she determines to "do something" for the war effort and joins the WVS. From there she goes from strength to strength, and the evolution of her ideas is fascinating; she comes to see her conventional marriage to an old stick of a husband as "slavery". She's also very observant and perceptive of the people around her.
She writes lyrically of walks home by moonlight, and trips out to the countryside at Coniston Water, but also of the stresses of the blitz, the challenges of getting palatable meals on the table every day, and everyday squabbles and power games at the WVS. She has a truly open mind, always questioning and wondering what the future holds for her sons and the other young people she knows.

I don't want to say too much about it; just read it. It's one of those books where you long to meet the author; she really does seem like someone you know and admire.

Quite Incredible - read it, 20 Feb 2008
A fantastic book, I couldn't put it down. Nella could never have imagined that her diaries would have such meaning so many years after she wrote them. The detail is interesting in it's own right and well written. I love the ins and outs of Nella's life and difficulties. I am interested in the people she writes about. I worry for her sons with her. But beyond that, she has made me look at myself. I have started to look at the way I cook, wastage, how to make things last and go further. The book has made me consider some of my own personal relationships and opened my eyes to the way a mother feels and thinks about her son. It has had me thinking about my grandmother and how she would have gone through the same thing. I hope Nella can look down and know how wonderful this book is.

An Ordinary Woman living through an Extraordinary time. , 09 Feb 2008
This is a book that I really enjoyed. Nella Last is an ordinary housewife aged 49 in the second world war, and it is the story of her everyday life, and how the war affected it, and how she coped. I have total admiration for the people who lived through world wars, in whatever capacity, whether military or civilian. I think that we really don't appreciate their efforts enough, and speaking for myself, I really don't know very much about what it was like in war-time, other than what I have read or seen on tv. I empathised with her so much when her boys went to do their military service, and she tried to keep a 'stiff upper lip' while quietly breaking her heart. I loved the fact that she didn't just allow herself to be dominated by her husband, that she found her niche in the shop and the canteen, and she never lost sight of what she thought was important. These people went through so much, yet never lost their sense of humour, or their ability to make the best of a very bad situation. It is a great read, and a marvellous insight into the British personality, I feel. I wonder how Nella Last would feel, knowing that her 'scribblings' as she called them, were being read avidly 60 years after the war, and appreciated and enjoyed by people whose lives would be so altered had the outcome of that war been different.

Utterly engrossing, 18 Sep 2007
Like many other reviewers here, I bought this book having enjoyed the TV dramatisation so much. I was not disappointed! There is a great deal to enjoy as the diaries give so much detail about many different aspects of life during the Second World War. Nella's growing awareness of her own abilities and her increased self-confidence as she has to tackle new challenges are an indication of the changes in women's lives that would eventually surface during the following decades. She speaks to us so directly through these diaries, that you feel totally involved in her experiences. She also displays humour and perception, and I was sorry to come to the end of the book.

what a wonderful book, 29 Jul 2007
Without a doubt this has got to be one of the most wonderful, thought provoking, emotional yet rewarding books I've ever read. There wasn't a single part of this book I didn't like, I wanted to savour every bit of it. Nella Last is someone who I came to greatly admire. She was resourceful, kind, helpful and very sensitive and thoughtful.
She always strived to do the best by her family and look after others - and despite her own nerves, depression and anxiety she did a sterling job. I felt such empathy with her when she described her anxieties, her tears and her down days - even though our experiences are poles and decades apart - nothing really changes in the human psyche.
I loved her vivid descriptions of the food she cooked, how she scrimped and saved and put by and still managed to create all these nourishing meals so that her husband and her sons didn't go hungry. How she found time to do all she did is a mystery, but she did it and it was people like her that kept our country going.
I'm really sorry to have finished the book and not have any more of it to read such was the quality of the writing. I felt as though I knew all the family, and was party to so many secrets.
I can't really find enough superlatives to describe it - a required read for anyone interested in history or anything to do with the Wars. Nella's beautifully honed prose is a delight to read, and something that Victoria Wood also captured beautifully in her reworking of the diary for TV.

A Doll's House is a masterpiece, 08 Mar 2005
I read this book not knowing what to expect (my partner is studying Enlish Lit' with the Open University and it is on her reading list).

I think it is a masterpiece, so much drama and suspense trapped inside such a small play, it is very clever and also leaves you feeling that you are a better person for having read it.

My partner paid £0.99 for this book, I would say this price does the book an injustice. A classic to rival 'The Medea'

A brilliant play on Marrige, Supression and Feminisme., 22 Jan 2003
Henrik Ibsen in one of the most famous Norwegian writers thoughout the world. And he is known for his plays where he gives a critical view upon the society.
In this play, everything happens around the main character Nora. She is innocent, naiv and has no education at all, just like most women of her social rank had at that time. Her husband, Torvald, is well known in the city, and his wife is just a "doll". She isn't supposed to have opinions on anything, just smile and look pretty in this male dominated world.
When Torvald Helmer finds out that his wife has "stole" money from her father to be able to pay for a health insitution for him, he's shocked. Nora, not understand what she might have done wrong, was only trying to help her husband, and yet protect her dying father. She wakes up, starting feel independant, wanting to discover herself...
Ibsen was a master of showing different sides of the social levels, and giving a critic view on what he didn't like. He has done it yet again, focusing on the marriage of these two people. Supression and a male dominated world is central aspects, and also the growing feminisme.
The book is worth reading for anyone how loves to read. It is truly one of Ibsen's best plays!

Themes and images I enjoyed thinking about., 26 Jan 2001
When I completed reading, "A Doll's House", by Henrik Ibsen, I had thoroughly enjoyed, this particluar piece of literature and thought about how its themes and images, relate to my own personal experiences. Not only does the play have its motives for the past, but it also serves as a revealing a moral message for modern day society.

Whilst reading the text, Ibsen allows me to mentally picture, "A Doll's House", by so many walls and "doors", which confined the chararcters to becoming alienated within their own environment.

From beginning to end, the text focuses on how Nora becomes isolated by her husband's dominance, which is portrayed through his patronizing behaviour. He calls her, "little spendrift", "little squirrel" and manipulates his, "doll wife" when he articulates her moves, for practicing the "Tarrantella". Overall, Nora becomes the, "songbird" trapped within a cage.

Krogstad is symbolic for bringing the threat of the outside world, into Nora's idealized home, through his blackmailing behaviour. It is frightening to know the damage it causes to ruin a beautiful relationship, which is based on a lie, that metophorically contaminates and poisons individuals within an enclosed home.I found that the atmosphere was so stifiling for the characters,I felt symapthetic towards them.

Ibsen's moral message entails, in order for women to feel independent, they need to get to know themselves, so they are able to experience, develop knowledge and deal with the outside world alone. This is what Ibsen wanted to portray to a Nineteenth Century audience.Ibsen's play relates to everyday experiences, such as, "debt", causing a home to, "never be a place of freedom and beauty". This piece of literature is so powerful, that I believe it is one of Ibsen's most striking master pieces, I have ever read that deals with conventions and norms of women living in a Victorian masculine society.

An interesting and insightful text which I enjoyed studying, 22 Oct 2000
As a part of my A level studies I have concentrated on this text. I have found it most interesting and insightful if a little hard to comprehend at first. This edition is very good for the price but is by no means upto the standard of other texts which boast analysis and also the alternative ending. I have yet to find a good sudy guide to this text so it is perhaps worth investing in a more facilitative original text if your intention is for study.

