We Are at War: The Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times [Paperback]

Simon Garfield (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 2009

We Are At War continues Simon Garfield's successful formula of interweaving five ordinary lives from the Mass-Observation archive begun with Our Hidden Lives. Of all the accounts written about the Second World War, none are more compelling than the personal diaries composed by those who lived through it. Beginning in the weeks before the war, and ending a year later with the Battle of Britain, the book will tell the story of the "phoney war" on the home front.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Fascinating, delightful, illuminating. The diarists soon become like old friends . . . and make our wartime past seem no more distant than yesterday.”
— Mail on Sunday

“Vibrant, lyrical and engrossing.”
— Daily Express

About the Author

Simon Garfield is the author of ten highly-acclaimed books of non-fiction. His study of AIDS in Britain, The End of Innocence, won the Somerset Maugham Prize.

Product Details

• Paperback: 450 pages
• Publisher: Ebury Press (October 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0091903874
• ISBN-13: 978-0091903879
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 1 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #444,334 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Coping with the Everyday in a Dangerous World, September 16, 2007

By 

Graceann Macleod "Books Fuel My Life" (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: We Are at War: The Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times (Paperback)

Continuing the thread begun in Hidden Lives, Simon Garfield offers selections from the Mass-Observation Project diaries of five people caught up in the preparations and then the beginning of the infamous Blitz. The uncertainty, the anger, the fear; it's all here and it leaps off of the pages in a way that keeps you turning them.

Sometimes the diarists are not particularly likeable - you encounter racism and defeatist attitudes at certain points. But that is something that makes this volume particularly interesting. Knowing that these pages are going to be read by others, the diarists are still painfully honest in their fears and their prejudices. Very enlightening, and highly recommended, especially as a companion volume to Hidden Lives.