In 1914 Vera Brittain was 21 years old, and an undergraduate student at Somerville College, Oxford. When war broke out in August of that year, Brittain "temporarily" disrupted her studies to enrol as a volunteer nurse, nursing casualties both in England and on the Western Front. The next four years were to cause a deep rupture in Brittain's life, as she witnessed not only the horrors of war first hand, but also experienced the quadruple loss of her fiancé, her brother, and two close friends. Testament of Youth is a powerfully written, unsentimental memoir which has continued to move and enthral readers since its first publication in 1933. Brittain, a pacifist since her First World War experiences, prefaces the book with a fairy tale, in which Catherine, the heroine, encounters a fairy godmother and is given the choice of having either a happy youth or a happy old age. She selects the latter and so her fate is determined: "Now this woman," warns the tale, "was the destiny of poor Catherine." And we find as we delve deeper into the book that she was the destiny of poor Vera too.

utterly heartbreaking; one woman's war, 15 Jun 2008
My mother having pressed me to read this book, I finally got round to it early this year. Thank God I did.

I cannot begin to put into words how much this book touched me. Vera Brittan must be an inspiration to all women; a strong and determined character who, despite losing almost everything to the War, did not give up. Vera Brittan was a young, ambitious girl growing up pre-war with aspirations to go to University (something uncommon for the day.) She succeeded in getting into Oxford to study English. Then the War came crashing into her life, and Vera's brother and friends get called up to fight. She herself finds her place, working as a nurse first in London, then abroad. Vera Brittan lost so much to this horrific War and yet still found the strength to write about her experiences. This is no fiction, but a true, heartbreaking story of one woman's war.

A most poignant and haunting read, Vera Brittan's tragic story of love, family, duty and growing up will stay with you long after you finish the last page.


An important memoir of the Great War and its aftermath, 03 Jan 2008
In 1929 Vera Brittain ( 1893- 1970) began using her extensive diaries and correspondence to start writing her auto-biographical epic from 1913-1925, which was published in 1933. At the time Brittain was a part time lecturer for supporters of the League of Nations, a journalist, and had written two novels which had not been particularly well received. Ambitious and a feminist, Brittain seemed determined to succeed at something, and her greatest achievement has been in autobiography.

The book is well written : Brittain depicts her own life, frustrations, personal losses , near breakdown and subsequent attempts at building new life and friendships after the Great War in an endearing manner. Her humanitarianism, her social observations, the fact that she reminded the world how those people away from direct military action, (especially women and men to old to fight) suffered along with the men who were maimed, traumatised, or killed . Brittain also nurses enemy soldiers and also visited Germany after the War, and her compassion extended to the German people. The book also clearly documents how women's lives changed during this time period.

`Testament of Youth' is not great literary fiction, compared with Siegfried Sassoon' Memoirs of an Infantry Officer'. The book has its opponents, one unkind critic referred to Brittain as the `princess of self-pity'. The book is centred around her own suffering and personal losses ( of fiancé, friends, brother), though millions of other people experienced great levels of bereavement at this time. Whether she has the right to be heralded as the `voice' of a generation in this respect is open to question. Certainly Brittain's supporters will point out that the book's success was due to a large number of her contemporaries feeling at least some affinity with her suffering.

Further research has suggested that her brother Edward killed in 1918, may have taken his own life or deliberately exposed himself to enemy fire so as to avoid the disgrace of a court martial ( see `Vera Brittain A life' , Paul Berry and Mark Bostridge 1995). In `Testament of Youth' this is not disclosed to the reader, and one wonders if other amendments have been made though it also to fair say that the book's detractors have found few factual errors in the work.

Above all `Testament of Youth' has undergone a revival , after its transatlantic success in the 1930's, with a new generation of readers as from the late 1970's, because its' vision of the Great War-as a senseless carnage- is now popular. The book was re-published by Virago, the feminist publishing house, whose mission was to showcase work by women authors. It's revival coincided with a new wave of feminist anti-militarism. It is easily the most cited Great War memoir written by a woman. Moreover, the tale of a survivor such as Vera Brittain who witnesses great tragedy but by the end of the book in 1925 has found love again, has great contemporary appeal. Ultimately Vera Brittain has ensured that her perception of the Great War was known to millions of people and the names of those who close to her who perished or also suffered great loss, have been remembered,which must make it a success

The book that changed my life, 08 Feb 2007
I first read this book when I was about 15 and it had such a remarkable effect on my life that 25 years later I still return to it again and again. It encapsulates so much of the period; the desperate need to get into higher education, the horror of war and its aftermath, how to make sense of it all and finally the joy of love and of friendship. Try Chronicles of Youth as well, the diaries on which she based the book.

A classic: shattering at times, always enlightening, 23 May 2004
Vera Brittain's account was written in the early 1930s, as she tried to make sense of the extraordinary bereavement that affected those of her generation who survived the First World War.
Growing up in provincial Edwardian England, a fascinating piece of writing in itself, she falls in love with one of her brothers's friends in 1914. The romance is going well, until the outbreak of war sweeps in to disrupt her life. Suddenly the love of her life, as well as her brother and some other close friends, are all in the trenches, trying to live out the noble heroic dream on behalf of King and Country.
Unable to support directly, she joins the nursing corps as a volunteer but there is no consolation for her as first her fiance, then her friends and finally her brother die.
Her account of desolation when she receives the news each time is traumatising and shows a side of life you don't get from the war poems: the horror of war not from the front line, but from the perspective of almost continuous bereavement, among people who feel helpless and increasingly angry with the world. Her perspectives on daily life in London in the war years are as insightful as the descriptions of nursing in Malta and France, where she spent the bulk of her time. Certain details, such as the atmosphere behind the lines as the British wilt before the Ludendorff offensive, but are rallied by a missive from Field Marshall Haig will interest even those who know a lot about the history of it.
Yet it is the human story which is most powerful.
This is a brutally honest book, and she does not paint herself without warts: she is obsessive about academic study, has a mental breakdown after the war and doesn't make it easy on anyone courting her thereafter. Yet Brittain's problems outside the war, of a woman trying to combine a career with marriage, anticipate the great feminist struggles of the 20th and 21st centuries. Indeed, her honesty gives the book a raw truth.
Yet this is not just her story. As she herself writes, this is the story of a generation whose men were wiped out in battle and whose women were shattered by bereavement.
The book continues after the war following her work with the League of Nations until 1925 and this has only limited interest today: the really timeless passages come from earlier on. Profoundly affecting and profoundly insightful, in beautiful prose, this deserves its classic status.

An amazing story of love, 28 Oct 2003
I read this book for my A Levels, last year, as we were studying Worl War One Literature. Such a hefty tome looked completely imtimidating, but I decided to start anyway. I soon became completely engrossed in this book. Vera Brittains simple style is so poignant, and the heartrending events are described sensitively and with candour Vera tells of her feelings at the demands of her family, the war and her studies, culminating in the deaths of her brother, and her fiance Roland. The love between Roland and Vera is a pivotal part of this story, and to my mind is the epitome of true, optimistic, young love. The tragic event of his death and the sorrow Vera experiences throughout the war permeates the book.

This is an amazing, inspiring book and should by read by anyone who beileves that world war one has no relevance to our lives now, or anyone interested in a woman's perspective on important historical events.

Vera Brittain rules!!!! Seriously read this book, buy it now! :) The excellent poetry that preceeds each chapter is so deeply touching. Especially "Perhaps" written after Roland's death by Vera, which tells of her sadness, that she doesn't even notice the shining sun, or appreciate the beauty of nature which was so heightened previous to his death.

Really excellent book; perhaps my all time favourite, and I have read a lot of books!

utterly heartbreaking; one woman's war, 15 Jun 2008
My mother having pressed me to read this book, I finally got round to it early this year. Thank God I did.