Be inspired to read Ibsen's plays!!, 22 Oct 2000
This is a great version of the play. The notes and charcter information is really useful and I would reccommend this version to anyone studying A Doll's House. The translation is good and easier to follow than some other versions. It is also useful if you are studying the Victorian period because Ibsen had great insight into his society. It has inspired me to read more of Ibsen's plays.

Haunting gothic and chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Haunting tale, 01 Nov 2007
This is a disturbing tale about a young woman's treatment by her husband. What we now know as post-natal depression was in those days treated as madness. Her husband has had her confined to a room with yellow patterned wallpaper after she has her first baby. Her only way of expressing her feelings is to write them down, but she has to do so in secret as her husband has forbidden it. She thinks there is a person underneath the wallpaper trying to get out and we can feel the desperation in her writing as she struggles to understand what is happening to her. This has a bone chilling ending which will haunt my mind forever.

Tales of a Lunatic, 25 Jan 2002
Focusing on The Yellow Wallpaper alone, this novel is wonderful. Our protagonist is a woman stifled by her husband, also a doctor, who doesnt allow her to write and believes her passion for writing has made her mad. He locks her in the highest room in the house with the famous Yellow Wallpaper where most of the story takes place. It is a tale of an incarcerated woman who stays awake by night to see the caged figure in the wallpaper that 'shakes the bars' by moonlight, hence her lunacy.
The book is a large component fir Gilbert and Gubar's 'The Madwoman In The Attic' and frankly, i love it!!

Just read it!, 26 Feb 2008
I can only add to the unalloyed praise of others and wish that Nella Last could know what pleasure and enlightenment her "scribbling" would bring to others over 60 years later.

She writes beautifully and naturally, but what's most interesting is the way she changes as the war progresses. At the beginning she is sickly and weak, plagued with arthritis, and refers to a "breakdown" she had a few years before. But she determines to "do something" for the war effort and joins the WVS. From there she goes from strength to strength, and the evolution of her ideas is fascinating; she comes to see her conventional marriage to an old stick of a husband as "slavery". She's also very observant and perceptive of the people around her.
She writes lyrically of walks home by moonlight, and trips out to the countryside at Coniston Water, but also of the stresses of the blitz, the challenges of getting palatable meals on the table every day, and everyday squabbles and power games at the WVS. She has a truly open mind, always questioning and wondering what the future holds for her sons and the other young people she knows.

I don't want to say too much about it; just read it. It's one of those books where you long to meet the author; she really does seem like someone you know and admire.

Quite Incredible - read it, 20 Feb 2008
A fantastic book, I couldn't put it down. Nella could never have imagined that her diaries would have such meaning so many years after she wrote them. The detail is interesting in it's own right and well written. I love the ins and outs of Nella's life and difficulties. I am interested in the people she writes about. I worry for her sons with her. But beyond that, she has made me look at myself. I have started to look at the way I cook, wastage, how to make things last and go further. The book has made me consider some of my own personal relationships and opened my eyes to the way a mother feels and thinks about her son. It has had me thinking about my grandmother and how she would have gone through the same thing. I hope Nella can look down and know how wonderful this book is.

An Ordinary Woman living through an Extraordinary time. , 09 Feb 2008
This is a book that I really enjoyed. Nella Last is an ordinary housewife aged 49 in the second world war, and it is the story of her everyday life, and how the war affected it, and how she coped. I have total admiration for the people who lived through world wars, in whatever capacity, whether military or civilian. I think that we really don't appreciate their efforts enough, and speaking for myself, I really don't know very much about what it was like in war-time, other than what I have read or seen on tv. I empathised with her so much when her boys went to do their military service, and she tried to keep a 'stiff upper lip' while quietly breaking her heart. I loved the fact that she didn't just allow herself to be dominated by her husband, that she found her niche in the shop and the canteen, and she never lost sight of what she thought was important. These people went through so much, yet never lost their sense of humour, or their ability to make the best of a very bad situation. It is a great read, and a marvellous insight into the British personality, I feel. I wonder how Nella Last would feel, knowing that her 'scribblings' as she called them, were being read avidly 60 years after the war, and appreciated and enjoyed by people whose lives would be so altered had the outcome of that war been different.

Utterly engrossing, 18 Sep 2007
Like many other reviewers here, I bought this book having enjoyed the TV dramatisation so much. I was not disappointed! There is a great deal to enjoy as the diaries give so much detail about many different aspects of life during the Second World War. Nella's growing awareness of her own abilities and her increased self-confidence as she has to tackle new challenges are an indication of the changes in women's lives that would eventually surface during the following decades. She speaks to us so directly through these diaries, that you feel totally involved in her experiences. She also displays humour and perception, and I was sorry to come to the end of the book.

what a wonderful book, 29 Jul 2007
Without a doubt this has got to be one of the most wonderful, thought provoking, emotional yet rewarding books I've ever read. There wasn't a single part of this book I didn't like, I wanted to savour every bit of it. Nella Last is someone who I came to greatly admire. She was resourceful, kind, helpful and very sensitive and thoughtful.
She always strived to do the best by her family and look after others - and despite her own nerves, depression and anxiety she did a sterling job. I felt such empathy with her when she described her anxieties, her tears and her down days - even though our experiences are poles and decades apart - nothing really changes in the human psyche.
I loved her vivid descriptions of the food she cooked, how she scrimped and saved and put by and still managed to create all these nourishing meals so that her husband and her sons didn't go hungry. How she found time to do all she did is a mystery, but she did it and it was people like her that kept our country going.
I'm really sorry to have finished the book and not have any more of it to read such was the quality of the writing. I felt as though I knew all the family, and was party to so many secrets.
I can't really find enough superlatives to describe it - a required read for anyone interested in history or anything to do with the Wars. Nella's beautifully honed prose is a delight to read, and something that Victoria Wood also captured beautifully in her reworking of the diary for TV.

A Doll's House is a masterpiece, 08 Mar 2005
I read this book not knowing what to expect (my partner is studying Enlish Lit' with the Open University and it is on her reading list).

I think it is a masterpiece, so much drama and suspense trapped inside such a small play, it is very clever and also leaves you feeling that you are a better person for having read it.

My partner paid £0.99 for this book, I would say this price does the book an injustice. A classic to rival 'The Medea'

A brilliant play on Marrige, Supression and Feminisme., 22 Jan 2003
Henrik Ibsen in one of the most famous Norwegian writers thoughout the world. And he is known for his plays where he gives a critical view upon the society.
In this play, everything happens around the main character Nora. She is innocent, naiv and has no education at all, just like most women of her social rank had at that time. Her husband, Torvald, is well known in the city, and his wife is just a "doll". She isn't supposed to have opinions on anything, just smile and look pretty in this male dominated world.
When Torvald Helmer finds out that his wife has "stole" money from her father to be able to pay for a health insitution for him, he's shocked. Nora, not understand what she might have done wrong, was only trying to help her husband, and yet protect her dying father. She wakes up, starting feel independant, wanting to discover herself...
Ibsen was a master of showing different sides of the social levels, and giving a critic view on what he didn't like. He has done it yet again, focusing on the marriage of these two people. Supression and a male dominated world is central aspects, and also the growing feminisme.
The book is worth reading for anyone how loves to read. It is truly one of Ibsen's best plays!

