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.

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.

Nothing Has Changed, 05 Jun 2008
Born and bred in Wigan.I had read 1984 and Animal Farm but had put off reading TRTWP until I was 50.
Orwell writes of the hopelessness of the masses and concludes that they accept their lot because of the "palliatives" of modern technology i.e.cheap clothing (dream of being Greta Garbo or Clark Gable) , alcohol,the movies, radio, the football pools etc.
The government massage and manipulate statistics to show unemployment levels and poverty to be a fraction as bad as they really are.
The middle-class believed that the poor should be instructed to spend their means tested allowance wisely eating tasteless but healthy food,wholemeal bread,oranges,raw carrots etc and to shun alcohol and tobacco etc.
Tell me as anything really changed or have we come full circle under New Labour.

Notes on 'The Road to Wigan Pier'., 01 Apr 2006
'The Road to Wigan Pier' is split into two parts. Part one is George Orwell's recording of his experiences in the North of England, meeting miner's families and reporting at first hand what he saw and heard. Orwell records with sincerity the working class condition. There is no blame or embellishment of what Orwell saw. Orwell's descriptions of the people in the boarding houses he was staying in, are wonderful. You really get a sense of the filth and depravation, and yet the people make you feel at home, to the point of marking your bread and butter with "a black thumb-print on it". I appreciate Orwell's candid writing. The stark reality of poverty is brought to life by Orwell, from his description of the conditions of working in the mines, to the weekly shopping bill and food consumption.
Part two is Orwell's polemic on what he saw and experienced. I found this part of the book filled with passion, anger and justifications. Orwell always makes sure to explain the reasoning behind his arguements and even apologises for his background. Part two consists of political theories, language, class distinction and the personal journey Orwell experienced whilst researching part one.
In my opinion, 'The Road to Wigan Pier' is a wonderful snapshot of a time and a place. It still has a place in literature today as a reminder to us all that there are still destitute people in the world and that things haven't changed as much as we hoped.

The Picture Speaks for Itself, 14 Nov 2002
This book is divided into two sections. The first is a devastating account of the lives of coal miners in the north of England. While this account may be exaggerated it is completely conceivable that life in this time under such social and political conditions might have been like this. He goes to considerable length to explore the personal reactions and methods of endurance of the people he met. Orwell's dedication to exploring what life was really like for the coal miners was made at considerable personal discomfort and were as heroic as Jonathan Kozol's efforts in our present time.

The second half of the book is a long argument by Orwell of the negative aspects of socialism. He does this in order to provoke a serious discussion over how socialism can be implemented in our society. He understood well, as demonstrated in 1984, that many political parties use propaganda as a means of convincing the public that theirs is the right way. But, by taking the opposing view and criticising his own beliefs, he is able to bring the issues of the party into an open forum to consider implementations of change rather than party rhetoric. He does this most sincerely and in no way tries to hide the faults of the socialist political system of thought. In doing so he proves himself to be quite dignified in his system of beliefs. The juxtaposition of these two sections provides a striking idea of the immediate need for political reformation. He did not need to defend socialism because the need for a political change that could effect the lives of the lower class he investigated was obvious. This showed that Orwell's political ideas didn't exist on some ideological utopian plain, but were firmly rooted in the immense danger a political system could inflict upon a large population. It would be wise to remember this in reading the more popular 1984 and Animal Farm as well.

This book is compelling not just for people interested in politics, but also for anyone interested in history and the human condition. It is something you will be able to learn much from and provide you with inspiration.

unflinching look at social conditions and Orwells politics, 02 Jul 2002
George Orwell, commissioned by the Left Book Club, tours the recession hit mining areas of Lancashire and Yorkshire in 1936 and his report on the harsh social conditions he found there (the first part of this book) pulls no punches. No-one before or since has done reporterage like George Orwell and the vividness and directness of his prose with its underlying blazing committment to social justice strikes the reader, even at this remove of time. Orwell's descriptions, couched in his superb prose, will remain in your mind for ever and should be re-read by everyone as a reminder of just how harsh life was for many people, within living memory. Orwell is particularly good about the desperation, the struggle with respectability and the terrible psychological and social toll of unemployment and poverty.

The second part of the book charts Orwell's personal odyssey from public schoolboy and officer of the Indian Imperial Police in Burma to crusading Left-wing author and journalist. Along the way Orwell expounds his personal strategy for Socialism. Although dated, his insights are fascinating, describing as they do the origins of the class struggle ideas that infested and inflamed British politics right up to the 1990s. Orwell is bitingly caustic about many of his fellow Socialists, castigating the obsession with mechanical progress, the worship of Russia and the crank tendencies (still evident in the British Labour Party) - "...the dreary tribe of high-minded women...and the bearded fruit-juice drinkers that flock to the idea of 'progress' like bluebottles do to a dead cat". With incredible prescience Orwell identifies the factors that would eventually kill the traditional "Old" Labour Party - firstly - the dichotomy between the Labour voter in the street (who, by and large, wanted/wants a better standard of living from better working and living conditions), and the "orthodox" hierarchy and activists of the Labour Party (who, by and large, at least in theory wanted a complete change in society), secondly - the accretion on to socialist politics of a huge amount of crank ideas (Orwell's acerbic and caustic put-downs of crank thought forms some of the book's most memorable, and funniest, passages).

What Orwell cannot have forseen was that the second war, the moderate 1945 Labour government, the end of the British Empire, Baroness Thatcher and the rise of a knowledge, finance and service based economy would change the face of England permanently. But however dated the social and political conditions under which he wrote, George Orwell is always worth reading, always hard-hitting, always vivid and detailed, always committed and honest, often hilariously funny.

Read this book, read everything that George Orwell wrote.

Its Grim up North!, 13 Apr 2002
Quite how Orwell can manage to make the price of groceries in pre-war England compulsive reading is a little puzzling, but this essay compiled on a protracted journey around this country's northern industrial towns is once again a shining example of Orwell's uncomplicated and conversational style. Though the reportage is characteristically charged with Orwell's socialist dogma, it should have appeal far beyond the socialist reader for its vivid renderings of these towns and their inhabitants. The passages describing the work and living conditions of these people are particularly enlightening and Orwell really colours the north of the past for those who - like Orwell at the time - rarely stray beyond the Watford Gap. The essay, while only really a record of the past, still manages somehow to be an eye-opener, and is tinted with that irresistible darkness, present in so much of Orwell's pre-war work of a world and a society teetering on the brink of a disastrous but necessary changing of the order.

Perhaps predictably, Orwell never arrives at the symbol of escape from the difficult lives of his characters, Wigan Pier.

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.

Nothing Has Changed, 05 Jun 2008
Born and bred in Wigan.I had read 1984 and Animal Farm but had put off reading TRTWP until I was 50.
Orwell writes of the hopelessness of the masses and concludes that they accept their lot because of the "palliatives" of modern technology i.e.cheap clothing (dream of being Greta Garbo or Clark Gable) , alcohol,the movies, radio, the football pools etc.
The government massage and manipulate statistics to show unemployment levels and poverty to be a fraction as bad as they really are.
The middle-class believed that the poor should be instructed to spend their means tested allowance wisely eating tasteless but healthy food,wholemeal bread,oranges,raw carrots etc and to shun alcohol and tobacco etc.
Tell me as anything really changed or have we come full circle under New Labour.

