Nella Last's Peace: The Post-War Diaries Of Housewife 49 - Tapa blanda

A vivid, intimate account of life in austerity Britain. Superb. (David Kynaston, author of Austerity Britain)

A touching and startlingly frank portrait of adapting to life in post-war Britain. Truly fascinating. I enjoyed it as much as Nella Last's War. (Gilda O'Neill)

Nella Last's Peace is extraordinary - tender, intimate, striking, heartbreaking and witty - it grants us the lovely and dignified privilege of knowing a stranger's heart. (A. L. Kennedy)

Compassionate, gossipy, observant - Nella Last's long-awaited Peace Diaries deserve to be read not only for their intimate insight into the dislocated post-war world, but also for their continued portrayal of Nella herself. She is brave, lovable and a born writer. (Virginia Nicholson)

Nothing could have been more 'ordinary' than the life of Nella Last, a middle-aged woman living in the north-west of England in the Attlee years, ground-down by ration books, post-war exhaustion and an uncertain future, and yet her eye for detail and penetrating interest in the people around her make her diary a social document of extraordinary interest and value. (D. J. Taylor Advance quote 2008-08-14)

Nella's eye for detail and penetrating interest in the people around her make her diary a social document of extraordinary interest and value. (D J Taylor)

The diary has a certain universal quality that transcends the particular time and circumstances. My gut feeling is that Nella will come to be seen as one of the major twentieth-century English diarists. (David Kynaston Woman's Hour)

It's not necessary to read Last's first volume to become immediately absorbed by her honest and heartfelt story. (Nora Krug The Washington Post 2009-03-25)

Nella Last may be the most prolific writer you've never heard of. It's not necessary to read Last's first volume to become immediately absorbed by her honest and heartfelt story. (Nora Krug Washington Post)

Outwardly Nella's life was probably seen as ordinary; but behind this mask were a lively mind and a persistent pen - a pen that never gave up over almost three decades, reporting, describing, pondering, and disclosing. Nella, 55 when the war ends, writes of what ordinary people felt during those years of privation, hope and the re-building of Britain, providing a moving and inspiring account of the years that shaped the society we live in today. Her diary offers a detailed, moving and humorous narrative of the changing experiences of ordinary people at this time, and thoughts on the aftermath of war and whether 'peace' really meant peace, for everyone.