Themes and images I enjoyed thinking about., 26 Jan 2001
When I completed reading, "A Doll's House", by Henrik Ibsen, I had thoroughly enjoyed, this particluar piece of literature and thought about how its themes and images, relate to my own personal experiences. Not only does the play have its motives for the past, but it also serves as a revealing a moral message for modern day society.

Whilst reading the text, Ibsen allows me to mentally picture, "A Doll's House", by so many walls and "doors", which confined the chararcters to becoming alienated within their own environment.

From beginning to end, the text focuses on how Nora becomes isolated by her husband's dominance, which is portrayed through his patronizing behaviour. He calls her, "little spendrift", "little squirrel" and manipulates his, "doll wife" when he articulates her moves, for practicing the "Tarrantella". Overall, Nora becomes the, "songbird" trapped within a cage.

Krogstad is symbolic for bringing the threat of the outside world, into Nora's idealized home, through his blackmailing behaviour. It is frightening to know the damage it causes to ruin a beautiful relationship, which is based on a lie, that metophorically contaminates and poisons individuals within an enclosed home.I found that the atmosphere was so stifiling for the characters,I felt symapthetic towards them.

Ibsen's moral message entails, in order for women to feel independent, they need to get to know themselves, so they are able to experience, develop knowledge and deal with the outside world alone. This is what Ibsen wanted to portray to a Nineteenth Century audience.Ibsen's play relates to everyday experiences, such as, "debt", causing a home to, "never be a place of freedom and beauty". This piece of literature is so powerful, that I believe it is one of Ibsen's most striking master pieces, I have ever read that deals with conventions and norms of women living in a Victorian masculine society.

An interesting and insightful text which I enjoyed studying, 22 Oct 2000
As a part of my A level studies I have concentrated on this text. I have found it most interesting and insightful if a little hard to comprehend at first. This edition is very good for the price but is by no means upto the standard of other texts which boast analysis and also the alternative ending. I have yet to find a good sudy guide to this text so it is perhaps worth investing in a more facilitative original text if your intention is for study.

Be inspired to read Ibsen's plays!!, 22 Oct 2000
This is a great version of the play. The notes and charcter information is really useful and I would reccommend this version to anyone studying A Doll's House. The translation is good and easier to follow than some other versions. It is also useful if you are studying the Victorian period because Ibsen had great insight into his society. It has inspired me to read more of Ibsen's plays.

Haunting gothic and chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Haunting tale, 01 Nov 2007
This is a disturbing tale about a young woman's treatment by her husband. What we now know as post-natal depression was in those days treated as madness. Her husband has had her confined to a room with yellow patterned wallpaper after she has her first baby. Her only way of expressing her feelings is to write them down, but she has to do so in secret as her husband has forbidden it. She thinks there is a person underneath the wallpaper trying to get out and we can feel the desperation in her writing as she struggles to understand what is happening to her. This has a bone chilling ending which will haunt my mind forever.

Tales of a Lunatic, 25 Jan 2002
Focusing on The Yellow Wallpaper alone, this novel is wonderful. Our protagonist is a woman stifled by her husband, also a doctor, who doesnt allow her to write and believes her passion for writing has made her mad. He locks her in the highest room in the house with the famous Yellow Wallpaper where most of the story takes place. It is a tale of an incarcerated woman who stays awake by night to see the caged figure in the wallpaper that 'shakes the bars' by moonlight, hence her lunacy.
The book is a large component fir Gilbert and Gubar's 'The Madwoman In The Attic' and frankly, i love it!!

Top Play, 19 Mar 2007
This offering from feminist playwright Caryl Churchill is an uncompromising critique of the capitalist mode of feminism as advocated by the model of the eighties power women, most obviously personified by Margaret Thatcher.

'Top Girls' deploys an interesting technique whereby characters narratives overlap leading to complicated scenarios wherein meaning is lost in the melee of competing voices. It certainly makes for difficult listening or reading but acts uniquely as a physical representation of the interupted and disjointed histories of the women whose situation it aims to ameliorate.

The play is split into three main sections. The first act witnesses the meeting of various fictional and non-fictional characters from history, literature and art at a dinner party. The party has been organised to celebrate the recent career success of central character Marlene. Marlene works for an agency designed to find jobs for women.

The first section reflects the women's various instances of "success" whilst exposing the commonality of their suffering both at the hands of men and indeed at their hands of their own complicity with the phallocentric societies in which they found themselves.

The next two acts are situated in the present, within a year of each other, and focus on Marlene's character. This present experience acts as an interesting counterpoint to the dinner-time narratives. It becomes abundantly clear that Marlene too, though ostensibly successful, comes with her own baggage and we are asked to quesiton how far indeed women have come, if at all.

'Top Girls' should not be mistaken for a cynical and negative play: far from it. It's message is that there is hope but only through a socialist ethic of togetherness where the intended output is the common good rather than the elevated succes of the individual. This idea is neatly illustrated by Isabella's illness where she reveals that her head could not be supported by the diseased spine. That is to say, without the foundations of a strong society the most talented and superficially gifted individual cannot truly thrive.

I would recommend it on many levels. On the most basic level it is full of dark humour and the chaotic, drunken opening act is compelling both visually and due to the uinique use of overlapping narratives. Gret will make you smile almost everytime she releases one of her limited utterances while Angie's 'momentary' cannibalism is shocking to the extreme.

However, when revisited you will be able to further plumb its hidden depths and observe admiringly how Churchill subtly weaves her earnest polemic into the fabric of the novel.


Stunning, 07 Jun 2001
This play is amazing! The techniques Churchill uses to keep your interest are interesting in themselves. A fantastic plot that keeps you engrossed. A brilliant play that combines the issues of class and gender in an unusual way. A joy to study, going to see this play is is a must.

Shocking, humourous, serious - all at the same time., 09 Dec 2000
Top Girls is one of a number of plays written by the brilliant Caryl Churhill. First performed in the Royal Court Theatre, 1982, the play proved a raging success, also entertaining the Americans when Performed in Joseph Papps Public Theatre New York. Top Girls is a play not neccessarily concerned with providing answers but asking questions, mainly about the rather archaic and unfair patriarchal society in which all of the women in this play are living in, or indeed, have lived in. It also deals with certain issues about women and the world of work, and more specifically, the prices that are attatched to personal success and acheivment. Top Girls is a play which delivers the fundamental elements which theatre is based upon, and goes a lot further and deeper than this. It has educational values and an extremely serious aspect to it, but at the same time can be intriguigly entertaining and addictive, so much so that one may feel that they are emotionally dragged into one of the many, sometimes tense, sometimes funny, sometimes shocking conversations between the brilliantly constucted characters.

However, there is an underlying seriousness to the play which Churchill manages to mix well with the half hearted humour evident throughout the play. Her idea of bringing different flavours of women, from past and present, and placing them around a table as she does in act one, is ambitious to say the least. It does, however, work well, with each character highlighting the changing ideas and themes towards women and oppression. Overall Top Girls is a Top read. Characters are constructed well, and the plot has a somewhat eye opening twist. Would suit anyone in the adult bracket (contains explicit language), who have an interest in the role of women in society, throughout history.

Just read it!, 26 Feb 2008
I can only add to the unalloyed praise of others and wish that Nella Last could know what pleasure and enlightenment her "scribbling" would bring to others over 60 years later.