Notes on 'The Road to Wigan Pier'., 01 Apr 2006
'The Road to Wigan Pier' is split into two parts. Part one is George Orwell's recording of his experiences in the North of England, meeting miner's families and reporting at first hand what he saw and heard. Orwell records with sincerity the working class condition. There is no blame or embellishment of what Orwell saw. Orwell's descriptions of the people in the boarding houses he was staying in, are wonderful. You really get a sense of the filth and depravation, and yet the people make you feel at home, to the point of marking your bread and butter with "a black thumb-print on it". I appreciate Orwell's candid writing. The stark reality of poverty is brought to life by Orwell, from his description of the conditions of working in the mines, to the weekly shopping bill and food consumption.
Part two is Orwell's polemic on what he saw and experienced. I found this part of the book filled with passion, anger and justifications. Orwell always makes sure to explain the reasoning behind his arguements and even apologises for his background. Part two consists of political theories, language, class distinction and the personal journey Orwell experienced whilst researching part one.
In my opinion, 'The Road to Wigan Pier' is a wonderful snapshot of a time and a place. It still has a place in literature today as a reminder to us all that there are still destitute people in the world and that things haven't changed as much as we hoped.

The Picture Speaks for Itself, 14 Nov 2002
This book is divided into two sections. The first is a devastating account of the lives of coal miners in the north of England. While this account may be exaggerated it is completely conceivable that life in this time under such social and political conditions might have been like this. He goes to considerable length to explore the personal reactions and methods of endurance of the people he met. Orwell's dedication to exploring what life was really like for the coal miners was made at considerable personal discomfort and were as heroic as Jonathan Kozol's efforts in our present time.

The second half of the book is a long argument by Orwell of the negative aspects of socialism. He does this in order to provoke a serious discussion over how socialism can be implemented in our society. He understood well, as demonstrated in 1984, that many political parties use propaganda as a means of convincing the public that theirs is the right way. But, by taking the opposing view and criticising his own beliefs, he is able to bring the issues of the party into an open forum to consider implementations of change rather than party rhetoric. He does this most sincerely and in no way tries to hide the faults of the socialist political system of thought. In doing so he proves himself to be quite dignified in his system of beliefs. The juxtaposition of these two sections provides a striking idea of the immediate need for political reformation. He did not need to defend socialism because the need for a political change that could effect the lives of the lower class he investigated was obvious. This showed that Orwell's political ideas didn't exist on some ideological utopian plain, but were firmly rooted in the immense danger a political system could inflict upon a large population. It would be wise to remember this in reading the more popular 1984 and Animal Farm as well.

This book is compelling not just for people interested in politics, but also for anyone interested in history and the human condition. It is something you will be able to learn much from and provide you with inspiration.

unflinching look at social conditions and Orwells politics, 02 Jul 2002
George Orwell, commissioned by the Left Book Club, tours the recession hit mining areas of Lancashire and Yorkshire in 1936 and his report on the harsh social conditions he found there (the first part of this book) pulls no punches. No-one before or since has done reporterage like George Orwell and the vividness and directness of his prose with its underlying blazing committment to social justice strikes the reader, even at this remove of time. Orwell's descriptions, couched in his superb prose, will remain in your mind for ever and should be re-read by everyone as a reminder of just how harsh life was for many people, within living memory. Orwell is particularly good about the desperation, the struggle with respectability and the terrible psychological and social toll of unemployment and poverty.

The second part of the book charts Orwell's personal odyssey from public schoolboy and officer of the Indian Imperial Police in Burma to crusading Left-wing author and journalist. Along the way Orwell expounds his personal strategy for Socialism. Although dated, his insights are fascinating, describing as they do the origins of the class struggle ideas that infested and inflamed British politics right up to the 1990s. Orwell is bitingly caustic about many of his fellow Socialists, castigating the obsession with mechanical progress, the worship of Russia and the crank tendencies (still evident in the British Labour Party) - "...the dreary tribe of high-minded women...and the bearded fruit-juice drinkers that flock to the idea of 'progress' like bluebottles do to a dead cat". With incredible prescience Orwell identifies the factors that would eventually kill the traditional "Old" Labour Party - firstly - the dichotomy between the Labour voter in the street (who, by and large, wanted/wants a better standard of living from better working and living conditions), and the "orthodox" hierarchy and activists of the Labour Party (who, by and large, at least in theory wanted a complete change in society), secondly - the accretion on to socialist politics of a huge amount of crank ideas (Orwell's acerbic and caustic put-downs of crank thought forms some of the book's most memorable, and funniest, passages).

What Orwell cannot have forseen was that the second war, the moderate 1945 Labour government, the end of the British Empire, Baroness Thatcher and the rise of a knowledge, finance and service based economy would change the face of England permanently. But however dated the social and political conditions under which he wrote, George Orwell is always worth reading, always hard-hitting, always vivid and detailed, always committed and honest, often hilariously funny.

Read this book, read everything that George Orwell wrote.

Its Grim up North!, 13 Apr 2002
Quite how Orwell can manage to make the price of groceries in pre-war England compulsive reading is a little puzzling, but this essay compiled on a protracted journey around this country's northern industrial towns is once again a shining example of Orwell's uncomplicated and conversational style. Though the reportage is characteristically charged with Orwell's socialist dogma, it should have appeal far beyond the socialist reader for its vivid renderings of these towns and their inhabitants. The passages describing the work and living conditions of these people are particularly enlightening and Orwell really colours the north of the past for those who - like Orwell at the time - rarely stray beyond the Watford Gap. The essay, while only really a record of the past, still manages somehow to be an eye-opener, and is tinted with that irresistible darkness, present in so much of Orwell's pre-war work of a world and a society teetering on the brink of a disastrous but necessary changing of the order.

Perhaps predictably, Orwell never arrives at the symbol of escape from the difficult lives of his characters, Wigan Pier.

The other side of war, 14 Nov 2008
A "Woman in Berlin" is the frank and honest diary of a young woman caught up in the dark days during the fall of Berlin in 1945. The book contains an excellent forward from Antony Beevor the historian who wrote the equally compelling "Berlin the Downfall".
This extraordinary work has an interesting history. It was first published in 1953 to a German public that was not quite ready to face such brutal truths. It quickly disappeared from view and after many decades slowly re-emerged. It is now an international phenomenon and has recently been made into a film which will only enhance its reputation further.
The diary is well written as you would expect from someone who has travelled Europe in the publishing trade. The diary does not tell us exactly what she did. That she is extremely intelligent and articulate there is no doubt. She reads such literary greats as Goethe and has travelled Europe.
Those who might seek titillation in such a book will probably be dissappointed. I hope so. The rapes that she endured so stoically are not sensationalised in any way. She accepted that she could not alter the situation and did her best to live through it. There is no doubt that Stalins Red Army raped on a huge scale in the early days. These were men who were out to revenge horrific atrocities against there own population. They were men who had often been on the front for years. No home leave for most of them. They were mainly simple workers with a smattering of intelligentsia. They felt it was their right to treat German women as war booty and they did so with impunity.
We follow the diary through the brutal early days and find this well read woman sleeping with a simple Russian peasant. One of the incongruity's that war throws up. She is not beneath sleeping with Russians for food to survive. A fact that would have upset many Germans. Many of the German men at that time were helpless to prevent assaults on their womenfolk and felt emasculated. The matter was best swept under the carpet. The matter was not talked about. Even today there are those that refuse to believe these events ever took place. My own Mother who lived through that era is among them. She believes the diary to be a lie and believes the Red Army would never have behaved in such a way. Having read this account and many others I have long been convinced that these events occurred. I would no more deny this than deny that the world was round. The bulk of evidence is convincing. But what convinced me most was her many descriptions of the more mundane tasks like collecting nettles.
I will not give five stars purely on the basis that I am not sure I like the diarist as a person. I sometimes find her comments grate. That is her character and another good case for authenticity. I disliked her comments about the elderly. She describes old age as something to be pitied, not venerated in those desperate times. Often true that the elderly and the very young are the first to suffer at such times. But surely if we behave in such a way then we are no better than the beasts. She quotes the Lapps and Indians as leaving the old to perish when they have gone past usefulness. However it is a fact that many ancient cultures venerate the elderly. As we should.
Aside from these small reservations I find this a compelling work that is deserving of its growing reputation. It is the grittier adult version of Anne Franks diary. It is as the hype says a chilling indictment of war. An important and serious work in the can'on of war literature. Read it.