I cannot begin to put into words how much this book touched me. Vera Brittan must be an inspiration to all women; a strong and determined character who, despite losing almost everything to the War, did not give up. Vera Brittan was a young, ambitious girl growing up pre-war with aspirations to go to University (something uncommon for the day.) She succeeded in getting into Oxford to study English. Then the War came crashing into her life, and Vera's brother and friends get called up to fight. She herself finds her place, working as a nurse first in London, then abroad. Vera Brittan lost so much to this horrific War and yet still found the strength to write about her experiences. This is no fiction, but a true, heartbreaking story of one woman's war.

A most poignant and haunting read, Vera Brittan's tragic story of love, family, duty and growing up will stay with you long after you finish the last page.


An important memoir of the Great War and its aftermath, 03 Jan 2008
In 1929 Vera Brittain ( 1893- 1970) began using her extensive diaries and correspondence to start writing her auto-biographical epic from 1913-1925, which was published in 1933. At the time Brittain was a part time lecturer for supporters of the League of Nations, a journalist, and had written two novels which had not been particularly well received. Ambitious and a feminist, Brittain seemed determined to succeed at something, and her greatest achievement has been in autobiography.

The book is well written : Brittain depicts her own life, frustrations, personal losses , near breakdown and subsequent attempts at building new life and friendships after the Great War in an endearing manner. Her humanitarianism, her social observations, the fact that she reminded the world how those people away from direct military action, (especially women and men to old to fight) suffered along with the men who were maimed, traumatised, or killed . Brittain also nurses enemy soldiers and also visited Germany after the War, and her compassion extended to the German people. The book also clearly documents how women's lives changed during this time period.

`Testament of Youth' is not great literary fiction, compared with Siegfried Sassoon' Memoirs of an Infantry Officer'. The book has its opponents, one unkind critic referred to Brittain as the `princess of self-pity'. The book is centred around her own suffering and personal losses ( of fiancé, friends, brother), though millions of other people experienced great levels of bereavement at this time. Whether she has the right to be heralded as the `voice' of a generation in this respect is open to question. Certainly Brittain's supporters will point out that the book's success was due to a large number of her contemporaries feeling at least some affinity with her suffering.

Further research has suggested that her brother Edward killed in 1918, may have taken his own life or deliberately exposed himself to enemy fire so as to avoid the disgrace of a court martial ( see `Vera Brittain A life' , Paul Berry and Mark Bostridge 1995). In `Testament of Youth' this is not disclosed to the reader, and one wonders if other amendments have been made though it also to fair say that the book's detractors have found few factual errors in the work.

Above all `Testament of Youth' has undergone a revival , after its transatlantic success in the 1930's, with a new generation of readers as from the late 1970's, because its' vision of the Great War-as a senseless carnage- is now popular. The book was re-published by Virago, the feminist publishing house, whose mission was to showcase work by women authors. It's revival coincided with a new wave of feminist anti-militarism. It is easily the most cited Great War memoir written by a woman. Moreover, the tale of a survivor such as Vera Brittain who witnesses great tragedy but by the end of the book in 1925 has found love again, has great contemporary appeal. Ultimately Vera Brittain has ensured that her perception of the Great War was known to millions of people and the names of those who close to her who perished or also suffered great loss, have been remembered,which must make it a success

The book that changed my life, 08 Feb 2007
I first read this book when I was about 15 and it had such a remarkable effect on my life that 25 years later I still return to it again and again. It encapsulates so much of the period; the desperate need to get into higher education, the horror of war and its aftermath, how to make sense of it all and finally the joy of love and of friendship. Try Chronicles of Youth as well, the diaries on which she based the book.

A classic: shattering at times, always enlightening, 23 May 2004
Vera Brittain's account was written in the early 1930s, as she tried to make sense of the extraordinary bereavement that affected those of her generation who survived the First World War.
Growing up in provincial Edwardian England, a fascinating piece of writing in itself, she falls in love with one of her brothers's friends in 1914. The romance is going well, until the outbreak of war sweeps in to disrupt her life. Suddenly the love of her life, as well as her brother and some other close friends, are all in the trenches, trying to live out the noble heroic dream on behalf of King and Country.
Unable to support directly, she joins the nursing corps as a volunteer but there is no consolation for her as first her fiance, then her friends and finally her brother die.
Her account of desolation when she receives the news each time is traumatising and shows a side of life you don't get from the war poems: the horror of war not from the front line, but from the perspective of almost continuous bereavement, among people who feel helpless and increasingly angry with the world. Her perspectives on daily life in London in the war years are as insightful as the descriptions of nursing in Malta and France, where she spent the bulk of her time. Certain details, such as the atmosphere behind the lines as the British wilt before the Ludendorff offensive, but are rallied by a missive from Field Marshall Haig will interest even those who know a lot about the history of it.
Yet it is the human story which is most powerful.
This is a brutally honest book, and she does not paint herself without warts: she is obsessive about academic study, has a mental breakdown after the war and doesn't make it easy on anyone courting her thereafter. Yet Brittain's problems outside the war, of a woman trying to combine a career with marriage, anticipate the great feminist struggles of the 20th and 21st centuries. Indeed, her honesty gives the book a raw truth.
Yet this is not just her story. As she herself writes, this is the story of a generation whose men were wiped out in battle and whose women were shattered by bereavement.
The book continues after the war following her work with the League of Nations until 1925 and this has only limited interest today: the really timeless passages come from earlier on. Profoundly affecting and profoundly insightful, in beautiful prose, this deserves its classic status.

An amazing story of love, 28 Oct 2003
I read this book for my A Levels, last year, as we were studying Worl War One Literature. Such a hefty tome looked completely imtimidating, but I decided to start anyway. I soon became completely engrossed in this book. Vera Brittains simple style is so poignant, and the heartrending events are described sensitively and with candour Vera tells of her feelings at the demands of her family, the war and her studies, culminating in the deaths of her brother, and her fiance Roland. The love between Roland and Vera is a pivotal part of this story, and to my mind is the epitome of true, optimistic, young love. The tragic event of his death and the sorrow Vera experiences throughout the war permeates the book.

This is an amazing, inspiring book and should by read by anyone who beileves that world war one has no relevance to our lives now, or anyone interested in a woman's perspective on important historical events.

Vera Brittain rules!!!! Seriously read this book, buy it now! :) The excellent poetry that preceeds each chapter is so deeply touching. Especially "Perhaps" written after Roland's death by Vera, which tells of her sadness, that she doesn't even notice the shining sun, or appreciate the beauty of nature which was so heightened previous to his death.

Really excellent book; perhaps my all time favourite, and I have read a lot of books!

Another great slice of 40s life, 02 Oct 2008
If you enjoyed the original 'Nella Last's War' then you will enjoy this second volume just the same. The end of hostilities doesn't mean the end of either Nella's writing, or her talent with words and observation. It also certainly does not mean the end of hardship and difficulty. I drove to Barrow on the strength of the first diary and was very fortunate to meet the present owners of Nella's old house - they actually bought it off the Last family forty years ago. Just sitting in her old living room, where all those words had poured onto the page, brought Nella and her time tangibly closer. I heartily recommend this book.

utterly heartbreaking; one woman's war, 15 Jun 2008
My mother having pressed me to read this book, I finally got round to it early this year. Thank God I did.

I cannot begin to put into words how much this book touched me. Vera Brittan must be an inspiration to all women; a strong and determined character who, despite losing almost everything to the War, did not give up. Vera Brittan was a young, ambitious girl growing up pre-war with aspirations to go to University (something uncommon for the day.) She succeeded in getting into Oxford to study English. Then the War came crashing into her life, and Vera's brother and friends get called up to fight. She herself finds her place, working as a nurse first in London, then abroad. Vera Brittan lost so much to this horrific War and yet still found the strength to write about her experiences. This is no fiction, but a true, heartbreaking story of one woman's war.

A most poignant and haunting read, Vera Brittan's tragic story of love, family, duty and growing up will stay with you long after you finish the last page.