She writes beautifully and naturally, but what's most interesting is the way she changes as the war progresses. At the beginning she is sickly and weak, plagued with arthritis, and refers to a "breakdown" she had a few years before. But she determines to "do something" for the war effort and joins the WVS. From there she goes from strength to strength, and the evolution of her ideas is fascinating; she comes to see her conventional marriage to an old stick of a husband as "slavery". She's also very observant and perceptive of the people around her.
She writes lyrically of walks home by moonlight, and trips out to the countryside at Coniston Water, but also of the stresses of the blitz, the challenges of getting palatable meals on the table every day, and everyday squabbles and power games at the WVS. She has a truly open mind, always questioning and wondering what the future holds for her sons and the other young people she knows.

I don't want to say too much about it; just read it. It's one of those books where you long to meet the author; she really does seem like someone you know and admire.

Quite Incredible - read it, 20 Feb 2008
A fantastic book, I couldn't put it down. Nella could never have imagined that her diaries would have such meaning so many years after she wrote them. The detail is interesting in it's own right and well written. I love the ins and outs of Nella's life and difficulties. I am interested in the people she writes about. I worry for her sons with her. But beyond that, she has made me look at myself. I have started to look at the way I cook, wastage, how to make things last and go further. The book has made me consider some of my own personal relationships and opened my eyes to the way a mother feels and thinks about her son. It has had me thinking about my grandmother and how she would have gone through the same thing. I hope Nella can look down and know how wonderful this book is.

An Ordinary Woman living through an Extraordinary time. , 09 Feb 2008
This is a book that I really enjoyed. Nella Last is an ordinary housewife aged 49 in the second world war, and it is the story of her everyday life, and how the war affected it, and how she coped. I have total admiration for the people who lived through world wars, in whatever capacity, whether military or civilian. I think that we really don't appreciate their efforts enough, and speaking for myself, I really don't know very much about what it was like in war-time, other than what I have read or seen on tv. I empathised with her so much when her boys went to do their military service, and she tried to keep a 'stiff upper lip' while quietly breaking her heart. I loved the fact that she didn't just allow herself to be dominated by her husband, that she found her niche in the shop and the canteen, and she never lost sight of what she thought was important. These people went through so much, yet never lost their sense of humour, or their ability to make the best of a very bad situation. It is a great read, and a marvellous insight into the British personality, I feel. I wonder how Nella Last would feel, knowing that her 'scribblings' as she called them, were being read avidly 60 years after the war, and appreciated and enjoyed by people whose lives would be so altered had the outcome of that war been different.

Utterly engrossing, 18 Sep 2007
Like many other reviewers here, I bought this book having enjoyed the TV dramatisation so much. I was not disappointed! There is a great deal to enjoy as the diaries give so much detail about many different aspects of life during the Second World War. Nella's growing awareness of her own abilities and her increased self-confidence as she has to tackle new challenges are an indication of the changes in women's lives that would eventually surface during the following decades. She speaks to us so directly through these diaries, that you feel totally involved in her experiences. She also displays humour and perception, and I was sorry to come to the end of the book.

what a wonderful book, 29 Jul 2007
Without a doubt this has got to be one of the most wonderful, thought provoking, emotional yet rewarding books I've ever read. There wasn't a single part of this book I didn't like, I wanted to savour every bit of it. Nella Last is someone who I came to greatly admire. She was resourceful, kind, helpful and very sensitive and thoughtful.
She always strived to do the best by her family and look after others - and despite her own nerves, depression and anxiety she did a sterling job. I felt such empathy with her when she described her anxieties, her tears and her down days - even though our experiences are poles and decades apart - nothing really changes in the human psyche.
I loved her vivid descriptions of the food she cooked, how she scrimped and saved and put by and still managed to create all these nourishing meals so that her husband and her sons didn't go hungry. How she found time to do all she did is a mystery, but she did it and it was people like her that kept our country going.
I'm really sorry to have finished the book and not have any more of it to read such was the quality of the writing. I felt as though I knew all the family, and was party to so many secrets.
I can't really find enough superlatives to describe it - a required read for anyone interested in history or anything to do with the Wars. Nella's beautifully honed prose is a delight to read, and something that Victoria Wood also captured beautifully in her reworking of the diary for TV.

A Doll's House is a masterpiece, 08 Mar 2005
I read this book not knowing what to expect (my partner is studying Enlish Lit' with the Open University and it is on her reading list).

I think it is a masterpiece, so much drama and suspense trapped inside such a small play, it is very clever and also leaves you feeling that you are a better person for having read it.

My partner paid £0.99 for this book, I would say this price does the book an injustice. A classic to rival 'The Medea'

A brilliant play on Marrige, Supression and Feminisme., 22 Jan 2003
Henrik Ibsen in one of the most famous Norwegian writers thoughout the world. And he is known for his plays where he gives a critical view upon the society.
In this play, everything happens around the main character Nora. She is innocent, naiv and has no education at all, just like most women of her social rank had at that time. Her husband, Torvald, is well known in the city, and his wife is just a "doll". She isn't supposed to have opinions on anything, just smile and look pretty in this male dominated world.
When Torvald Helmer finds out that his wife has "stole" money from her father to be able to pay for a health insitution for him, he's shocked. Nora, not understand what she might have done wrong, was only trying to help her husband, and yet protect her dying father. She wakes up, starting feel independant, wanting to discover herself...
Ibsen was a master of showing different sides of the social levels, and giving a critic view on what he didn't like. He has done it yet again, focusing on the marriage of these two people. Supression and a male dominated world is central aspects, and also the growing feminisme.
The book is worth reading for anyone how loves to read. It is truly one of Ibsen's best plays!

Themes and images I enjoyed thinking about., 26 Jan 2001
When I completed reading, "A Doll's House", by Henrik Ibsen, I had thoroughly enjoyed, this particluar piece of literature and thought about how its themes and images, relate to my own personal experiences. Not only does the play have its motives for the past, but it also serves as a revealing a moral message for modern day society.

Whilst reading the text, Ibsen allows me to mentally picture, "A Doll's House", by so many walls and "doors", which confined the chararcters to becoming alienated within their own environment.

From beginning to end, the text focuses on how Nora becomes isolated by her husband's dominance, which is portrayed through his patronizing behaviour. He calls her, "little spendrift", "little squirrel" and manipulates his, "doll wife" when he articulates her moves, for practicing the "Tarrantella". Overall, Nora becomes the, "songbird" trapped within a cage.

Krogstad is symbolic for bringing the threat of the outside world, into Nora's idealized home, through his blackmailing behaviour. It is frightening to know the damage it causes to ruin a beautiful relationship, which is based on a lie, that metophorically contaminates and poisons individuals within an enclosed home.I found that the atmosphere was so stifiling for the characters,I felt symapthetic towards them.

Ibsen's moral message entails, in order for women to feel independent, they need to get to know themselves, so they are able to experience, develop knowledge and deal with the outside world alone. This is what Ibsen wanted to portray to a Nineteenth Century audience.Ibsen's play relates to everyday experiences, such as, "debt", causing a home to, "never be a place of freedom and beauty". This piece of literature is so powerful, that I believe it is one of Ibsen's most striking master pieces, I have ever read that deals with conventions and norms of women living in a Victorian masculine society.

An interesting and insightful text which I enjoyed studying, 22 Oct 2000
As a part of my A level studies I have concentrated on this text. I have found it most interesting and insightful if a little hard to comprehend at first. This edition is very good for the price but is by no means upto the standard of other texts which boast analysis and also the alternative ending. I have yet to find a good sudy guide to this text so it is perhaps worth investing in a more facilitative original text if your intention is for study.