A remarkable, even poetic account of a vicious time, 02 Nov 2008
In the middle of chaos, amidst the wreckage of the broken city, the anonymous author marvels at the innocence of a baby girl with copper ringlets of hair. Against the dirt, grime, hunger and rape that have become normal life for Berliners, this chubby, pink baby seems a strange reminder of what normality was before the city was occupied.

In a similar vein this diary is a thing of strange beauty, a product of, but completely alien to, the senseless cruelties and world turned upside down Berlin the writer inhabits in those strangest of last days and new beginnings.

This is the story of a few weeks, a little more than two months meticulously detailed in a thoughtful, almost detached. It is no surprise that the author had a background in journalism and editing, nor that she had travelled and had little of the xenophobic closed mindset of Nazi Germany. But she still feels. She is humiliated, degraded and afraid, albeit capable of recognising, cataloguing and exploring these emotions and setting them down on paper.

The writer is a middle class woman, educated and travelled. She has lived through the Second World War and is now battling on the front line as it sweeps into and takes over Berlin. She is reduced to living with a neighbour, using her body to augment the larder and employing a smattering of Russian she picked up on travels in Russia to intervene on behalf of neighbours and to gain protection of Russian officers.

The writer endures and experiences the worse excesses of the occupation. She makes faultless observations about the way life unfolds under encroaching Russian occupation. Her descriptive talent paints vivid portraits of the neighbours, the Germans who share the basement `cave' in a clannish, pre-occupation retreat to before civilisation. She also applies her even handed language to the Russians, marvelling at the variety in personalities, types and manners. By some she is treated almost as an equal, or as a lady. Others smash her to the floor as the spoils of war.

As much as the account horrifies as the accounts of rape become an almost flippant daily discussion between the women, there are also touching moments of kindness and humanity, between neighbours and between the occupiers and occupied. But these are small flickers of light in the thick darkness of the Götterdamerung. There is violence, cruelty and vicious retribution for what Germans did in the Soviet Union.

It is a remarkable record, a flawless account of the most extraordinary of times and a testament to how people react in the most pressured of situations, the instinct for survival taking over. Without bitterness, recrimination or analysing the event long after it happened, this is raw, urgent yet erudite and poetic.

This is an historical record that well deserves the wider audience it will receive following the release of the cinematic adaptation.

A fascinating piece of history, 19 Feb 2008
We are very fortunate that this anonymous woman kept a diary of the terrible events that happened to her and many other German women living in berlin at the end of WWII,because otherwise this is a part of history that would forever remain hushed up.
The author writed with total honesty and clarity,without any self pity and even with a touch of black humour.This is a really fascinating diary written using the authors journalistic talent.It's a shame she never received the credit she deserved for this important piece of history within her lifetime.

An essential book about Berlin in 1945, 05 Feb 2008
Other than fully endorsing what other reviewers have said about the power of this extraordinary account of the ending of the war in Berlin, from April 1945 and the next two or three months, I would simply draw attention to the immediacy of the writing.

It makes highly uncomfortable reading to be taken right into the dusty, half-lit, and stinking basements, where the writer and other people sheltered during the final days, or to travel with her as she makes her way on her bicycle through the rubble of the city, and, yes, to hear of how she copes (and she does cope) with the ordeal of repeated rape. But you finish the book with the strongest possible sense of her dignity, humanity, intelligence and sheer determination to survive. This is essential reading.

A shocking reminder..., 10 Nov 2007
I read this book keeping in mind not only the described facts by the (anonymous) author, but the terrible circumstances it was written under... in my opinion it is a very valuable document that tells us about the terrible (and wonderful) things we all are capable of under war conditions, perhaps useful to wake up and keep in mind the effects our actions have on other human beigns... in my opinion, a series of facts that must not be forgotten, ever. An excellent reading, no doubt, light and deep at the time...

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.

Nothing Has Changed, 05 Jun 2008
Born and bred in Wigan.I had read 1984 and Animal Farm but had put off reading TRTWP until I was 50.
Orwell writes of the hopelessness of the masses and concludes that they accept their lot because of the "palliatives" of modern technology i.e.cheap clothing (dream of being Greta Garbo or Clark Gable) , alcohol,the movies, radio, the football pools etc.
The government massage and manipulate statistics to show unemployment levels and poverty to be a fraction as bad as they really are.
The middle-class believed that the poor should be instructed to spend their means tested allowance wisely eating tasteless but healthy food,wholemeal bread,oranges,raw carrots etc and to shun alcohol and tobacco etc.
Tell me as anything really changed or have we come full circle under New Labour.

Notes on 'The Road to Wigan Pier'., 01 Apr 2006
'The Road to Wigan Pier' is split into two parts. Part one is George Orwell's recording of his experiences in the North of England, meeting miner's families and reporting at first hand what he saw and heard. Orwell records with sincerity the working class condition. There is no blame or embellishment of what Orwell saw. Orwell's descriptions of the people in the boarding houses he was staying in, are wonderful. You really get a sense of the filth and depravation, and yet the people make you feel at home, to the point of marking your bread and butter with "a black thumb-print on it". I appreciate Orwell's candid writing. The stark reality of poverty is brought to life by Orwell, from his description of the conditions of working in the mines, to the weekly shopping bill and food consumption.
Part two is Orwell's polemic on what he saw and experienced. I found this part of the book filled with passion, anger and justifications. Orwell always makes sure to explain the reasoning behind his arguements and even apologises for his background. Part two consists of political theories, language, class distinction and the personal journey Orwell experienced whilst researching part one.
In my opinion, 'The Road to Wigan Pier' is a wonderful snapshot of a time and a place. It still has a place in literature today as a reminder to us all that there are still destitute people in the world and that things haven't changed as much as we hoped.

The Picture Speaks for Itself, 14 Nov 2002
This book is divided into two sections. The first is a devastating account of the lives of coal miners in the north of England. While this account may be exaggerated it is completely conceivable that life in this time under such social and political conditions might have been like this. He goes to considerable length to explore the personal reactions and methods of endurance of the people he met. Orwell's dedication to exploring what life was really like for the coal miners was made at considerable personal discomfort and were as heroic as Jonathan Kozol's efforts in our present time.

