Millions Like Us
Women's Lives in the Second World War
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Millions Like Us
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About this listen
The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Virginia Nicholson's Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in the Second World War. A special multi-voice recording featuring five actresses that bring to life the hundreds of personal testimonies, diary entries and books that make up this superb study. Read by Patience Tomlinson, Annie Aldington, Rachel Bavidge, Julie Maisey and Georgina Sutton.
In 1942 Cora Johnston is grieving over the death of her young husband, torpedoed in the Atlantic; Aileen Morris is intercepting Luftwaffe communications during the siege of Malta - and Clara Milburn, whose son was captured after Dunkirk, is waiting, and waiting ...
We tend to see the Second World War as a man's war, featuring Spitfire crews and brave deeds on the Normandy beaches. But in conditions of "Total War" millions of women - in the Services and on the Home Front - demonstrated that they were cleverer, more broad-minded and altogether more complex than anyone had ever guessed.
In Millions Like Us Virginia Nicholson tells the story of the women's war, through a host of individual women's experiences. She tells how they loved, suffered, laughed, grieved and dared; how they re-made their world in peacetime. And how they would never be the same again ...
©2011 Virginia Nicholson (P)2012 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"Passionate, fascinating, profoundly sympathetic." (Artemis Cooper, Evening Standard)
"A deeply moving account of female courage both at home and overseas during the six brutal years of war...the joy of Virginia Nicholson's book is the way she has plaited scores of individual stories into a richly textured account of the many forms that female courage can take. This story belongs to us all." (Kathryn Hughes, The Mail On Sunday)
"An acclaimed account of this period... a rich seam of social history." (Cassandra Jardine, Daily Telegraph)
What listeners say about Millions Like Us
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Amazon Customer
- 15-10-23
Amazing
So very interesting, learned a great deal about the plight of many different women and how they coped with the deprivations of wartime. Thoroughly recommend!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Christine Bebbington
- 10-04-24
the history
I liked it all as it
moved..to. different experiences all-over thr country and how people coped
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- Elisheba
- 21-08-17
Interesting and very well narrated
This was interesting and comprehensive. Although factual, it was easy to get involved in the women's lives, and gave a real flavour of what they were like. The narration was excellent.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Sceptical Sorcerer
- 10-10-21
Brilliant WWII Social History
This is a superb account of mostly UK social history between the late 1930s and late 1940s. Although, as the title explicitly states, the account is written from the perspective of a representative sample of British women, from all 'classes', I would say that this is a 'must read' for anyone seriously interested in WWII Home Front Britain. Brilliantly written too.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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- Cassandra
- 09-06-24
Fascinating social history marred by over emphatic narration
Such important, moving and powerful stories, in my view deserving of stronger treatment by both the organising narrative & ( on Audible) by the narration. For me what rescued the book were the personal accounts in the women's own words. I found the interweaving narrative often cliched and trite, and the principal narrator's style immensely irritating: self conscious & over dramatic. I persisted for the sake of the personal histories.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
- Katherien Watt
- 24-12-12
Women who kept the wheels turning..........
What a great and varied number of stories from women during the war - some names you will have heard off, but the majority just everyday folk getting on with their lives, sometimes in heartbreaking circumstances. They worked hard and played hard too, war was an opportunity for some of them to learn skills and take on work they would not have been considered for in peacetime. Many inevitably found it hard to return to their lives as they had been before the war.
One small comment would be that it would have been ok to have had a male actor to voice Churchill! - you wouldnt have broken the spirit of the book!
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- A J J
- 14-04-21
I wish this had been my lockdown listen
Firstly, this is beautifully narrated and performed, very easy to listen to.
A sweeping account of British women's lives (across the world) through world war 2 and into the new world left after VE Day, the stories included take in women from all classes and how the war panned out for them, including some famous faces. Women at home, in factories, on the land and in the services are all here.
The book does not romanticise the war and the horror and hardship of that time is not minimised, but it is balanced with the humour, domestic banality, loves and triumphs of the women of Britain.
This is a strangely fortifying listen - the stories of resilience and coping (or not) are very applicable to the events of the past year and have put things in perspective. I wish I had listened during the 1st wave of the pandemic.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- CaWa
- 18-06-15
Interesting book
I liked the way the stories thread through the war and post-war periods.
My nan was in the army in anti-aircraft and she used to tell us about it as a child. After she died, I wish I had listened more carefully!, this book fills in a lot of the gaps and answers a lot of the questions I would ask her now as an adult. It makes you feel like you were there, down to mundane things like the weather and lack of nylons. My Granny was a housewife, I didn't realise what they went through having thought they were not particularly active in the war, how wrong could I have been!
The story teller is good and keeps you interested in a very (perhaps slightly over-long) narrative. The voices of the women are sometimes a tad ridiculous, overdone and fake accents, but this made me smile actually and does not detract at all, hence high rating.
Great late night listening and thoroughly enjoyed.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- C.atharine Vincent
- 15-11-23
Fascinating details about ordinary women
Engrossing listening about a way of life that has thankfully mostly disappeared. I wanted to know more about each of these women and was sad when the book ended.
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- Jane Austin
- 14-08-19
Millions like us.
I can honestly say that I could not put this audio book down. I enjoyed it so much. Beautifully read by all the ladies and history of those times through the eyes of all who kept diaries. Wonderful!
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