Be inspired to read Ibsen's plays!!, 22 Oct 2000
This is a great version of the play. The notes and charcter information is really useful and I would reccommend this version to anyone studying A Doll's House. The translation is good and easier to follow than some other versions. It is also useful if you are studying the Victorian period because Ibsen had great insight into his society. It has inspired me to read more of Ibsen's plays.

Haunting gothic and chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Haunting tale, 01 Nov 2007
This is a disturbing tale about a young woman's treatment by her husband. What we now know as post-natal depression was in those days treated as madness. Her husband has had her confined to a room with yellow patterned wallpaper after she has her first baby. Her only way of expressing her feelings is to write them down, but she has to do so in secret as her husband has forbidden it. She thinks there is a person underneath the wallpaper trying to get out and we can feel the desperation in her writing as she struggles to understand what is happening to her. This has a bone chilling ending which will haunt my mind forever.

Tales of a Lunatic, 25 Jan 2002
Focusing on The Yellow Wallpaper alone, this novel is wonderful. Our protagonist is a woman stifled by her husband, also a doctor, who doesnt allow her to write and believes her passion for writing has made her mad. He locks her in the highest room in the house with the famous Yellow Wallpaper where most of the story takes place. It is a tale of an incarcerated woman who stays awake by night to see the caged figure in the wallpaper that 'shakes the bars' by moonlight, hence her lunacy.
The book is a large component fir Gilbert and Gubar's 'The Madwoman In The Attic' and frankly, i love it!!

Top Play, 19 Mar 2007
This offering from feminist playwright Caryl Churchill is an uncompromising critique of the capitalist mode of feminism as advocated by the model of the eighties power women, most obviously personified by Margaret Thatcher.

'Top Girls' deploys an interesting technique whereby characters narratives overlap leading to complicated scenarios wherein meaning is lost in the melee of competing voices. It certainly makes for difficult listening or reading but acts uniquely as a physical representation of the interupted and disjointed histories of the women whose situation it aims to ameliorate.

The play is split into three main sections. The first act witnesses the meeting of various fictional and non-fictional characters from history, literature and art at a dinner party. The party has been organised to celebrate the recent career success of central character Marlene. Marlene works for an agency designed to find jobs for women.

The first section reflects the women's various instances of "success" whilst exposing the commonality of their suffering both at the hands of men and indeed at their hands of their own complicity with the phallocentric societies in which they found themselves.

The next two acts are situated in the present, within a year of each other, and focus on Marlene's character. This present experience acts as an interesting counterpoint to the dinner-time narratives. It becomes abundantly clear that Marlene too, though ostensibly successful, comes with her own baggage and we are asked to quesiton how far indeed women have come, if at all.

'Top Girls' should not be mistaken for a cynical and negative play: far from it. It's message is that there is hope but only through a socialist ethic of togetherness where the intended output is the common good rather than the elevated succes of the individual. This idea is neatly illustrated by Isabella's illness where she reveals that her head could not be supported by the diseased spine. That is to say, without the foundations of a strong society the most talented and superficially gifted individual cannot truly thrive.

I would recommend it on many levels. On the most basic level it is full of dark humour and the chaotic, drunken opening act is compelling both visually and due to the uinique use of overlapping narratives. Gret will make you smile almost everytime she releases one of her limited utterances while Angie's 'momentary' cannibalism is shocking to the extreme.

However, when revisited you will be able to further plumb its hidden depths and observe admiringly how Churchill subtly weaves her earnest polemic into the fabric of the novel.


Stunning, 07 Jun 2001
This play is amazing! The techniques Churchill uses to keep your interest are interesting in themselves. A fantastic plot that keeps you engrossed. A brilliant play that combines the issues of class and gender in an unusual way. A joy to study, going to see this play is is a must.

Shocking, humourous, serious - all at the same time., 09 Dec 2000
Top Girls is one of a number of plays written by the brilliant Caryl Churhill. First performed in the Royal Court Theatre, 1982, the play proved a raging success, also entertaining the Americans when Performed in Joseph Papps Public Theatre New York. Top Girls is a play not neccessarily concerned with providing answers but asking questions, mainly about the rather archaic and unfair patriarchal society in which all of the women in this play are living in, or indeed, have lived in. It also deals with certain issues about women and the world of work, and more specifically, the prices that are attatched to personal success and acheivment. Top Girls is a play which delivers the fundamental elements which theatre is based upon, and goes a lot further and deeper than this. It has educational values and an extremely serious aspect to it, but at the same time can be intriguigly entertaining and addictive, so much so that one may feel that they are emotionally dragged into one of the many, sometimes tense, sometimes funny, sometimes shocking conversations between the brilliantly constucted characters.

However, there is an underlying seriousness to the play which Churchill manages to mix well with the half hearted humour evident throughout the play. Her idea of bringing different flavours of women, from past and present, and placing them around a table as she does in act one, is ambitious to say the least. It does, however, work well, with each character highlighting the changing ideas and themes towards women and oppression. Overall Top Girls is a Top read. Characters are constructed well, and the plot has a somewhat eye opening twist. Would suit anyone in the adult bracket (contains explicit language), who have an interest in the role of women in society, throughout history.

Best book I've read in a long time, 29 Jul 2008
I love reading and frequently devour a book a day on holiday. I've recently had ample time to read after a holiday and recuperation from an operation. This was probably my favourite book out of all the ones I've read in that time. The openness of the women was surprising for the period, for instance how they thought you could conceive a girl rather than a boy. It was an eye opener and I could see how my Grand Parents may have lived. I've lent this book to my Mum and hope she enjoys it as much as I did. A really lovely read and I would recommend to anyone who is interested in people and/or period books.

Gels reunited, 21 Jul 2008
This is the story of the Cooperative Correspondence Club, a group of women, who between 1935 and 1990, circulated a magazine to which they all contributed. There were several examples of these forerunners to the Book Club, but the CCC has become the subject of this book because it was donated to the Mass Observation Archive and discovered by Jenna Bailey in the course of other work.

Through the remaining material and interviews with the surviving women and their families, Bailey has pieced together a detailed record of the lives of the educated middle-class female during one of the most turbulent centuries in human history. It's a fascinating read - well edited accounts of the lives of others usually are - which shatters certain cosy illusions about the good old days. There were frank discussions about sex, for example, husbands who could easily rival modern day equivalents for self obsession and navel inspection and deadening, pointless rules about women's career aspirations. My only criticism is that the focus is very firmly on the day to day and biographical. The magazine was set up to allow the women to share views and opinions as well and while there are tantalising mentions of topical discussions, these are not included, while a great deal of space is given to the depression and subsequent breakdown of one member following the birth of a Down's Syndrome baby. There's always a temptation with this kind of material, to satisfy the eavesdropper in the reader and here was a place where I felt Bailey succumbed. This apart, the fresh and lively voices of the contributors shine through and it is not a surprise to hear that many of them became friends in person and eventually met on an annual basis.


A fascinating read, 07 May 2008
This is the first book I have ever reviewed - anywhere! However I was so spellbound by this wonderful collection of extracts from the CCC that I felt I had to let others know what a fascinating read it is. As a working mother of three I am grateful that I have had the chance to combine both roles - and empathised with the plight of these highly intelligent, opinionated women forced to give up work after marriage and often left feeling very isolated at home with very young children. You get to know these women so well in the course of the book - the confessional style makes you feel as though you know them personally - and by the end I felt strangely disappointed that I hadn't had the chance to meet them. A compelling read - have bought 4 more copies of the book to give to friends!