The second half of the book is a long argument by Orwell of the negative aspects of socialism. He does this in order to provoke a serious discussion over how socialism can be implemented in our society. He understood well, as demonstrated in 1984, that many political parties use propaganda as a means of convincing the public that theirs is the right way. But, by taking the opposing view and criticising his own beliefs, he is able to bring the issues of the party into an open forum to consider implementations of change rather than party rhetoric. He does this most sincerely and in no way tries to hide the faults of the socialist political system of thought. In doing so he proves himself to be quite dignified in his system of beliefs. The juxtaposition of these two sections provides a striking idea of the immediate need for political reformation. He did not need to defend socialism because the need for a political change that could effect the lives of the lower class he investigated was obvious. This showed that Orwell's political ideas didn't exist on some ideological utopian plain, but were firmly rooted in the immense danger a political system could inflict upon a large population. It would be wise to remember this in reading the more popular 1984 and Animal Farm as well.

This book is compelling not just for people interested in politics, but also for anyone interested in history and the human condition. It is something you will be able to learn much from and provide you with inspiration.

unflinching look at social conditions and Orwells politics, 02 Jul 2002
George Orwell, commissioned by the Left Book Club, tours the recession hit mining areas of Lancashire and Yorkshire in 1936 and his report on the harsh social conditions he found there (the first part of this book) pulls no punches. No-one before or since has done reporterage like George Orwell and the vividness and directness of his prose with its underlying blazing committment to social justice strikes the reader, even at this remove of time. Orwell's descriptions, couched in his superb prose, will remain in your mind for ever and should be re-read by everyone as a reminder of just how harsh life was for many people, within living memory. Orwell is particularly good about the desperation, the struggle with respectability and the terrible psychological and social toll of unemployment and poverty.

The second part of the book charts Orwell's personal odyssey from public schoolboy and officer of the Indian Imperial Police in Burma to crusading Left-wing author and journalist. Along the way Orwell expounds his personal strategy for Socialism. Although dated, his insights are fascinating, describing as they do the origins of the class struggle ideas that infested and inflamed British politics right up to the 1990s. Orwell is bitingly caustic about many of his fellow Socialists, castigating the obsession with mechanical progress, the worship of Russia and the crank tendencies (still evident in the British Labour Party) - "...the dreary tribe of high-minded women...and the bearded fruit-juice drinkers that flock to the idea of 'progress' like bluebottles do to a dead cat". With incredible prescience Orwell identifies the factors that would eventually kill the traditional "Old" Labour Party - firstly - the dichotomy between the Labour voter in the street (who, by and large, wanted/wants a better standard of living from better working and living conditions), and the "orthodox" hierarchy and activists of the Labour Party (who, by and large, at least in theory wanted a complete change in society), secondly - the accretion on to socialist politics of a huge amount of crank ideas (Orwell's acerbic and caustic put-downs of crank thought forms some of the book's most memorable, and funniest, passages).

What Orwell cannot have forseen was that the second war, the moderate 1945 Labour government, the end of the British Empire, Baroness Thatcher and the rise of a knowledge, finance and service based economy would change the face of England permanently. But however dated the social and political conditions under which he wrote, George Orwell is always worth reading, always hard-hitting, always vivid and detailed, always committed and honest, often hilariously funny.

Read this book, read everything that George Orwell wrote.

Its Grim up North!, 13 Apr 2002
Quite how Orwell can manage to make the price of groceries in pre-war England compulsive reading is a little puzzling, but this essay compiled on a protracted journey around this country's northern industrial towns is once again a shining example of Orwell's uncomplicated and conversational style. Though the reportage is characteristically charged with Orwell's socialist dogma, it should have appeal far beyond the socialist reader for its vivid renderings of these towns and their inhabitants. The passages describing the work and living conditions of these people are particularly enlightening and Orwell really colours the north of the past for those who - like Orwell at the time - rarely stray beyond the Watford Gap. The essay, while only really a record of the past, still manages somehow to be an eye-opener, and is tinted with that irresistible darkness, present in so much of Orwell's pre-war work of a world and a society teetering on the brink of a disastrous but necessary changing of the order.

Perhaps predictably, Orwell never arrives at the symbol of escape from the difficult lives of his characters, Wigan Pier.

The other side of war, 14 Nov 2008
A "Woman in Berlin" is the frank and honest diary of a young woman caught up in the dark days during the fall of Berlin in 1945. The book contains an excellent forward from Antony Beevor the historian who wrote the equally compelling "Berlin the Downfall".
This extraordinary work has an interesting history. It was first published in 1953 to a German public that was not quite ready to face such brutal truths. It quickly disappeared from view and after many decades slowly re-emerged. It is now an international phenomenon and has recently been made into a film which will only enhance its reputation further.
The diary is well written as you would expect from someone who has travelled Europe in the publishing trade. The diary does not tell us exactly what she did. That she is extremely intelligent and articulate there is no doubt. She reads such literary greats as Goethe and has travelled Europe.
Those who might seek titillation in such a book will probably be dissappointed. I hope so. The rapes that she endured so stoically are not sensationalised in any way. She accepted that she could not alter the situation and did her best to live through it. There is no doubt that Stalins Red Army raped on a huge scale in the early days. These were men who were out to revenge horrific atrocities against there own population. They were men who had often been on the front for years. No home leave for most of them. They were mainly simple workers with a smattering of intelligentsia. They felt it was their right to treat German women as war booty and they did so with impunity.
We follow the diary through the brutal early days and find this well read woman sleeping with a simple Russian peasant. One of the incongruity's that war throws up. She is not beneath sleeping with Russians for food to survive. A fact that would have upset many Germans. Many of the German men at that time were helpless to prevent assaults on their womenfolk and felt emasculated. The matter was best swept under the carpet. The matter was not talked about. Even today there are those that refuse to believe these events ever took place. My own Mother who lived through that era is among them. She believes the diary to be a lie and believes the Red Army would never have behaved in such a way. Having read this account and many others I have long been convinced that these events occurred. I would no more deny this than deny that the world was round. The bulk of evidence is convincing. But what convinced me most was her many descriptions of the more mundane tasks like collecting nettles.
I will not give five stars purely on the basis that I am not sure I like the diarist as a person. I sometimes find her comments grate. That is her character and another good case for authenticity. I disliked her comments about the elderly. She describes old age as something to be pitied, not venerated in those desperate times. Often true that the elderly and the very young are the first to suffer at such times. But surely if we behave in such a way then we are no better than the beasts. She quotes the Lapps and Indians as leaving the old to perish when they have gone past usefulness. However it is a fact that many ancient cultures venerate the elderly. As we should.
Aside from these small reservations I find this a compelling work that is deserving of its growing reputation. It is the grittier adult version of Anne Franks diary. It is as the hype says a chilling indictment of war. An important and serious work in the can'on of war literature. Read it.


A remarkable, even poetic account of a vicious time, 02 Nov 2008
In the middle of chaos, amidst the wreckage of the broken city, the anonymous author marvels at the innocence of a baby girl with copper ringlets of hair. Against the dirt, grime, hunger and rape that have become normal life for Berliners, this chubby, pink baby seems a strange reminder of what normality was before the city was occupied.

In a similar vein this diary is a thing of strange beauty, a product of, but completely alien to, the senseless cruelties and world turned upside down Berlin the writer inhabits in those strangest of last days and new beginnings.

This is the story of a few weeks, a little more than two months meticulously detailed in a thoughtful, almost detached. It is no surprise that the author had a background in journalism and editing, nor that she had travelled and had little of the xenophobic closed mindset of Nazi Germany. But she still feels. She is humiliated, degraded and afraid, albeit capable of recognising, cataloguing and exploring these emotions and setting them down on paper.