An important memoir of the Great War and its aftermath, 03 Jan 2008
In 1929 Vera Brittain ( 1893- 1970) began using her extensive diaries and correspondence to start writing her auto-biographical epic from 1913-1925, which was published in 1933. At the time Brittain was a part time lecturer for supporters of the League of Nations, a journalist, and had written two novels which had not been particularly well received. Ambitious and a feminist, Brittain seemed determined to succeed at something, and her greatest achievement has been in autobiography.

The book is well written : Brittain depicts her own life, frustrations, personal losses , near breakdown and subsequent attempts at building new life and friendships after the Great War in an endearing manner. Her humanitarianism, her social observations, the fact that she reminded the world how those people away from direct military action, (especially women and men to old to fight) suffered along with the men who were maimed, traumatised, or killed . Brittain also nurses enemy soldiers and also visited Germany after the War, and her compassion extended to the German people. The book also clearly documents how women's lives changed during this time period.

`Testament of Youth' is not great literary fiction, compared with Siegfried Sassoon' Memoirs of an Infantry Officer'. The book has its opponents, one unkind critic referred to Brittain as the `princess of self-pity'. The book is centred around her own suffering and personal losses ( of fiancé, friends, brother), though millions of other people experienced great levels of bereavement at this time. Whether she has the right to be heralded as the `voice' of a generation in this respect is open to question. Certainly Brittain's supporters will point out that the book's success was due to a large number of her contemporaries feeling at least some affinity with her suffering.

Further research has suggested that her brother Edward killed in 1918, may have taken his own life or deliberately exposed himself to enemy fire so as to avoid the disgrace of a court martial ( see `Vera Brittain A life' , Paul Berry and Mark Bostridge 1995). In `Testament of Youth' this is not disclosed to the reader, and one wonders if other amendments have been made though it also to fair say that the book's detractors have found few factual errors in the work.

Above all `Testament of Youth' has undergone a revival , after its transatlantic success in the 1930's, with a new generation of readers as from the late 1970's, because its' vision of the Great War-as a senseless carnage- is now popular. The book was re-published by Virago, the feminist publishing house, whose mission was to showcase work by women authors. It's revival coincided with a new wave of feminist anti-militarism. It is easily the most cited Great War memoir written by a woman. Moreover, the tale of a survivor such as Vera Brittain who witnesses great tragedy but by the end of the book in 1925 has found love again, has great contemporary appeal. Ultimately Vera Brittain has ensured that her perception of the Great War was known to millions of people and the names of those who close to her who perished or also suffered great loss, have been remembered,which must make it a success

The book that changed my life, 08 Feb 2007
I first read this book when I was about 15 and it had such a remarkable effect on my life that 25 years later I still return to it again and again. It encapsulates so much of the period; the desperate need to get into higher education, the horror of war and its aftermath, how to make sense of it all and finally the joy of love and of friendship. Try Chronicles of Youth as well, the diaries on which she based the book.

A classic: shattering at times, always enlightening, 23 May 2004
Vera Brittain's account was written in the early 1930s, as she tried to make sense of the extraordinary bereavement that affected those of her generation who survived the First World War.
Growing up in provincial Edwardian England, a fascinating piece of writing in itself, she falls in love with one of her brothers's friends in 1914. The romance is going well, until the outbreak of war sweeps in to disrupt her life. Suddenly the love of her life, as well as her brother and some other close friends, are all in the trenches, trying to live out the noble heroic dream on behalf of King and Country.
Unable to support directly, she joins the nursing corps as a volunteer but there is no consolation for her as first her fiance, then her friends and finally her brother die.
Her account of desolation when she receives the news each time is traumatising and shows a side of life you don't get from the war poems: the horror of war not from the front line, but from the perspective of almost continuous bereavement, among people who feel helpless and increasingly angry with the world. Her perspectives on daily life in London in the war years are as insightful as the descriptions of nursing in Malta and France, where she spent the bulk of her time. Certain details, such as the atmosphere behind the lines as the British wilt before the Ludendorff offensive, but are rallied by a missive from Field Marshall Haig will interest even those who know a lot about the history of it.
Yet it is the human story which is most powerful.
This is a brutally honest book, and she does not paint herself without warts: she is obsessive about academic study, has a mental breakdown after the war and doesn't make it easy on anyone courting her thereafter. Yet Brittain's problems outside the war, of a woman trying to combine a career with marriage, anticipate the great feminist struggles of the 20th and 21st centuries. Indeed, her honesty gives the book a raw truth.
Yet this is not just her story. As she herself writes, this is the story of a generation whose men were wiped out in battle and whose women were shattered by bereavement.
The book continues after the war following her work with the League of Nations until 1925 and this has only limited interest today: the really timeless passages come from earlier on. Profoundly affecting and profoundly insightful, in beautiful prose, this deserves its classic status.

An amazing story of love, 28 Oct 2003
I read this book for my A Levels, last year, as we were studying Worl War One Literature. Such a hefty tome looked completely imtimidating, but I decided to start anyway. I soon became completely engrossed in this book. Vera Brittains simple style is so poignant, and the heartrending events are described sensitively and with candour Vera tells of her feelings at the demands of her family, the war and her studies, culminating in the deaths of her brother, and her fiance Roland. The love between Roland and Vera is a pivotal part of this story, and to my mind is the epitome of true, optimistic, young love. The tragic event of his death and the sorrow Vera experiences throughout the war permeates the book.

This is an amazing, inspiring book and should by read by anyone who beileves that world war one has no relevance to our lives now, or anyone interested in a woman's perspective on important historical events.

Vera Brittain rules!!!! Seriously read this book, buy it now! :) The excellent poetry that preceeds each chapter is so deeply touching. Especially "Perhaps" written after Roland's death by Vera, which tells of her sadness, that she doesn't even notice the shining sun, or appreciate the beauty of nature which was so heightened previous to his death.

Really excellent book; perhaps my all time favourite, and I have read a lot of books!

Another great slice of 40s life, 02 Oct 2008
If you enjoyed the original 'Nella Last's War' then you will enjoy this second volume just the same. The end of hostilities doesn't mean the end of either Nella's writing, or her talent with words and observation. It also certainly does not mean the end of hardship and difficulty. I drove to Barrow on the strength of the first diary and was very fortunate to meet the present owners of Nella's old house - they actually bought it off the Last family forty years ago. Just sitting in her old living room, where all those words had poured onto the page, brought Nella and her time tangibly closer. I heartily recommend this book.

Count your blessings, 26 Oct 2008
I write this in late 2008 as the global financial system goes into meltdown and the credit crunch is really biting into our individual pockets. What Nella Last would make of our sickeningly materialistic, wasteful, 'spend spend spend' times I cannot imagine!
On a domestic level we could all learn a lot from Nella's money-saving, waste-avoiding methods. Her descriptions of the meals she contrives are fascinating, and her make-do-and-mend philosophy would put us all to shame.
Aside from the domestic detail, Nella writes movingly about her thoughts and feelings as a wife and mother living through a second war, and especially about the changing role of women and her own sense of liberation through war work.
This should be be required reading for everyone lucky enough to have grown up in times of peace and plenty.

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.

utterly heartbreaking; one woman's war, 15 Jun 2008
My mother having pressed me to read this book, I finally got round to it early this year. Thank God I did.

I cannot begin to put into words how much this book touched me. Vera Brittan must be an inspiration to all women; a strong and determined character who, despite losing almost everything to the War, did not give up. Vera Brittan was a young, ambitious girl growing up pre-war with aspirations to go to University (something uncommon for the day.) She succeeded in getting into Oxford to study English. Then the War came crashing into her life, and Vera's brother and friends get called up to fight. She herself finds her place, working as a nurse first in London, then abroad. Vera Brittan lost so much to this horrific War and yet still found the strength to write about her experiences. This is no fiction, but a true, heartbreaking story of one woman's war.

A most poignant and haunting read, Vera Brittan's tragic story of love, family, duty and growing up will stay with you long after you finish the last page.