Part history, part biography, totally interesting......., 17 Feb 2008
Thesis...Mass Observation Unit....all sounds such an unlikely premise for an absorbing read, but this book is exactly that. Jenna Bailey uncovered the story of the CCC (the Cooperative Correspondence Club), a group of women coping with family life during wartime Britain in the 1940s and after, whilst searching for a suitable subject for her Masters thesis. The CCC was formed when a cry of help in the shape of a letter to `Nursery World' magazine was answered by an assortment of other lively, intelligent women eager to connect with a world outside of domestic drudgery and child rearing.

`Can Any Mother Help Me?' is part history, how women coped during that period and what was expected of them, and part biography, each of the participants have really rather interesting lives. A well presented and rivetting read - highly recommended.


before the internet, 31 Oct 2007
I loved this book. As a mother I know how isolating being at home can be, and this books gives a great example of how women used their ingenuity to keep in touch in the days before cheap technology. The stories are wonderful, and I felt I really got to know the women, even though they were anonymous. A great read, and can be read in little bursts if you don't have much time!

Just read it!, 26 Feb 2008
I can only add to the unalloyed praise of others and wish that Nella Last could know what pleasure and enlightenment her "scribbling" would bring to others over 60 years later.

She writes beautifully and naturally, but what's most interesting is the way she changes as the war progresses. At the beginning she is sickly and weak, plagued with arthritis, and refers to a "breakdown" she had a few years before. But she determines to "do something" for the war effort and joins the WVS. From there she goes from strength to strength, and the evolution of her ideas is fascinating; she comes to see her conventional marriage to an old stick of a husband as "slavery". She's also very observant and perceptive of the people around her.
She writes lyrically of walks home by moonlight, and trips out to the countryside at Coniston Water, but also of the stresses of the blitz, the challenges of getting palatable meals on the table every day, and everyday squabbles and power games at the WVS. She has a truly open mind, always questioning and wondering what the future holds for her sons and the other young people she knows.

I don't want to say too much about it; just read it. It's one of those books where you long to meet the author; she really does seem like someone you know and admire.

Quite Incredible - read it, 20 Feb 2008
A fantastic book, I couldn't put it down. Nella could never have imagined that her diaries would have such meaning so many years after she wrote them. The detail is interesting in it's own right and well written. I love the ins and outs of Nella's life and difficulties. I am interested in the people she writes about. I worry for her sons with her. But beyond that, she has made me look at myself. I have started to look at the way I cook, wastage, how to make things last and go further. The book has made me consider some of my own personal relationships and opened my eyes to the way a mother feels and thinks about her son. It has had me thinking about my grandmother and how she would have gone through the same thing. I hope Nella can look down and know how wonderful this book is.

An Ordinary Woman living through an Extraordinary time. , 09 Feb 2008
This is a book that I really enjoyed. Nella Last is an ordinary housewife aged 49 in the second world war, and it is the story of her everyday life, and how the war affected it, and how she coped. I have total admiration for the people who lived through world wars, in whatever capacity, whether military or civilian. I think that we really don't appreciate their efforts enough, and speaking for myself, I really don't know very much about what it was like in war-time, other than what I have read or seen on tv. I empathised with her so much when her boys went to do their military service, and she tried to keep a 'stiff upper lip' while quietly breaking her heart. I loved the fact that she didn't just allow herself to be dominated by her husband, that she found her niche in the shop and the canteen, and she never lost sight of what she thought was important. These people went through so much, yet never lost their sense of humour, or their ability to make the best of a very bad situation. It is a great read, and a marvellous insight into the British personality, I feel. I wonder how Nella Last would feel, knowing that her 'scribblings' as she called them, were being read avidly 60 years after the war, and appreciated and enjoyed by people whose lives would be so altered had the outcome of that war been different.

Utterly engrossing, 18 Sep 2007
Like many other reviewers here, I bought this book having enjoyed the TV dramatisation so much. I was not disappointed! There is a great deal to enjoy as the diaries give so much detail about many different aspects of life during the Second World War. Nella's growing awareness of her own abilities and her increased self-confidence as she has to tackle new challenges are an indication of the changes in women's lives that would eventually surface during the following decades. She speaks to us so directly through these diaries, that you feel totally involved in her experiences. She also displays humour and perception, and I was sorry to come to the end of the book.

what a wonderful book, 29 Jul 2007
Without a doubt this has got to be one of the most wonderful, thought provoking, emotional yet rewarding books I've ever read. There wasn't a single part of this book I didn't like, I wanted to savour every bit of it. Nella Last is someone who I came to greatly admire. She was resourceful, kind, helpful and very sensitive and thoughtful.
She always strived to do the best by her family and look after others - and despite her own nerves, depression and anxiety she did a sterling job. I felt such empathy with her when she described her anxieties, her tears and her down days - even though our experiences are poles and decades apart - nothing really changes in the human psyche.
I loved her vivid descriptions of the food she cooked, how she scrimped and saved and put by and still managed to create all these nourishing meals so that her husband and her sons didn't go hungry. How she found time to do all she did is a mystery, but she did it and it was people like her that kept our country going.
I'm really sorry to have finished the book and not have any more of it to read such was the quality of the writing. I felt as though I knew all the family, and was party to so many secrets.
I can't really find enough superlatives to describe it - a required read for anyone interested in history or anything to do with the Wars. Nella's beautifully honed prose is a delight to read, and something that Victoria Wood also captured beautifully in her reworking of the diary for TV.

A Doll's House is a masterpiece, 08 Mar 2005
I read this book not knowing what to expect (my partner is studying Enlish Lit' with the Open University and it is on her reading list).

I think it is a masterpiece, so much drama and suspense trapped inside such a small play, it is very clever and also leaves you feeling that you are a better person for having read it.

My partner paid £0.99 for this book, I would say this price does the book an injustice. A classic to rival 'The Medea'

A brilliant play on Marrige, Supression and Feminisme., 22 Jan 2003
Henrik Ibsen in one of the most famous Norwegian writers thoughout the world. And he is known for his plays where he gives a critical view upon the society.
In this play, everything happens around the main character Nora. She is innocent, naiv and has no education at all, just like most women of her social rank had at that time. Her husband, Torvald, is well known in the city, and his wife is just a "doll". She isn't supposed to have opinions on anything, just smile and look pretty in this male dominated world.
When Torvald Helmer finds out that his wife has "stole" money from her father to be able to pay for a health insitution for him, he's shocked. Nora, not understand what she might have done wrong, was only trying to help her husband, and yet protect her dying father. She wakes up, starting feel independant, wanting to discover herself...
Ibsen was a master of showing different sides of the social levels, and giving a critic view on what he didn't like. He has done it yet again, focusing on the marriage of these two people. Supression and a male dominated world is central aspects, and also the growing feminisme.
The book is worth reading for anyone how loves to read. It is truly one of Ibsen's best plays!

Themes and images I enjoyed thinking about., 26 Jan 2001
When I completed reading, "A Doll's House", by Henrik Ibsen, I had thoroughly enjoyed, this particluar piece of literature and thought about how its themes and images, relate to my own personal experiences. Not only does the play have its motives for the past, but it also serves as a revealing a moral message for modern day society.