The writer is a middle class woman, educated and travelled. She has lived through the Second World War and is now battling on the front line as it sweeps into and takes over Berlin. She is reduced to living with a neighbour, using her body to augment the larder and employing a smattering of Russian she picked up on travels in Russia to intervene on behalf of neighbours and to gain protection of Russian officers.

The writer endures and experiences the worse excesses of the occupation. She makes faultless observations about the way life unfolds under encroaching Russian occupation. Her descriptive talent paints vivid portraits of the neighbours, the Germans who share the basement `cave' in a clannish, pre-occupation retreat to before civilisation. She also applies her even handed language to the Russians, marvelling at the variety in personalities, types and manners. By some she is treated almost as an equal, or as a lady. Others smash her to the floor as the spoils of war.

As much as the account horrifies as the accounts of rape become an almost flippant daily discussion between the women, there are also touching moments of kindness and humanity, between neighbours and between the occupiers and occupied. But these are small flickers of light in the thick darkness of the Götterdamerung. There is violence, cruelty and vicious retribution for what Germans did in the Soviet Union.

It is a remarkable record, a flawless account of the most extraordinary of times and a testament to how people react in the most pressured of situations, the instinct for survival taking over. Without bitterness, recrimination or analysing the event long after it happened, this is raw, urgent yet erudite and poetic.

This is an historical record that well deserves the wider audience it will receive following the release of the cinematic adaptation.

A fascinating piece of history, 19 Feb 2008
We are very fortunate that this anonymous woman kept a diary of the terrible events that happened to her and many other German women living in berlin at the end of WWII,because otherwise this is a part of history that would forever remain hushed up.
The author writed with total honesty and clarity,without any self pity and even with a touch of black humour.This is a really fascinating diary written using the authors journalistic talent.It's a shame she never received the credit she deserved for this important piece of history within her lifetime.

An essential book about Berlin in 1945, 05 Feb 2008
Other than fully endorsing what other reviewers have said about the power of this extraordinary account of the ending of the war in Berlin, from April 1945 and the next two or three months, I would simply draw attention to the immediacy of the writing.

It makes highly uncomfortable reading to be taken right into the dusty, half-lit, and stinking basements, where the writer and other people sheltered during the final days, or to travel with her as she makes her way on her bicycle through the rubble of the city, and, yes, to hear of how she copes (and she does cope) with the ordeal of repeated rape. But you finish the book with the strongest possible sense of her dignity, humanity, intelligence and sheer determination to survive. This is essential reading.

A shocking reminder..., 10 Nov 2007
I read this book keeping in mind not only the described facts by the (anonymous) author, but the terrible circumstances it was written under... in my opinion it is a very valuable document that tells us about the terrible (and wonderful) things we all are capable of under war conditions, perhaps useful to wake up and keep in mind the effects our actions have on other human beigns... in my opinion, a series of facts that must not be forgotten, ever. An excellent reading, no doubt, light and deep at the time...

Perfection, 18 Sep 2008
Its not too much of an exageration to say that this book is an oversight of 20th century usa. Alistair Cooke's letter is something i came too only a few years before his death and this book goes through from the 40s right until his last letter.

The quality of writing is superb of a man at the cutting edge of history.

Wonderful; Touching; Wise, 29 Dec 2006
"A post mortem collection of the famous "Letter from America" series written and broadcast on the BBC over a staggering period of 58 years and 2,869 broadcasts. His last broadcast was made in Feb 2004, after which he retired. He died the following month in his 96th year.

It is simply staggering to consider the prolificacy and quality of these Letters which were faithfully produced against such an unforgiving deadline over so many years. All the more incredible it is to consider that this work constitutes just a fraction of the man's overall output,in many fields. I have the impression that this must have come relatively easy to him, otherwise it would have taken over his life. Fluent writing followed by fluent recording for broadcast. And the repetition honed his style. Indeed, I seem to recall an interview he gave in his latter years in which he said that as the years went by he would often arrive at recording studio with no written notes at all and only a vague idea as to what he was going to talk about that week. A virtuosos at work in any field inspires our awe and respect and Alistair Cooke is the virtuoso of the warm, enchanting essay which usually finds a new way, a new angle from which to consider things. I am now an even more serious fan and would recommend this collection to all who might enjoy the company of a thoughtful, wise and entertaining man for a brief while.


An unputdownable summary of the 20th Century, 24 May 2006
To be blunt: Alistair Cooke's writing is of the highest quality. It surpasses most fiction and non-fiction writings in these terms. The key characteristic of "Letters from America" is that they were meant to be read aloud and so adopt a more authoratative tone than most published writings. Cooke's America is fascinating; it shows what has been forgotten as well as documenting the present. Past luminaries such as HL Mencken, who is now largely forgotten, are described in detail under the assumption that their memory would live forever. The one criticism is that Cooke covers the news with too light a touch. At least in this collection, the civil rights movement, the attrocities of the Johnson and Nixon administrations in Vietnam and Cambodia are only briefly referred to. Apart from that his writing on summers in Long Island, the death of the Kennedies and Clintongate are an absolute pleasure.

A 'Love' Letter to America, 18 May 2006

When I left England to live in the United States for one year last August, there was only one book I took with me - Alistair Cooke's 'Letter From America'. What else could I have taken? Cooke saw into America like no other Brit (or no other non-American, for that matter).

Starting at the mid 1940s, the book winds its way through post-war America nearly right up until the authors death in 2004, picking out the best of his weekly broadcasts. The subject matters range from politics, history, current affairs, entertainment and topics from the New England fall, jazz, Robert Kennedy's assassination (which he witnessed first-hand) and O.J Simpson.

But it is not the subject matter that makes this book so special (for we already know about most of them anyway) it is none other than Cooke's insight and writing style. The articles flow like the finest novel or poem (which is probably attributed to Cooke's background in theatre). Each time you come back to read the book again it feels as though you are receiving the opinions of a familiar friend, and not some distant journalist.

There are drawbacks. Cooke was often criticised, and quite rightly so, for ignoring the darker side of the American dream. The other possible drawback, depending on your viewpoint, is that Cooke was a committed conservative, especially in the latter half of his career. Many of the final articles from the late 90's and early 00's lament the current position of America and (what he saw as) the sliding standards of journalism. Maybe, but you also can't help feel that he was by this point slightly out of touch.

These minor quibbles, however, cannot undermine Cooke's overall achievement of helping us better understand this important nation, which could be described as love letters to America.


Read this and you'll be wanting more.., 26 Apr 2006
I have been listening to Alastair Cooke's broadcasts for many years, always finding something rewarding in them: a reference to an age before I was born, a different view point about an issue or something everyone else appeared to have missed. Cooke brought the ordinary into the major world events, showed the human side to many a major story and gave others the chance to see a perspective only obtainable through many years of hard work and intelligent inquiry. This book only contains a tiny number of the vast quantities of Letters from America but they are worthwhile letters; reading these samples of nearly sixty years of broadcasting provides a special insight into many issues, historical events and people largely forgotten or interpreted differently by a modern audience. Much of the most interesting content of the book is simply that of an old man explaining how the world changed in his lifetime: Cooke tells of the constants that he believed would last forever that new generations have never even heard of. It's worth reading for that warning alone. Regardless of the fading of the world Cooke knew his letters are both timeless reflections on people's nature and historically important records of a not so distant past. Some of the letters are included in the BBC audio CD collection but most are not so even if you have those recordings this book is still a worthwhile read. It's a different kind of America to that seen on the TV and movie theatre screens.