An important memoir of the Great War and its aftermath, 03 Jan 2008
In 1929 Vera Brittain ( 1893- 1970) began using her extensive diaries and correspondence to start writing her auto-biographical epic from 1913-1925, which was published in 1933. At the time Brittain was a part time lecturer for supporters of the League of Nations, a journalist, and had written two novels which had not been particularly well received. Ambitious and a feminist, Brittain seemed determined to succeed at something, and her greatest achievement has been in autobiography.

The book is well written : Brittain depicts her own life, frustrations, personal losses , near breakdown and subsequent attempts at building new life and friendships after the Great War in an endearing manner. Her humanitarianism, her social observations, the fact that she reminded the world how those people away from direct military action, (especially women and men to old to fight) suffered along with the men who were maimed, traumatised, or killed . Brittain also nurses enemy soldiers and also visited Germany after the War, and her compassion extended to the German people. The book also clearly documents how women's lives changed during this time period.

`Testament of Youth' is not great literary fiction, compared with Siegfried Sassoon' Memoirs of an Infantry Officer'. The book has its opponents, one unkind critic referred to Brittain as the `princess of self-pity'. The book is centred around her own suffering and personal losses ( of fiancé, friends, brother), though millions of other people experienced great levels of bereavement at this time. Whether she has the right to be heralded as the `voice' of a generation in this respect is open to question. Certainly Brittain's supporters will point out that the book's success was due to a large number of her contemporaries feeling at least some affinity with her suffering.

Further research has suggested that her brother Edward killed in 1918, may have taken his own life or deliberately exposed himself to enemy fire so as to avoid the disgrace of a court martial ( see `Vera Brittain A life' , Paul Berry and Mark Bostridge 1995). In `Testament of Youth' this is not disclosed to the reader, and one wonders if other amendments have been made though it also to fair say that the book's detractors have found few factual errors in the work.

Above all `Testament of Youth' has undergone a revival , after its transatlantic success in the 1930's, with a new generation of readers as from the late 1970's, because its' vision of the Great War-as a senseless carnage- is now popular. The book was re-published by Virago, the feminist publishing house, whose mission was to showcase work by women authors. It's revival coincided with a new wave of feminist anti-militarism. It is easily the most cited Great War memoir written by a woman. Moreover, the tale of a survivor such as Vera Brittain who witnesses great tragedy but by the end of the book in 1925 has found love again, has great contemporary appeal. Ultimately Vera Brittain has ensured that her perception of the Great War was known to millions of people and the names of those who close to her who perished or also suffered great loss, have been remembered,which must make it a success

The book that changed my life, 08 Feb 2007
I first read this book when I was about 15 and it had such a remarkable effect on my life that 25 years later I still return to it again and again. It encapsulates so much of the period; the desperate need to get into higher education, the horror of war and its aftermath, how to make sense of it all and finally the joy of love and of friendship. Try Chronicles of Youth as well, the diaries on which she based the book.

A classic: shattering at times, always enlightening, 23 May 2004
Vera Brittain's account was written in the early 1930s, as she tried to make sense of the extraordinary bereavement that affected those of her generation who survived the First World War.
Growing up in provincial Edwardian England, a fascinating piece of writing in itself, she falls in love with one of her brothers's friends in 1914. The romance is going well, until the outbreak of war sweeps in to disrupt her life. Suddenly the love of her life, as well as her brother and some other close friends, are all in the trenches, trying to live out the noble heroic dream on behalf of King and Country.
Unable to support directly, she joins the nursing corps as a volunteer but there is no consolation for her as first her fiance, then her friends and finally her brother die.
Her account of desolation when she receives the news each time is traumatising and shows a side of life you don't get from the war poems: the horror of war not from the front line, but from the perspective of almost continuous bereavement, among people who feel helpless and increasingly angry with the world. Her perspectives on daily life in London in the war years are as insightful as the descriptions of nursing in Malta and France, where she spent the bulk of her time. Certain details, such as the atmosphere behind the lines as the British wilt before the Ludendorff offensive, but are rallied by a missive from Field Marshall Haig will interest even those who know a lot about the history of it.
Yet it is the human story which is most powerful.
This is a brutally honest book, and she does not paint herself without warts: she is obsessive about academic study, has a mental breakdown after the war and doesn't make it easy on anyone courting her thereafter. Yet Brittain's problems outside the war, of a woman trying to combine a career with marriage, anticipate the great feminist struggles of the 20th and 21st centuries. Indeed, her honesty gives the book a raw truth.
Yet this is not just her story. As she herself writes, this is the story of a generation whose men were wiped out in battle and whose women were shattered by bereavement.
The book continues after the war following her work with the League of Nations until 1925 and this has only limited interest today: the really timeless passages come from earlier on. Profoundly affecting and profoundly insightful, in beautiful prose, this deserves its classic status.

An amazing story of love, 28 Oct 2003
I read this book for my A Levels, last year, as we were studying Worl War One Literature. Such a hefty tome looked completely imtimidating, but I decided to start anyway. I soon became completely engrossed in this book. Vera Brittains simple style is so poignant, and the heartrending events are described sensitively and with candour Vera tells of her feelings at the demands of her family, the war and her studies, culminating in the deaths of her brother, and her fiance Roland. The love between Roland and Vera is a pivotal part of this story, and to my mind is the epitome of true, optimistic, young love. The tragic event of his death and the sorrow Vera experiences throughout the war permeates the book.

This is an amazing, inspiring book and should by read by anyone who beileves that world war one has no relevance to our lives now, or anyone interested in a woman's perspective on important historical events.

Vera Brittain rules!!!! Seriously read this book, buy it now! :) The excellent poetry that preceeds each chapter is so deeply touching. Especially "Perhaps" written after Roland's death by Vera, which tells of her sadness, that she doesn't even notice the shining sun, or appreciate the beauty of nature which was so heightened previous to his death.

Really excellent book; perhaps my all time favourite, and I have read a lot of books!

Another great slice of 40s life, 02 Oct 2008
If you enjoyed the original 'Nella Last's War' then you will enjoy this second volume just the same. The end of hostilities doesn't mean the end of either Nella's writing, or her talent with words and observation. It also certainly does not mean the end of hardship and difficulty. I drove to Barrow on the strength of the first diary and was very fortunate to meet the present owners of Nella's old house - they actually bought it off the Last family forty years ago. Just sitting in her old living room, where all those words had poured onto the page, brought Nella and her time tangibly closer. I heartily recommend this book.

Count your blessings, 26 Oct 2008
I write this in late 2008 as the global financial system goes into meltdown and the credit crunch is really biting into our individual pockets. What Nella Last would make of our sickeningly materialistic, wasteful, 'spend spend spend' times I cannot imagine!
On a domestic level we could all learn a lot from Nella's money-saving, waste-avoiding methods. Her descriptions of the meals she contrives are fascinating, and her make-do-and-mend philosophy would put us all to shame.
Aside from the domestic detail, Nella writes movingly about her thoughts and feelings as a wife and mother living through a second war, and especially about the changing role of women and her own sense of liberation through war work.
This should be be required reading for everyone lucky enough to have grown up in times of peace and plenty.

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.

Homage to fascism, more like, 26 Mar 2008
Note how the great Orwell never says anything positive about those doing the bulk of the fighting against Franco - in fact, note how he barely mentions Franco and fascism at all! In the course of the events he descibes in this book, he spends most of his time doing nothing, like the rest of his Trotskyist and anarchist friends. Meanwhile, the Republicans, whom he slanders from afar, were fighting and dying in the front line against the Nazi and Italian forces who enabled Franco's victory. Note also how he never says a positive word about the Soviet Union, which was the only country to help the Republic, while the British and French governments helped Hitler and Mussolini to intervene.

Homage to freedom and equality, 19 Mar 2008
The Spanish civil war is possibly, alongside the Paris Commune of 1871, the period of history I wished to have taken an active part in. George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is the best portrayal I've read so far on this period and an inspired and inspiring piece of literature. A very personal account of the war that doesn't neglect the social and political background, its implications and the influence it had on 20th century history. Ever wondered why the Spanish Civil war meant so much to so many around the world? Think you know what it really stood for? Ever questioned why the leftists (socialists, communists and anarchists) lost? Then this is the book for you.