Whilst reading the text, Ibsen allows me to mentally picture, "A Doll's House", by so many walls and "doors", which confined the chararcters to becoming alienated within their own environment.

From beginning to end, the text focuses on how Nora becomes isolated by her husband's dominance, which is portrayed through his patronizing behaviour. He calls her, "little spendrift", "little squirrel" and manipulates his, "doll wife" when he articulates her moves, for practicing the "Tarrantella". Overall, Nora becomes the, "songbird" trapped within a cage.

Krogstad is symbolic for bringing the threat of the outside world, into Nora's idealized home, through his blackmailing behaviour. It is frightening to know the damage it causes to ruin a beautiful relationship, which is based on a lie, that metophorically contaminates and poisons individuals within an enclosed home.I found that the atmosphere was so stifiling for the characters,I felt symapthetic towards them.

Ibsen's moral message entails, in order for women to feel independent, they need to get to know themselves, so they are able to experience, develop knowledge and deal with the outside world alone. This is what Ibsen wanted to portray to a Nineteenth Century audience.Ibsen's play relates to everyday experiences, such as, "debt", causing a home to, "never be a place of freedom and beauty". This piece of literature is so powerful, that I believe it is one of Ibsen's most striking master pieces, I have ever read that deals with conventions and norms of women living in a Victorian masculine society.

An interesting and insightful text which I enjoyed studying, 22 Oct 2000
As a part of my A level studies I have concentrated on this text. I have found it most interesting and insightful if a little hard to comprehend at first. This edition is very good for the price but is by no means upto the standard of other texts which boast analysis and also the alternative ending. I have yet to find a good sudy guide to this text so it is perhaps worth investing in a more facilitative original text if your intention is for study.

Be inspired to read Ibsen's plays!!, 22 Oct 2000
This is a great version of the play. The notes and charcter information is really useful and I would reccommend this version to anyone studying A Doll's House. The translation is good and easier to follow than some other versions. It is also useful if you are studying the Victorian period because Ibsen had great insight into his society. It has inspired me to read more of Ibsen's plays.

Haunting gothic and chilling fable, 23 Jun 2008
This is a spine-tingling (not necessarily in a good way!) long short story with hauntingly gothic imagery that shifts and stirs beneath a prosaic surface.

The female protagonist is confined to her room as a 'rest cure' which might be associated with what we now recognise as post-natal depression, but the enforced 'rest' that is more akin to imprisonment releases something in her psyche that might be madness...

The yellow wallpaper of the title is both a kind of fairy-tale mirror and a window to another world that allows the narrator to see the female figures caught beneath it and living out their lives beneath its shadows, an incredibly haunting and indicting imagery for Victorian England.

This is only short (more a long short story than a novella) but it will stay with you for all that.

Haunting tale, 01 Nov 2007
This is a disturbing tale about a young woman's treatment by her husband. What we now know as post-natal depression was in those days treated as madness. Her husband has had her confined to a room with yellow patterned wallpaper after she has her first baby. Her only way of expressing her feelings is to write them down, but she has to do so in secret as her husband has forbidden it. She thinks there is a person underneath the wallpaper trying to get out and we can feel the desperation in her writing as she struggles to understand what is happening to her. This has a bone chilling ending which will haunt my mind forever.

Tales of a Lunatic, 25 Jan 2002
Focusing on The Yellow Wallpaper alone, this novel is wonderful. Our protagonist is a woman stifled by her husband, also a doctor, who doesnt allow her to write and believes her passion for writing has made her mad. He locks her in the highest room in the house with the famous Yellow Wallpaper where most of the story takes place. It is a tale of an incarcerated woman who stays awake by night to see the caged figure in the wallpaper that 'shakes the bars' by moonlight, hence her lunacy.
The book is a large component fir Gilbert and Gubar's 'The Madwoman In The Attic' and frankly, i love it!!

Top Play, 19 Mar 2007
This offering from feminist playwright Caryl Churchill is an uncompromising critique of the capitalist mode of feminism as advocated by the model of the eighties power women, most obviously personified by Margaret Thatcher.

'Top Girls' deploys an interesting technique whereby characters narratives overlap leading to complicated scenarios wherein meaning is lost in the melee of competing voices. It certainly makes for difficult listening or reading but acts uniquely as a physical representation of the interupted and disjointed histories of the women whose situation it aims to ameliorate.

The play is split into three main sections. The first act witnesses the meeting of various fictional and non-fictional characters from history, literature and art at a dinner party. The party has been organised to celebrate the recent career success of central character Marlene. Marlene works for an agency designed to find jobs for women.

The first section reflects the women's various instances of "success" whilst exposing the commonality of their suffering both at the hands of men and indeed at their hands of their own complicity with the phallocentric societies in which they found themselves.

The next two acts are situated in the present, within a year of each other, and focus on Marlene's character. This present experience acts as an interesting counterpoint to the dinner-time narratives. It becomes abundantly clear that Marlene too, though ostensibly successful, comes with her own baggage and we are asked to quesiton how far indeed women have come, if at all.

'Top Girls' should not be mistaken for a cynical and negative play: far from it. It's message is that there is hope but only through a socialist ethic of togetherness where the intended output is the common good rather than the elevated succes of the individual. This idea is neatly illustrated by Isabella's illness where she reveals that her head could not be supported by the diseased spine. That is to say, without the foundations of a strong society the most talented and superficially gifted individual cannot truly thrive.

I would recommend it on many levels. On the most basic level it is full of dark humour and the chaotic, drunken opening act is compelling both visually and due to the uinique use of overlapping narratives. Gret will make you smile almost everytime she releases one of her limited utterances while Angie's 'momentary' cannibalism is shocking to the extreme.

However, when revisited you will be able to further plumb its hidden depths and observe admiringly how Churchill subtly weaves her earnest polemic into the fabric of the novel.


Stunning, 07 Jun 2001
This play is amazing! The techniques Churchill uses to keep your interest are interesting in themselves. A fantastic plot that keeps you engrossed. A brilliant play that combines the issues of class and gender in an unusual way. A joy to study, going to see this play is is a must.

Shocking, humourous, serious - all at the same time., 09 Dec 2000
Top Girls is one of a number of plays written by the brilliant Caryl Churhill. First performed in the Royal Court Theatre, 1982, the play proved a raging success, also entertaining the Americans when Performed in Joseph Papps Public Theatre New York. Top Girls is a play not neccessarily concerned with providing answers but asking questions, mainly about the rather archaic and unfair patriarchal society in which all of the women in this play are living in, or indeed, have lived in. It also deals with certain issues about women and the world of work, and more specifically, the prices that are attatched to personal success and acheivment. Top Girls is a play which delivers the fundamental elements which theatre is based upon, and goes a lot further and deeper than this. It has educational values and an extremely serious aspect to it, but at the same time can be intriguigly entertaining and addictive, so much so that one may feel that they are emotionally dragged into one of the many, sometimes tense, sometimes funny, sometimes shocking conversations between the brilliantly constucted characters.

However, there is an underlying seriousness to the play which Churchill manages to mix well with the half hearted humour evident throughout the play. Her idea of bringing different flavours of women, from past and present, and placing them around a table as she does in act one, is ambitious to say the least. It does, however, work well, with each character highlighting the changing ideas and themes towards women and oppression. Overall Top Girls is a Top read. Characters are constructed well, and the plot has a somewhat eye opening twist. Would suit anyone in the adult bracket (contains explicit language), who have an interest in the role of women in society, throughout history.