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.

Nothing Has Changed, 05 Jun 2008
Born and bred in Wigan.I had read 1984 and Animal Farm but had put off reading TRTWP until I was 50.
Orwell writes of the hopelessness of the masses and concludes that they accept their lot because of the "palliatives" of modern technology i.e.cheap clothing (dream of being Greta Garbo or Clark Gable) , alcohol,the movies, radio, the football pools etc.
The government massage and manipulate statistics to show unemployment levels and poverty to be a fraction as bad as they really are.
The middle-class believed that the poor should be instructed to spend their means tested allowance wisely eating tasteless but healthy food,wholemeal bread,oranges,raw carrots etc and to shun alcohol and tobacco etc.
Tell me as anything really changed or have we come full circle under New Labour.

Notes on 'The Road to Wigan Pier'., 01 Apr 2006
'The Road to Wigan Pier' is split into two parts. Part one is George Orwell's recording of his experiences in the North of England, meeting miner's families and reporting at first hand what he saw and heard. Orwell records with sincerity the working class condition. There is no blame or embellishment of what Orwell saw. Orwell's descriptions of the people in the boarding houses he was staying in, are wonderful. You really get a sense of the filth and depravation, and yet the people make you feel at home, to the point of marking your bread and butter with "a black thumb-print on it". I appreciate Orwell's candid writing. The stark reality of poverty is brought to life by Orwell, from his description of the conditions of working in the mines, to the weekly shopping bill and food consumption.
Part two is Orwell's polemic on what he saw and experienced. I found this part of the book filled with passion, anger and justifications. Orwell always makes sure to explain the reasoning behind his arguements and even apologises for his background. Part two consists of political theories, language, class distinction and the personal journey Orwell experienced whilst researching part one.
In my opinion, 'The Road to Wigan Pier' is a wonderful snapshot of a time and a place. It still has a place in literature today as a reminder to us all that there are still destitute people in the world and that things haven't changed as much as we hoped.

The Picture Speaks for Itself, 14 Nov 2002
This book is divided into two sections. The first is a devastating account of the lives of coal miners in the north of England. While this account may be exaggerated it is completely conceivable that life in this time under such social and political conditions might have been like this. He goes to considerable length to explore the personal reactions and methods of endurance of the people he met. Orwell's dedication to exploring what life was really like for the coal miners was made at considerable personal discomfort and were as heroic as Jonathan Kozol's efforts in our present time.

The second half of the book is a long argument by Orwell of the negative aspects of socialism. He does this in order to provoke a serious discussion over how socialism can be implemented in our society. He understood well, as demonstrated in 1984, that many political parties use propaganda as a means of convincing the public that theirs is the right way. But, by taking the opposing view and criticising his own beliefs, he is able to bring the issues of the party into an open forum to consider implementations of change rather than party rhetoric. He does this most sincerely and in no way tries to hide the faults of the socialist political system of thought. In doing so he proves himself to be quite dignified in his system of beliefs. The juxtaposition of these two sections provides a striking idea of the immediate need for political reformation. He did not need to defend socialism because the need for a political change that could effect the lives of the lower class he investigated was obvious. This showed that Orwell's political ideas didn't exist on some ideological utopian plain, but were firmly rooted in the immense danger a political system could inflict upon a large population. It would be wise to remember this in reading the more popular 1984 and Animal Farm as well.

This book is compelling not just for people interested in politics, but also for anyone interested in history and the human condition. It is something you will be able to learn much from and provide you with inspiration.

unflinching look at social conditions and Orwells politics, 02 Jul 2002
George Orwell, commissioned by the Left Book Club, tours the recession hit mining areas of Lancashire and Yorkshire in 1936 and his report on the harsh social conditions he found there (the first part of this book) pulls no punches. No-one before or since has done reporterage like George Orwell and the vividness and directness of his prose with its underlying blazing committment to social justice strikes the reader, even at this remove of time. Orwell's descriptions, couched in his superb prose, will remain in your mind for ever and should be re-read by everyone as a reminder of just how harsh life was for many people, within living memory. Orwell is particularly good about the desperation, the struggle with respectability and the terrible psychological and social toll of unemployment and poverty.

The second part of the book charts Orwell's personal odyssey from public schoolboy and officer of the Indian Imperial Police in Burma to crusading Left-wing author and journalist. Along the way Orwell expounds his personal strategy for Socialism. Although dated, his insights are fascinating, describing as they do the origins of the class struggle ideas that infested and inflamed British politics right up to the 1990s. Orwell is bitingly caustic about many of his fellow Socialists, castigating the obsession with mechanical progress, the worship of Russia and the crank tendencies (still evident in the British Labour Party) - "...the dreary tribe of high-minded women...and the bearded fruit-juice drinkers that flock to the idea of 'progress' like bluebottles do to a dead cat". With incredible prescience Orwell identifies the factors that would eventually kill the traditional "Old" Labour Party - firstly - the dichotomy between the Labour voter in the street (who, by and large, wanted/wants a better standard of living from better working and living conditions), and the "orthodox" hierarchy and activists of the Labour Party (who, by and large, at least in theory wanted a complete change in society), secondly - the accretion on to socialist politics of a huge amount of crank ideas (Orwell's acerbic and caustic put-downs of crank thought forms some of the book's most memorable, and funniest, passages).

What Orwell cannot have forseen was that the second war, the moderate 1945 Labour government, the end of the British Empire, Baroness Thatcher and the rise of a knowledge, finance and service based economy would change the face of England permanently. But however dated the social and political conditions under which he wrote, George Orwell is always worth reading, always hard-hitting, always vivid and detailed, always committed and honest, often hilariously funny.

Read this book, read everything that George Orwell wrote.

Its Grim up North!, 13 Apr 2002
Quite how Orwell can manage to make the price of groceries in pre-war England compulsive reading is a little puzzling, but this essay compiled on a protracted journey around this country's northern industrial towns is once again a shining example of Orwell's uncomplicated and conversational style. Though the reportage is characteristically charged with Orwell's socialist dogma, it should have appeal far beyond the socialist reader for its vivid renderings of these towns and their inhabitants. The passages describing the work and living conditions of these people are particularly enlightening and Orwell really colours the north of the past for those who - like Orwell at the time - rarely stray beyond the Watford Gap. The essay, while only really a record of the past, still manages somehow to be an eye-opener, and is tinted with that irresistible darkness, present in so much of Orwell's pre-war work of a world and a society teetering on the brink of a disastrous but necessary changing of the order.

Perhaps predictably, Orwell never arrives at the symbol of escape from the difficult lives of his characters, Wigan Pier.