Famous first-hand account of Spain's 1936-7 Civil War, 24 Feb 2008
A recent trip to Barcelona made me pull this book off my bookshelf, where it had been gathering dust since I first read it as a teenager 12 years ago. At the time I was very much into Orwell - his socialism, his hatred of Capitalism and his championing of the working classes. Though writing half a century earlier, he seemed to voice much of what myself and the other youths I hung around with believed.

Out of all Orwell's books that I read, I found this the least enjoyable and the most hard-going. I couldn't make head nor tail of who the different sides were, who was fighting who, what each side was fighting for and the complicated party politics of a Spain that existed nearly 60 years in the past.

The book is akin to Down and Out in Paris and London in that Orwell throws himself into an impoverished and dangerous situation which is not necessary for one of his social class and talents. Yet he does it anyway, mainly, I think, to provide the raw experience from which he can create these masterful literary accounts. In Paris and London Orwell writes about poverty and homelessness. Here he is writing about a war which, at first at least, he sees as being between 'the Fascists' and 'the working classes' (a perfect Orwellian subject). In the earlier book Orwell becomes a tramp. Here he becomes a soldier - a militiaman in a foreign army. Strange and noble that he should suffer so much for his art. However, 12 years on from my first reading, I can't help viewing Orwell's behaviour as a slightly patronising kind of 'social tourism'. When he has had enough, Orwell is able to, and in fact does, escape back to a comfortable middle-class existence back in England. This escape clause is not open to the real tramps, 'peasants' and militiamen he mixes with. This is not a severe criticism, though. Undoubtedly Orwell did genuinely care about the social injustices he witnessed and he was clearly trying to draw attention to them and strive for reform (he was instrumental in setting up the NHS in the 1940s).

This time I understood little more of what was going on than first time round. However, despite my lack of understanding, and despite having a markedly different political stance than I did as a teenager, I found the book to be much more rewarding this time round. Orwell's matter-of-fact reportage of trench warfare and street fighting is fascinating. His vivid descriptions of the antiquated weapons, attacking an enemy position, the freezing nights and the human lice - not to mention of getting shot through the throat ("The whole experience of being hit by a bullet is very interesting and I think it is worth describing in detail") - are vivid and eloquent. Also, you can see here embryonic elements that made it into Nineteen Eighty-Four (the systematic suppression and even murder of those that disagree with the state view, for instance).

This time round I was gripped all the way to the last sentence, by which time Orwell has returned home and finds England "sleeping the deep deep sleep of England, from which I sometimes fear we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs." Chilling when you reflect that this book was published in 1938, only a year before WW2 broke out.

A brilliant book, author and anarchist, 20 Oct 2007
Orwell has been slandered slightly with the title of socialist. This book well and truly shows his colours - multicoloured of course. The book is an outstanding account and description of the Spanish Civil War, an excellent portrayal of effective anarchism in action in Barcelona in those early days, a brilliant advertisement for pacifism, and an excellent insight into the mind of someone whose lasting influnce in the world has even changed the language. Thought police, Big Brother, Room 101 - all terms inspired by true events outlined in this classic book. There's memorable glimpses into the horrors of life in war - the food shortages, rats, the seemingly-trivial issues of looking for firewood, the lack of actual fighting, but the fun and camaradery too.

There's so much in this little book - masculinity, class, war, socialism, anarchism and descriptions of the Ramblas in Barcelona that have stood the test of time.

Simply Brilliant , 06 Dec 2006
This book is truly essential reading for anyone interested in the Spanish Civil War, or for that matter anyone with an interest in war, Communism, Socialism, Anarchism or in Literature. Orwell's account of the Spanish Civil War is more than just a brilliant account of life in a civil war, it is a first hand account of the horrors of Stalinism, and Orwell's experiences in Spain explain why he later wrote his best known works, 1984 and Animal Farm, to warn of the dangers which he knew so well.

The book starts out recounting Orwell's experiences of arriving in Spain as an eager volunteer wanting to help fight Fascism. He is shocked to discover the disorganisation and inefficiency of the Republican militias. The book then goes on to give a telling account of the boredom of trench warfare, where the naïve Orwell wants to be able to kill at least one Fascist to do his part in the struggle for freedom, but ends up mainly having to contend with lice, rats and the freezing weather.

This alone might make for an interesting read, but the book really comes into its own in the latter chapters, where Orwell describes the struggle going on within the Republican controlled region of Spain. A wounded Orwell returns to Barcelona, where the Stalinists who have seized control of the government turn on their political rivals. Orwell is well placed to describe the May fighting between the Stalinist police who wish to enforce state control and the idealistic anarchists who want to defend their revolutionary gains.

Following the government victory, Orwell's small political party the POUM is made a scapegoat for the fighting and is outlawed. A stunned Orwell is forced to go on the run from the very Republic for which he had been so willing to risk his life. This makes for a damning indictment of totalitarianism that is still capable of gripping and infuriating the reader generations after the events described. Orwell shows that he is one of the finest writers in the English language, and this is probably his finest work, deserving to be read by all.

Polish writer and foreign correspondent Ryszard Kapuscinski may be in the twilight of a golden career spanning more than 40 years but The Shadow of the Sun, an alternative record of his experiences of Africa and its stupefying white heat, is perhaps his finest hour. This for a writer who, to echo the sentiments of Michael Ignatieff, has turned reportage into literature. Drawn to the Developing World through an impoverished wartime upbringing, Kapuscinski arrived in Ghana in 1957 and was on hand to witness the tumultuous years in which colonial Africa was dismantled, resulting in born-again countries ripe for ransacking by despots. From the glare of Accra airport which greets him on first arrival, to the Tanzanian night of the final pages, he crosses savannah, desert and city by foot, road and train, searching out the two most important, yet inconstant commodities on the continent: shade and water. Threatened by an Egyptian cobra, cursed with cerebral malaria and tuberculosis, plagued by black cockroaches the size of small turtles, Kapuscinski intermingles the immediate and the reflective in 29 satisfyingly fragmented vignettes, encompassing historical narratives and personal experience across a host of countries, including Ethiopia, Uganda, Nigeria, Sudan and Liberia.

While acknowledging European colonial culpability, he refuses to rinse his words in guilt. The Shadow of the Sun is reminiscent of Gianni Celati's Adventures in Africa, employing similarly symphonic atmospherics that can bear poetic witness to both the tragic history of Rwanda and the Ngubi beetle, which toils in the desert to produce the sweat it drinks to survive. As much about the plastic water container as the warlord and preferring the African shanty town to the Manhattan skyscraper as a monument to human achievement, what Kapuscinski, the author of Shah of Shahs describes is not Africa, which he claims does not exist except geographically but a distillation of life itself, through its religiosity, its trees, the frightening abundance of youth, sun that "curdles the blood" and terrorising, ruling armies that fall in a day. The first in a projected trilogy pulling together Africa, Central America and Asia, The Shadow of the Sun is an exceptional and humbling work of imagination and experience by a writer intent on liberating truths from fact. --David Vincent

utterly heartbreaking; one woman's war, 15 Jun 2008
My mother having pressed me to read this book, I finally got round to it early this year. Thank God I did.

I cannot begin to put into words how much this book touched me. Vera Brittan must be an inspiration to all women; a strong and determined character who, despite losing almost everything to the War, did not give up. Vera Brittan was a young, ambitious girl growing up pre-war with aspirations to go to University (something uncommon for the day.) She succeeded in getting into Oxford to study English. Then the War came crashing into her life, and Vera's brother and friends get called up to fight. She herself finds her place, working as a nurse first in London, then abroad. Vera Brittan lost so much to this horrific War and yet still found the strength to write about her experiences. This is no fiction, but a true, heartbreaking story of one woman's war.

A most poignant and haunting read, Vera Brittan's tragic story of love, family, duty and growing up will stay with you long after you finish the last page.