Best book I've read in a long time, 29 Jul 2008
I love reading and frequently devour a book a day on holiday. I've recently had ample time to read after a holiday and recuperation from an operation. This was probably my favourite book out of all the ones I've read in that time. The openness of the women was surprising for the period, for instance how they thought you could conceive a girl rather than a boy. It was an eye opener and I could see how my Grand Parents may have lived. I've lent this book to my Mum and hope she enjoys it as much as I did. A really lovely read and I would recommend to anyone who is interested in people and/or period books.

Gels reunited, 21 Jul 2008
This is the story of the Cooperative Correspondence Club, a group of women, who between 1935 and 1990, circulated a magazine to which they all contributed. There were several examples of these forerunners to the Book Club, but the CCC has become the subject of this book because it was donated to the Mass Observation Archive and discovered by Jenna Bailey in the course of other work.

Through the remaining material and interviews with the surviving women and their families, Bailey has pieced together a detailed record of the lives of the educated middle-class female during one of the most turbulent centuries in human history. It's a fascinating read - well edited accounts of the lives of others usually are - which shatters certain cosy illusions about the good old days. There were frank discussions about sex, for example, husbands who could easily rival modern day equivalents for self obsession and navel inspection and deadening, pointless rules about women's career aspirations. My only criticism is that the focus is very firmly on the day to day and biographical. The magazine was set up to allow the women to share views and opinions as well and while there are tantalising mentions of topical discussions, these are not included, while a great deal of space is given to the depression and subsequent breakdown of one member following the birth of a Down's Syndrome baby. There's always a temptation with this kind of material, to satisfy the eavesdropper in the reader and here was a place where I felt Bailey succumbed. This apart, the fresh and lively voices of the contributors shine through and it is not a surprise to hear that many of them became friends in person and eventually met on an annual basis.


A fascinating read, 07 May 2008
This is the first book I have ever reviewed - anywhere! However I was so spellbound by this wonderful collection of extracts from the CCC that I felt I had to let others know what a fascinating read it is. As a working mother of three I am grateful that I have had the chance to combine both roles - and empathised with the plight of these highly intelligent, opinionated women forced to give up work after marriage and often left feeling very isolated at home with very young children. You get to know these women so well in the course of the book - the confessional style makes you feel as though you know them personally - and by the end I felt strangely disappointed that I hadn't had the chance to meet them. A compelling read - have bought 4 more copies of the book to give to friends!


Part history, part biography, totally interesting......., 17 Feb 2008
Thesis...Mass Observation Unit....all sounds such an unlikely premise for an absorbing read, but this book is exactly that. Jenna Bailey uncovered the story of the CCC (the Cooperative Correspondence Club), a group of women coping with family life during wartime Britain in the 1940s and after, whilst searching for a suitable subject for her Masters thesis. The CCC was formed when a cry of help in the shape of a letter to `Nursery World' magazine was answered by an assortment of other lively, intelligent women eager to connect with a world outside of domestic drudgery and child rearing.

`Can Any Mother Help Me?' is part history, how women coped during that period and what was expected of them, and part biography, each of the participants have really rather interesting lives. A well presented and rivetting read - highly recommended.


before the internet, 31 Oct 2007
I loved this book. As a mother I know how isolating being at home can be, and this books gives a great example of how women used their ingenuity to keep in touch in the days before cheap technology. The stories are wonderful, and I felt I really got to know the women, even though they were anonymous. A great read, and can be read in little bursts if you don't have much time!

a whole new outlook, 07 Sep 2008
I stumbled across this book on amazon as its not my usual read (may be now)
I found this book gripping and detailed, i felt i lived many moments with Suzanne, although her life may appear crazy to some she is a woman who knows what she likes and knows how to get it!!!

Not a book for the faint hearted can be very graphic and erotic in places but a great insight for anyone with an open mind to sex.

don't spend the money , 20 Mar 2008
If I could give this a rating it would be minus 10. This has to be the worst book I have ever spent money on. I thought I would get it due to the comments made by others but if you have ever been in a relationship or had good sex you will find this book as dull as dishwater.
It was not funny, naughty or anything she does not describe her experiences in depth so all you really get from the book is `I went to a bar, met a man, didn't really like him that much, I grab a condom and we have sex!' . She is self assured and knows what she wants and a lot of time that is bad sex! She feels she owes it to a men to give them what they want even if all they have done is brought a coffee, dinner, she will still put out even when she doesn't really fancy the guy - not a very strong women I found this extremely annoying about her. She is a sex addict and a very boring one at that.
This is such a DULL BOOK I cannot stress that enough, I threw mine in the bin after half way not even the charity shop deserves rubbish like this culturing up its shelves.


Hilarious read - but whats with the drink driving?, 11 Mar 2008
I had to write a review on this book. It goes without saying anyone even slightly prudish should not read this. That much is obvious! I am not sure why people have given it only one star for not being erotic enough, what did they expect with a `chick lit' cover like this? I personally did not find it erotic at all - just laugh out loud funny, and I mean that in a good way. Suzanne knows what she wants and she goes out and gets it. I read this book so quickly as it was well written and kept me reading to find out what happened next.

A few problems I have with it (and maybe her if I am honest). Warning!! I might spoil the `plot' for people with the below comments. Number 1) what is with the drink driving? Seriously?? The amount of times she says she is in Soho House drinking 4 martinis and then gets in her car. What is up with that? 2) Some of the guys she describes seem very unattractive, ie: she describes Daniel as overweight with some missing teeth - yuk! She seems to have sex with most people even if she doesn't fancy them that much. 3) Her poor kids - the amount of random men they see passing through is not good. She seems to introduce all these men to her kids very quickly. Is having an alcoholic, drug addict living with you really good for your kids? Flying your kids to New York and have them sleep in the spare room while you have sex? Moving in a guy who permanently wears cycling shorts and then changing all the locks when she finds out he is seeing someone else? Taking your kids on holiday with a guy you've been seeing for 5 minutes? I am all for her getting lots of sex but I don't think its something her sons should know about.

Having said this I still thought it was a great book and well worth reading. Hilarious and honest.


Raw and honest sexuality, 30 Jul 2007
Suzanne's book is refreshingly raw and honest. Although many might find her raw and open sexuality disconcerting, her frank honesty makes the book highly believable and enjoyable, providing a unique insight to how far women have come in society in the last few decades. Welcome to the freedom of women in the 21st century!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, 24 Jul 2007
I found this book to be a wonderfully current view of sexuality in a growing segment of the population in the 21st century. Having tried and failed at monogamy, often multiple times (serial monogamy), many of those in their 30's, 40's and 50's have come to the same conclusion... Monogamy is not the best solution for everyone. Many recent books have covered this topic from a number of different viewpoints. Suzanne's book is an excellent contribution from the female perspective. A male viewpoint of the swinging community can be found in "Swinging: Shared Pleasures Between the Covers" (USA). Female viewpoints can also be found in "Doin One For the Team" and "Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits". I highly recommend "The Butcher, the Baker, The Candlestick Maker" along with the other books to get several current views into the current world of non-monogamy.

Just read it!, 26 Feb 2008
I can only add to the unalloyed praise of others and wish that Nella Last could know what pleasure and enlightenment her "scribbling" would bring to others over 60 years later.

She writes beautifully and naturally, but what's most interesting is the way she changes as th