The other side of war, 14 Nov 2008
A "Woman in Berlin" is the frank and honest diary of a young woman caught up in the dark days during the fall of Berlin in 1945. The book contains an excellent forward from Antony Beevor the historian who wrote the equally compelling "Berlin the Downfall".
This extraordinary work has an interesting history. It was first published in 1953 to a German public that was not quite ready to face such brutal truths. It quickly disappeared from view and after many decades slowly re-emerged. It is now an international phenomenon and has recently been made into a film which will only enhance its reputation further.
The diary is well written as you would expect from someone who has travelled Europe in the publishing trade. The diary does not tell us exactly what she did. That she is extremely intelligent and articulate there is no doubt. She reads such literary greats as Goethe and has travelled Europe.
Those who might seek titillation in such a book will probably be dissappointed. I hope so. The rapes that she endured so stoically are not sensationalised in any way. She accepted that she could not alter the situation and did her best to live through it. There is no doubt that Stalins Red Army raped on a huge scale in the early days. These were men who were out to revenge horrific atrocities against there own population. They were men who had often been on the front for years. No home leave for most of them. They were mainly simple workers with a smattering of intelligentsia. They felt it was their right to treat German women as war booty and they did so with impunity.
We follow the diary through the brutal early days and find this well read woman sleeping with a simple Russian peasant. One of the incongruity's that war throws up. She is not beneath sleeping with Russians for food to survive. A fact that would have upset many Germans. Many of the German men at that time were helpless to prevent assaults on their womenfolk and felt emasculated. The matter was best swept under the carpet. The matter was not talked about. Even today there are those that refuse to believe these events ever took place. My own Mother who lived through that era is among them. She believes the diary to be a lie and believes the Red Army would never have behaved in such a way. Having read this account and many others I have long been convinced that these events occurred. I would no more deny this than deny that the world was round. The bulk of evidence is convincing. But what convinced me most was her many descriptions of the more mundane tasks like collecting nettles.
I will not give five stars purely on the basis that I am not sure I like the diarist as a person. I sometimes find her comments grate. That is her character and another good case for authenticity. I disliked her comments about the elderly. She describes old age as something to be pitied, not venerated in those desperate times. Often true that the elderly and the very young are the first to suffer at such times. But surely if we behave in such a way then we are no better than the beasts. She quotes the Lapps and Indians as leaving the old to perish when they have gone past usefulness. However it is a fact that many ancient cultures venerate the elderly. As we should.
Aside from these small reservations I find this a compelling work that is deserving of its growing reputation. It is the grittier adult version of Anne Franks diary. It is as the hype says a chilling indictment of war. An important and serious work in the can'on of war literature. Read it.


A remarkable, even poetic account of a vicious time, 02 Nov 2008
In the middle of chaos, amidst the wreckage of the broken city, the anonymous author marvels at the innocence of a baby girl with copper ringlets of hair. Against the dirt, grime, hunger and rape that have become normal life for Berliners, this chubby, pink baby seems a strange reminder of what normality was before the city was occupied.

In a similar vein this diary is a thing of strange beauty, a product of, but completely alien to, the senseless cruelties and world turned upside down Berlin the writer inhabits in those strangest of last days and new beginnings.

This is the story of a few weeks, a little more than two months meticulously detailed in a thoughtful, almost detached. It is no surprise that the author had a background in journalism and editing, nor that she had travelled and had little of the xenophobic closed mindset of Nazi Germany. But she still feels. She is humiliated, degraded and afraid, albeit capable of recognising, cataloguing and exploring these emotions and setting them down on paper.

The writer is a middle class woman, educated and travelled. She has lived through the Second World War and is now battling on the front line as it sweeps into and takes over Berlin. She is reduced to living with a neighbour, using her body to augment the larder and employing a smattering of Russian she picked up on travels in Russia to intervene on behalf of neighbours and to gain protection of Russian officers.

The writer endures and experiences the worse excesses of the occupation. She makes faultless observations about the way life unfolds under encroaching Russian occupation. Her descriptive talent paints vivid portraits of the neighbours, the Germans who share the basement `cave' in a clannish, pre-occupation retreat to before civilisation. She also applies her even handed language to the Russians, marvelling at the variety in personalities, types and manners. By some she is treated almost as an equal, or as a lady. Others smash her to the floor as the spoils of war.

As much as the account horrifies as the accounts of rape become an almost flippant daily discussion between the women, there are also touching moments of kindness and humanity, between neighbours and between the occupiers and occupied. But these are small flickers of light in the thick darkness of the Götterdamerung. There is violence, cruelty and vicious retribution for what Germans did in the Soviet Union.

It is a remarkable record, a flawless account of the most extraordinary of times and a testament to how people react in the most pressured of situations, the instinct for survival taking over. Without bitterness, recrimination or analysing the event long after it happened, this is raw, urgent yet erudite and poetic.

This is an historical record that well deserves the wider audience it will receive following the release of the cinematic adaptation.

A fascinating piece of history, 19 Feb 2008
We are very fortunate that this anonymous woman kept a diary of the terrible events that happened to her and many other German women living in berlin at the end of WWII,because otherwise this is a part of history that would forever remain hushed up.
The author writed with total honesty and clarity,without any self pity and even with a touch of black humour.This is a really fascinating diary written using the authors journalistic talent.It's a shame she never received the credit she deserved for this important piece of history within her lifetime.

An essential book about Berlin in 1945, 05 Feb 2008
Other than fully endorsing what other reviewers have said about the power of this extraordinary account of the ending of the war in Berlin, from April 1945 and the next two or three months, I would simply draw attention to the immediacy of the writing.

It makes highly uncomfortable reading to be taken right into the dusty, half-lit, and stinking basements, where the writer and other people sheltered during the final days, or to travel with her as she makes her way on her bicycle through the rubble of the city, and, yes, to hear of how she copes (and she does cope) with the ordeal of repeated rape. But you finish the book with the strongest possible sense of her dignity, humanity, intelligence and sheer determination to survive. This is essential reading.

A shocking reminder..., 10 Nov 2007
I read this book keeping in mind not only the described facts by the (anonymous) author, but the terrible circumstances it was written under... in my opinion it is a very valuable document that tells us about the terrible (and wonderful) things we all are capable of under war conditions, perhaps useful to wake up and keep in mind the effects our actions have on other human beigns... in my opinion, a series of facts that must not be forgotten, ever. An excellent reading, no doubt, light and deep at the time...

Perfection, 18 Sep 2008
Its not too much of an exageration to say that this book is an oversight of 20th century usa. Alistair Cooke's letter is something i came too only a few years before his death and this book goes through from the 40s right until his last letter.

The quality of writing is superb of a man at the cutting edge of history.

Wonderful; Touching; Wise, 29 Dec 2006
"A post mortem collection of the famous "Letter from America" series written and broadcast on the BBC over a staggering period of 58 years and 2,869 broadcasts. His last broadcast was made in Feb 2004, after which he retired. He died the following month in his 96th year.

It is simply staggering to consider the prolificacy and quality of these Letters which were faithfully produced against such an unforgiving deadline over so many years. All the more incredible it is to consider that this work constitutes just a fraction of the man's overall output,in many fields. I have the impression that this must have come relatively easy to him, otherwise it would have taken over his life. Fluent writing followed by fluent recording for broadcast. And the repetition honed his style. Indeed, I seem to recall an interview he gave in his latter years in which he said that as the years went by he would often arrive at recording studio with no written notes at all and only a vague idea as to what he was going to talk about that week. A virtuosos at work in any field inspires our awe and respect and Alistair Cooke is the virtuoso of the warm, enchanting essay which usually finds a new way, a new angle from which to consider things. I am now an even more serious fan and would recommend this collection to all who might enjoy the company of a thoughtful, wise and entertaining man for a brief while.