An important memoir of the Great War and its aftermath, 03 Jan 2008
In 1929 Vera Brittain ( 1893- 1970) began using her extensive diaries and correspondence to start writing her auto-biographical epic from 1913-1925, which was published in 1933. At the time Brittain was a part time lecturer for supporters of the League of Nations, a journalist, and had written two novels which had not been particularly well received. Ambitious and a feminist, Brittain seemed determined to succeed at something, and her greatest achievement has been in autobiography.

The book is well written : Brittain depicts her own life, frustrations, personal losses , near breakdown and subsequent attempts at building new life and friendships after the Great War in an endearing manner. Her humanitarianism, her social observations, the fact that she reminded the world how those people away from direct military action, (especially women and men to old to fight) suffered along with the men who were maimed, traumatised, or killed . Brittain also nurses enemy soldiers and also visited Germany after the War, and her compassion extended to the German people. The book also clearly documents how women's lives changed during this time period.

`Testament of Youth' is not great literary fiction, compared with Siegfried Sassoon' Memoirs of an Infantry Officer'. The book has its opponents, one unkind critic referred to Brittain as the `princess of self-pity'. The book is centred around her own suffering and personal losses ( of fiancé, friends, brother), though millions of other people experienced great levels of bereavement at this time. Whether she has the right to be heralded as the `voice' of a generation in this respect is open to question. Certainly Brittain's supporters will point out that the book's success was due to a large number of her contemporaries feeling at least some affinity with her suffering.

Further research has suggested that her brother Edward killed in 1918, may have taken his own life or deliberately exposed himself to enemy fire so as to avoid the disgrace of a court martial ( see `Vera Brittain A life' , Paul Berry and Mark Bostridge 1995). In `Testament of Youth' this is not disclosed to the reader, and one wonders if other amendments have been made though it also to fair say that the book's detractors have found few factual errors in the work.

Above all `Testament of Youth' has undergone a revival , after its transatlantic success in the 1930's, with a new generation of readers as from the late 1970's, because its' vision of the Great War-as a senseless carnage- is now popular. The book was re-published by Virago, the feminist publishing house, whose mission was to showcase work by women authors. It's revival coincided with a new wave of feminist anti-militarism. It is easily the most cited Great War memoir written by a woman. Moreover, the tale of a survivor such as Vera Brittain who witnesses great tragedy but by the end of the book in 1925 has found love again, has great contemporary appeal. Ultimately Vera Brittain has ensured that her perception of the Great War was known to millions of people and the names of those who close to her who perished or also suffered great loss, have been remembered,which must make it a success

The book that changed my life, 08 Feb 2007
I first read this book when I was about 15 and it had such a remarkable effect on my life that 25 years later I still return to it again and again. It encapsulates so much of the period; the desperate need to get into higher education, the horror of war and its aftermath, how to make sense of it all and finally the joy of love and of friendship. Try Chronicles of Youth as well, the diaries on which she based the book.

A classic: shattering at times, always enlightening, 23 May 2004
Vera Brittain's account was written in the early 1930s, as she tried to make sense of the extraordinary bereavement that affected those of her generation who survived the First World War.
Growing up in provincial Edwardian England, a fascinating piece of writing in itself, she falls in love with one of her brothers's friends in 1914. The romance is going well, until the outbreak of war sweeps in to disrupt her life. Suddenly the love of her life, as well as her brother and some other close friends, are all in the trenches, trying to live out the noble heroic dream on behalf of King and Country.
Unable to support directly, she joins the nursing corps as a volunteer but there is no consolation for her as first her fiance, then her friends and finally her brother die.
Her account of desolation when she receives the news each time is traumatising and shows a side of life you don't get from the war poems: the horror of war not from the front line, but from the perspective of almost continuous bereavement, among people who feel helpless and increasingly angry with the world. Her perspectives on daily life in London in the war years are as insightful as the descriptions of nursing in Malta and France, where she spent the bulk of her time. Certain details, such as the atmosphere behind the lines as the British wilt before the Ludendorff offensive, but are rallied by a missive from Field Marshall Haig will interest even those who know a lot about the history of it.
Yet it is the human story which is most powerful.
This is a brutally honest book, and she does not paint herself without warts: she is obsessive about academic study, has a mental breakdown after the war and doesn't make it easy on anyone courting her thereafter. Yet Brittain's problems outside the war, of a woman trying to combine a career with marriage, anticipate the great feminist struggles of the 20th and 21st centuries. Indeed, her honesty gives the book a raw truth.
Yet this is not just her story. As she herself writes, this is the story of a generation whose men were wiped out in battle and whose women were shattered by bereavement.
The book continues after the war following her work with the League of Nations until 1925 and this has only limited interest today: the really timeless passages come from earlier on. Profoundly affecting and profoundly insightful, in beautiful prose, this deserves its classic status.

An amazing story of love, 28 Oct 2003
I read this book for my A Levels, last year, as we were studying Worl War One Literature. Such a hefty tome looked completely imtimidating, but I decided to start anyway. I soon became completely engrossed in this book. Vera Brittains simple style is so poignant, and the heartrending events are described sensitively and with candour Vera tells of her feelings at the demands of her family, the war and her studies, culminating in the deaths of her brother, and her fiance Roland. The love between Roland and Vera is a pivotal part of this story, and to my mind is the epitome of true, optimistic, young love. The tragic event of his death and the sorrow Vera experiences throughout the war permeates the book.

This is an amazing, inspiring book and should by read by anyone who beileves that world war one has no relevance to our lives now, or anyone interested in a woman's perspective on important historical events.

Vera Brittain rules!!!! Seriously read this book, buy it now! :) The excellent poetry that preceeds each chapter is so deeply touching. Especially "Perhaps" written after Roland's death by Vera, which tells of her sadness, that she doesn't even notice the shining sun, or appreciate the beauty of nature which was so heightened previous to his death.

Really excellent book; perhaps my all time favourite, and I have read a lot of books!

Another great slice of 40s life, 02 Oct 2008
If you enjoyed the original 'Nella Last's War' then you will enjoy this second volume just the same. The end of hostilities doesn't mean the end of either Nella's writing, or her talent with words and observation. It also certainly does not mean the end of hardship and difficulty. I drove to Barrow on the strength of the first diary and was very fortunate to meet the present owners of Nella's old house - they actually bought it off the Last family forty years ago. Just sitting in her old living room, where all those words had poured onto the page, brought Nella and her time tangibly closer. I heartily recommend this book.

Count your blessings, 26 Oct 2008
I write this in late 2008 as the global financial system goes into meltdown and the credit crunch is really biting into our individual pockets. What Nella Last would make of our sickeningly materialistic, wasteful, 'spend spend spend' times I cannot imagine!
On a domestic level we could all learn a lot from Nella's money-saving, waste-avoiding methods. Her descriptions of the meals she contrives are fascinating, and her make-do-and-mend philosophy would put us all to shame.
Aside from the domestic detail, Nella writes movingly about her thoughts and feelings as a wife and mother living through a second war, and especially about the changing role of women and her own sense of liberation through war work.
This should be be required reading for everyone lucky enough to have grown up in times of peace and plenty.

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.

Homage to fascism, more like, 26 Mar 2008
Note how the great Orwell never says anything positive about those doing the bulk of the fighting against Franco - in fact, note how he barely mentions Franco and fascism at all! In the course of the events he descibes in this book, he spends most of his time doing nothing, like the rest of his Trotskyist and anarchist friends. Meanwhile, the Republicans, whom he slanders from afar, were fighting and dying in the front line against the Nazi and Italian forces who enabled Franco's victory. Note also how he never says a positive word about the Soviet Union, which was the only country to help the Republic, while the British and French governments helped Hitler and Mussolini to intervene.

Homage to freedom and equality, 19 Mar 2008
The Spanish civil war is possibly, alongside the Paris Commune of 1871, the period of history I wished to have taken an active part in. George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is the best portrayal I've read so far on this period and an inspired and inspiring piece of literature. A very personal account of the war that doesn't neglect the social and political background, its implications and the influence it had on 20th century history. Ever wondered why the Spanish Civil war meant so much to so many around the world? Think you know what it really stood for? Ever questioned why the leftists (socialists, communists and anarchists) lost? Then this is the book for you.

