The diaries of five ordinary people during the period of 1945 to 1948, originally collected for the Mass Observation Project, which, with literally thousands of others, have been stored, mostly unread, in the University of Sussex. What can I say except they are quite extraordinarily fascinating. Showing frustrations, passions, excitement, boredom, annoyances and hopes, they hypnotically conjure up such a different time.
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
| Recommendations: |
In 1936 anthropologist Tom Harrison, poet and journalist Charles Madge and documentary filmmaker Humphrey Jennings set up the Mass Observation Project. The idea was simple: ordinary people would record, in diary form, the events of their everyday lives. An estimated one million pages eventually found their way to the archive - and it soon became clear this was more than anyone could digest.
Today, the diaries are stored at the University of Sussex, where remarkably most remain unread. In Our Hidden Lives, Simon Garfield has skilfully woven a tapestry of diary entries in the rarely discussed but pivotal period of 1945 to 1948.
The result is a moving, intriguing, funny, at times heartbreaking book -unashamedly populist in the spirit of Forgotten Voices or indeed Margaret Forster's Diary of an Ordinary Woman.
Our Hidden Lives features in the following genres: Biographies & Autobiographies, eBooks of the Month, Biography, Literature and Literary studies, Recommendations
Our Hidden Lives is available in Paperback
Our Hidden Lives was written by Simon Garfield and published by Ebury Press
Our Hidden Lives has 536 pages
£17.09