An unputdownable summary of the 20th Century, 24 May 2006
To be blunt: Alistair Cooke's writing is of the highest quality. It surpasses most fiction and non-fiction writings in these terms. The key characteristic of "Letters from America" is that they were meant to be read aloud and so adopt a more authoratative tone than most published writings. Cooke's America is fascinating; it shows what has been forgotten as well as documenting the present. Past luminaries such as HL Mencken, who is now largely forgotten, are described in detail under the assumption that their memory would live forever. The one criticism is that Cooke covers the news with too light a touch. At least in this collection, the civil rights movement, the attrocities of the Johnson and Nixon administrations in Vietnam and Cambodia are only briefly referred to. Apart from that his writing on summers in Long Island, the death of the Kennedies and Clintongate are an absolute pleasure.

A 'Love' Letter to America, 18 May 2006

When I left England to live in the United States for one year last August, there was only one book I took with me - Alistair Cooke's 'Letter From America'. What else could I have taken? Cooke saw into America like no other Brit (or no other non-American, for that matter).

Starting at the mid 1940s, the book winds its way through post-war America nearly right up until the authors death in 2004, picking out the best of his weekly broadcasts. The subject matters range from politics, history, current affairs, entertainment and topics from the New England fall, jazz, Robert Kennedy's assassination (which he witnessed first-hand) and O.J Simpson.

But it is not the subject matter that makes this book so special (for we already know about most of them anyway) it is none other than Cooke's insight and writing style. The articles flow like the finest novel or poem (which is probably attributed to Cooke's background in theatre). Each time you come back to read the book again it feels as though you are receiving the opinions of a familiar friend, and not some distant journalist.

There are drawbacks. Cooke was often criticised, and quite rightly so, for ignoring the darker side of the American dream. The other possible drawback, depending on your viewpoint, is that Cooke was a committed conservative, especially in the latter half of his career. Many of the final articles from the late 90's and early 00's lament the current position of America and (what he saw as) the sliding standards of journalism. Maybe, but you also can't help feel that he was by this point slightly out of touch.

These minor quibbles, however, cannot undermine Cooke's overall achievement of helping us better understand this important nation, which could be described as love letters to America.


Read this and you'll be wanting more.., 26 Apr 2006
I have been listening to Alastair Cooke's broadcasts for many years, always finding something rewarding in them: a reference to an age before I was born, a different view point about an issue or something everyone else appeared to have missed. Cooke brought the ordinary into the major world events, showed the human side to many a major story and gave others the chance to see a perspective only obtainable through many years of hard work and intelligent inquiry. This book only contains a tiny number of the vast quantities of Letters from America but they are worthwhile letters; reading these samples of nearly sixty years of broadcasting provides a special insight into many issues, historical events and people largely forgotten or interpreted differently by a modern audience. Much of the most interesting content of the book is simply that of an old man explaining how the world changed in his lifetime: Cooke tells of the constants that he believed would last forever that new generations have never even heard of. It's worth reading for that warning alone. Regardless of the fading of the world Cooke knew his letters are both timeless reflections on people's nature and historically important records of a not so distant past. Some of the letters are included in the BBC audio CD collection but most are not so even if you have those recordings this book is still a worthwhile read. It's a different kind of America to that seen on the TV and movie theatre screens.

Perfection, 18 Sep 2008
Its not too much of an exageration to say that this book is an oversight of 20th century usa. Alistair Cooke's letter is something i came too only a few years before his death and this book goes through from the 40s right until his last letter.

The quality of writing is superb of a man at the cutting edge of history.

Wonderful; Touching; Wise, 29 Dec 2006
"A post mortem collection of the famous "Letter from America" series written and broadcast on the BBC over a staggering period of 58 years and 2,869 broadcasts. His last broadcast was made in Feb 2004, after which he retired. He died the following month in his 96th year.

It is simply staggering to consider the prolificacy and quality of these Letters which were faithfully produced against such an unforgiving deadline over so many years. All the more incredible it is to consider that this work constitutes just a fraction of the man's overall output,in many fields. I have the impression that this must have come relatively easy to him, otherwise it would have taken over his life. Fluent writing followed by fluent recording for broadcast. And the repetition honed his style. Indeed, I seem to recall an interview he gave in his latter years in which he said that as the years went by he would often arrive at recording studio with no written notes at all and only a vague idea as to what he was going to talk about that week. A virtuosos at work in any field inspires our awe and respect and Alistair Cooke is the virtuoso of the warm, enchanting essay which usually finds a new way, a new angle from which to consider things. I am now an even more serious fan and would recommend this collection to all who might enjoy the company of a thoughtful, wise and entertaining man for a brief while.


An unputdownable summary of the 20th Century, 24 May 2006
To be blunt: Alistair Cooke's writing is of the highest quality. It surpasses most fiction and non-fiction writings in these terms. The key characteristic of "Letters from America" is that they were meant to be read aloud and so adopt a more authoratative tone than most published writings. Cooke's America is fascinating; it shows what has been forgotten as well as documenting the present. Past luminaries such as HL Mencken, who is now largely forgotten, are described in detail under the assumption that their memory would live forever. The one criticism is that Cooke covers the news with too light a touch. At least in this collection, the civil rights movement, the attrocities of the Johnson and Nixon administrations in Vietnam and Cambodia are only briefly referred to. Apart from that his writing on summers in Long Island, the death of the Kennedies and Clintongate are an absolute pleasure.

A 'Love' Letter to America, 18 May 2006

When I left England to live in the United States for one year last August, there was only one book I took with me - Alistair Cooke's 'Letter From America'. What else could I have taken? Cooke saw into America like no other Brit (or no other non-American, for that matter).

Starting at the mid 1940s, the book winds its way through post-war America nearly right up until the authors death in 2004, picking out the best of his weekly broadcasts. The subject matters range from politics, history, current affairs, entertainment and topics from the New England fall, jazz, Robert Kennedy's assassination (which he witnessed first-hand) and O.J Simpson.

But it is not the subject matter that makes this book so special (for we already know about most of them anyway) it is none other than Cooke's insight and writing style. The articles flow like the finest novel or poem (which is probably attributed to Cooke's background in theatre). Each time you come back to read the book again it feels as though you are receiving the opinions of a familiar friend, and not some distant journalist.

There are drawbacks. Cooke was often criticised, and quite rightly so, for ignoring the darker side of the American dream. The other possible drawback, depending on your viewpoint, is that Cooke was a committed conservative, especially in the latter half of his career. Many of the final articles from the late 90's and early 00's lament the current position of America and (what he saw as) the sliding standards of journalism. Maybe, but you also can't help feel that he was by this point slightly out of touch.

These minor quibbles, however, cannot undermine Cooke's overall achievement of helping us better understand this important nation, which could be described as love letters to America.


Read this and you'll be wanting more.., 26 Apr 2006
I have been listening to Alastair Cooke's broadcasts for many years, always finding something rewarding in them: a reference to an age before I was born, a different view point about an issue or something everyone else appeared to have missed. Cooke brought the ordinary into the major world events, showed the human side to many a major story and gave others the chance to see a perspective only obtainable through many years of hard work and intelligent inquiry. This book only contains a tiny number of the vast quantities of Letters from America but they are worthwhile letters; reading these samples of nearly sixty years of broadcasting provides a special insight into many issues, historical events and people largely forgotten or interpreted differently by a modern audience. Much of the most interesting content of the book is simply that of an old man explaining how the world changed in his lifetime: Cooke tells of the constants that he believed would last forever that new generations have never even heard of. It's worth reading for that warning alone. Regardless of the fading of the world Cooke knew his letters are both timeless reflections on people's nature and historically important records of a not so distant past. So