Famous first-hand account of Spain's 1936-7 Civil War, 24 Feb 2008
A recent trip to Barcelona made me pull this book off my bookshelf, where it had been gathering dust since I first read it as a teenager 12 years ago. At the time I was very much into Orwell - his socialism, his hatred of Capitalism and his championing of the working classes. Though writing half a century earlier, he seemed to voice much of what myself and the other youths I hung around with believed.

Out of all Orwell's books that I read, I found this the least enjoyable and the most hard-going. I couldn't make head nor tail of who the different sides were, who was fighting who, what each side was fighting for and the complicated party politics of a Spain that existed nearly 60 years in the past.

The book is akin to Down and Out in Paris and London in that Orwell throws himself into an impoverished and dangerous situation which is not necessary for one of his social class and talents. Yet he does it anyway, mainly, I think, to provide the raw experience from which he can create these masterful literary accounts. In Paris and London Orwell writes about poverty and homelessness. Here he is writing about a war which, at first at least, he sees as being between 'the Fascists' and 'the working classes' (a perfect Orwellian subject). In the earlier book Orwell becomes a tramp. Here he becomes a soldier - a militiaman in a foreign army. Strange and noble that he should suffer so much for his art. However, 12 years on from my first reading, I can't help viewing Orwell's behaviour as a slightly patronising kind of 'social tourism'. When he has had enough, Orwell is able to, and in fact does, escape back to a comfortable middle-class existence back in England. This escape clause is not open to the real tramps, 'peasants' and militiamen he mixes with. This is not a severe criticism, though. Undoubtedly Orwell did genuinely care about the social injustices he witnessed and he was clearly trying to draw attention to them and strive for reform (he was instrumental in setting up the NHS in the 1940s).

This time I understood little more of what was going on than first time round. However, despite my lack of understanding, and despite having a markedly different political stance than I did as a teenager, I found the book to be much more rewarding this time round. Orwell's matter-of-fact reportage of trench warfare and street fighting is fascinating. His vivid descriptions of the antiquated weapons, attacking an enemy position, the freezing nights and the human lice - not to mention of getting shot through the throat ("The whole experience of being hit by a bullet is very interesting and I think it is worth describing in detail") - are vivid and eloquent. Also, you can see here embryonic elements that made it into Nineteen Eighty-Four (the systematic suppression and even murder of those that disagree with the state view, for instance).

This time round I was gripped all the way to the last sentence, by which time Orwell has returned home and finds England "sleeping the deep deep sleep of England, from which I sometimes fear we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs." Chilling when you reflect that this book was published in 1938, only a year before WW2 broke out.

A brilliant book, author and anarchist, 20 Oct 2007
Orwell has been slandered slightly with the title of socialist. This book well and truly shows his colours - multicoloured of course. The book is an outstanding account and description of the Spanish Civil War, an excellent portrayal of effective anarchism in action in Barcelona in those early days, a brilliant advertisement for pacifism, and an excellent insight into the mind of someone whose lasting influnce in the world has even changed the language. Thought police, Big Brother, Room 101 - all terms inspired by true events outlined in this classic book. There's memorable glimpses into the horrors of life in war - the food shortages, rats, the seemingly-trivial issues of looking for firewood, the lack of actual fighting, but the fun and camaradery too.

There's so much in this little book - masculinity, class, war, socialism, anarchism and descriptions of the Ramblas in Barcelona that have stood the test of time.

Simply Brilliant , 06 Dec 2006
This book is truly essential reading for anyone interested in the Spanish Civil War, or for that matter anyone with an interest in war, Communism, Socialism, Anarchism or in Literature. Orwell's account of the Spanish Civil War is more than just a brilliant account of life in a civil war, it is a first hand account of the horrors of Stalinism, and Orwell's experiences in Spain explain why he later wrote his best known works, 1984 and Animal Farm, to warn of the dangers which he knew so well.

The book starts out recounting Orwell's experiences of arriving in Spain as an eager volunteer wanting to help fight Fascism. He is shocked to discover the disorganisation and inefficiency of the Republican militias. The book then goes on to give a telling account of the boredom of trench warfare, where the naïve Orwell wants to be able to kill at least one Fascist to do his part in the struggle for freedom, but ends up mainly having to contend with lice, rats and the freezing weather.

This alone might make for an interesting read, but the book really comes into its own in the latter chapters, where Orwell describes the struggle going on within the Republican controlled region of Spain. A wounded Orwell returns to Barcelona, where the Stalinists who have seized control of the government turn on their political rivals. Orwell is well placed to describe the May fighting between the Stalinist police who wish to enforce state control and the idealistic anarchists who want to defend their revolutionary gains.

Following the government victory, Orwell's small political party the POUM is made a scapegoat for the fighting and is outlawed. A stunned Orwell is forced to go on the run from the very Republic for which he had been so willing to risk his life. This makes for a damning indictment of totalitarianism that is still capable of gripping and infuriating the reader generations after the events described. Orwell shows that he is one of the finest writers in the English language, and this is probably his finest work, deserving to be read by all.


Beautiful attempt to describe and understand Africa, 19 Oct 2008
It was the colourful front cover showing a map of Africa that made me pick up this book in the store.

Ryszard Kapuscinski was a polish journalist who spent long periods of time travelling in Africa, reporting for his paper. This book contains articles from the late 1950's until the 1990's.

He writes about sub-saharan Africa: The lands in the west, the centre and the east of the continent. North Africa and southern Africa are not covered.

He writes about the African concept of time. He writes about their spiritual world. He describes the way they greet each other and about their laughter. He describes how thieves could be deterred by a few feathers strategically arranged above the door. He writes about ancient feuds and modern power struggles. He describes the landscape, the heat, the plants and the animals. Yes he does write about the horrors. He does writes about Idi Amin, Rwanda, Liberia, slavery, extreme poverty and disease. But he describes what underpinned those wars, coups and dictatorships in such a way that although they are no less horrible, one can understand them a little better.

I got the impression that this man really sought to understand. He talked to the ordinary people. He lived and traveled with them.

And although he says: "European languages did not develop vocabularies adequate to describe non-European worlds. Entire areas of African life remained unfathomed, untouched even, because of a certain European linguistic poverty." I found the language in this book beautiful and hard to believe that I was reading a translation.

I can recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in understanding Africa. In my opinion this is a relatively objective report an that vast continent. In the author's own words: "The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet a varied, immensely rich cosmos."

If you enjoyed this book you might alo find Out of America: a Black Man Confronts Africa (Harvest Book) interesting. It contains the views of a black american journalist.

awesome, 25 Jul 2008
Read this in Siberia recently. Awesome. K's descriptions of Africa went oddly well with snow and ice...

Vivid sketches of African life, 22 Jul 2008
Few people were better qualified to relate an outsider's understanding of the essence of Africa than Kapuscinski, a journalist who spent four decades covering assignments in the continent that he loved. The Shadow of the Sun represents a compilation of vignettes that either detail critical moments in African history - the rise and reign of dictators, numerous coups d'etat that befell them, genocides - or gently demonstrate how an African's mentality is not as rigid as our own: how time to him is a much looser concept, how he prefers community over individual, how he has different notions of culpability and cause and effect. That may sound crassly generalist but as narrated by Kapuscinski is not so: part of the book's resonance comes from its unifying themes, the ironic recognition that Africans, so often divided by tribalist politics, are a coherent people.

Yet although these universal themes appear, the scenes Kapusckinski draws simultaneously recognise the great variety of Africa; as he says in the foreword, "only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say `Africa'". So we witness the midnight rituals of the paranoid Amba, who believe that witches live among them; the unattached, nomadic lives of Tuareg and Somali pastoralists; doomsaying sermons in evangelical sects in Nigeria; the obscene wealth of dictators and corrupt politicians. He relates each sketch through characters and communities, rather than wildlife, or landscapes, or metaphors of suffering, and this makes his tales richer: we see and hear Africa through Africans' voices and experience.

When I'd finished reading this book I was reminded that Africa is an incredibly demanding country, and that much there seems designed to wear a traveller down: public transport that only leaves when it is full to bursting; irrepressible heat; disease; con men or beggars at every corner; grinding bureaucracy; an unwillingness to repair what's broken. But at the same time I felt that I'd been naive to get annoyed by all these things. Everyday people were suffering much more than I was, yet while I was cursing, smiling faces greeted me everywhere. As Kapusckinski puts it: "their life is endless toil, a torment they endure with astonishing patience and good humour." His message is: get out there, meet and talk to Africans, understand how they see you, do your best to understand what life is like for them. It's a hugely important principle, and I'll have this book with me next time I'm there.

Ali Mazrui, 08 Jan 2008
i absolutely loved the book. though there was one hitch:

in the book, Ryzard refers to the intellectual 'Ali Mazrui' as 'Ugandan'. He is not Ugandan. He is Kenyan. To be specific from the Coastal Province of Kenya. I say this because:
1. i'm kenyan
2. i'm from the coast of kenya
... and more importantly
3. i am a distant relative of Ali Mazrui.

If the error can be corrected it would be great!

An Exerllent resource, 08 Dec 2007
Once in a while you come across a book both entertaining and loaded with useful information. Shadow of the Sun is one them - I found the author's interspersing of narrative with historical commentary very useful in understanding the present circumstances of many of the places he visited - it puts everything into context. The author has done an excellent and accessible account of his African experiences.

Africa is a big and complex continent as the author even admits and warns of failure at any generalization attempts. He however falls into this trap in some instances. I found some of his attempts at accounting the 'metaphysical African' completely unrecognizable as an African. For example in one of the chapters, he found himself in a Nigerian church in the Delta and goes on to explore African religions. He concludes that they incompatible with Christianity. He observed that Africans do not feel guilt and that to them, as long as a crime or an evil deed is undiscovered, it remains an innocent/normal action. I found that to be completely untrue. How else can one explain the forgiveness of bad thoughts in the practice of the traditional African religions I am aware, that includes am sure, the area of Nigeria he found himself. There are a few similar instances in the book, but overall, this author has an extraordinary interaction with Africans in a way most Europeans don't. He is an excellent observer and very detail in his accounts.

This is a great read and I am looking forward to reading more of his books

utterly heartbreaking; one woman's war, 15 Jun 2008
My mother having pressed me to read this book, I finally got round to it early this year. Thank God I did.

I cannot begin to put into words how much this book touched me. Vera Brittan must be an inspiration to all women; a strong and determined character who, despite losing almost everything to the War, did not give up. Vera Brittan was a young, ambitious girl growing up pre-war with aspirations to go to University (something uncommon for the day.) She succeeded in getting into Oxford to study English. Then the War came crashing into her life, and Vera's brother and friends get called up to fight. She herself finds her place, working as a nurse first in London, then abroad. Vera Brittan lost so much to this horrific War and yet still found the strength to write about her experiences. This is no fiction, but a true, heartbreaking story of one woman's war.

A most poignant and haunting read, Vera Brittan's tragic story of love, family, duty and growing up will stay with you long after you finish the last page.


An important memoir of the Great War and its aftermath, 03 Jan 2008
In 1929 Vera Brittain ( 1893- 1970) began using her extensive diaries and correspondence to start writing her auto-biographical epic from 1913-1925, which was published in 1933. At the time Brittain was a part time lecturer for supporters of the League of Nations, a journalist, and had written two novels which had not been particularly well received. Ambitious and a feminist, Brittain seemed determined to succeed at something, and her greatest achievement has been in autobiography.

The book is well written : Brittain depicts her own life, frustrations, personal losses , near breakdown and subsequent attempts at building new life and friendships after the Great War in an endearing manner. Her humanitarianism, her social observations, the fact that she reminded the world how those people away from direct military action, (especially women and men to old to fight) suffered along with the men who were maimed, traumatised, or killed . Brittain also nurses enemy soldiers and also visited Germany after the War, and her compassion extended to the German people. The book also clearly documents how women's lives changed during this time period.

`Testament of Youth' is not great literary fiction, compared with Siegfried Sassoon' Memoirs of an Infantry Officer'. The book has its opponents, one unkind critic referred to Brittain as the `princess of self-pity'. The book is centred around her own suffering and personal losses ( of fiancé, friends, brother), though millions of other people experienced great levels of bereavement at this time. Whether she has the right to be heralded as the `voice' of a generation in this respect is open to question. Certainly Brittain's supporters will point out that the book's success was due to a large number of her contemporaries feeling at least some affinity with her suffering.

Further research has suggested that her brother Edward killed in 1918, may have taken his own life or deliberately exposed himself to enemy fire so as to avoid the disgrace of a court martial ( see `Vera Brittain A life' , Paul Berry and Mark Bostridge 1995). In `Testament of Youth' this is not disclosed to the reader, and one wonders if other amendments have been made though it also to fair say that the book's detractors have found few factual errors in the work.

Above all `Testament of Youth' has undergone a revival , after its transatlantic success in the 1930's, with a new generation of readers as from the late 1970's, because its' vision of the Great War-as a senseless carnage- is now popular. The book was re-published by Virago, the feminist publishing house, whose mission was to showcase work by women authors. It's revival coincided with a new wave of feminist anti-militarism. It is easily the most cited Great War memoir written by a woman. Moreover, the tale of a survivor such as Vera Brittain who witnesses great tragedy but by the end of the book in 1925 has found love again, has great contemporary appeal. Ultimately Vera Brittain has ensured that her perception of the Great War was known to millions of people and the names of those who close to her who perished or also suffered great loss, have been remembered,which must make it a success

The book that changed my life, 08 Feb 2007
I first read this book when I was about 15 and it had such a remarkable effect on my life that 25 years later I still return to it again and again. It encapsulates so much of the period; the desperate need to get into higher education, the horror of war and its aftermath, how to make sense of it all and finally the joy of love and of friendship. Try Chronicles of Youth as well, the diaries on which she based the book.

A classic: shattering at times, always enlightening, 23 May 2004
Vera Brittain's account was written in the early 1930s, as she tried to make sense of the extraordinary bereavement that affected those of her generation who survived the First World War.
Growing up in provincial Edwardian England, a fascinating piece of writing in itself, she falls in love with one of her brothers's friends in 1914. The romance is going well, until the outbreak of war sweeps in to disrupt her life. Suddenly the love of her life, as well as her brother and some other close friends, are all in the trenches, trying to live out the noble heroic dream on behalf of King and Country.
Unable to support directly, she joins the nursing corps as a volunteer but there is no consolation for her as first her fiance, then her friends and finally her brother die.
Her account of desolation when she receives the news each time is traumatising and shows a side of life you don't get from the war poems: the horror of war not from the front line, but from the perspective of almost continuous bereavement, among people who feel helpless and increasingly angry with the world. Her perspectives on daily life in London in the war years are as insightful as the descriptions of nursing in Malta and France, where she spent the bulk of her time. Certain details, such as the atmosphere behind the lines as the British wilt before the Ludendorff offensive, but are rallied by a missive from Field Marshall Haig will interest even those who know a lot about the history of it.
Yet it is the human story which is most powerful.
This is a brutally honest book, and she does not paint herself without warts: she is obsessive about academic study, has a mental breakdown after the war and doesn't make it easy on anyone courting her thereafter. Yet Brittain's problems outside the war, of a woman trying to combine a career with marriage, anticipate the great feminist struggles of the 20th and 21st centuries. Indeed, her honesty gives the book a raw truth.
Yet this is not just her story. As she herself writes, this is the story of a generation whose men were wiped out in battle and whose women were shattered by bereavement.
The book continues after the war following her work with the League of Nations until 1925 and this has only limited interest today: t