Singled Out: - Books (Virginia Nicholson, Paperback)

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Customer Reviews of Singled Out:

Ursula
London
25th November 2008

Intersting book - too long
I found the book rather chatty. Some key messages/topics were repeated too often for my taste - I even got bored at times. For example the author kept stressing the fact that it was hard for a woman without a male provider to keep herself, especially in a time when women's job opportunities were rare. I felt as if this statement appeared on every page. If the author had shortened some chapters, and kept the writing more concise, it would have been a better book.
Altogether, I'd buy the book again. It makes an interesting reading, and reminds today's women that their rights have been hard fought for.

Books Fuel My Life
London, UK
16th November 2008

The Women Left Behind by the Lost Generation
Nowadays, many women are single either by chance or by choice. We marry later, we marry for love, we marry not at all. Men are around, but they may not be "the one," or are unsuitable for various reasons. Women may decide to concentrate on career, or may have been born with a different genetic makeup.

Singled Out is about an entire generation of British women who, whether they wanted marriage or not, were destined to remain single due to the loss of over a million men within their own age group. Their stories are as varied as they are numerous. Many were engaged, only to lose their beloveds at the Front; some never even had a chance to meet that special someone. In some cases, the Great War gave women opportunities that they never would have dreamed of in other circumstances. Archeologists, stockbrokers and scientists abound within these pages. Lesbians found that they were able to live a bit more openly, too, due to the common occurrence of (and thus fewer raised eyebrows over) women needing to room together for financial and companionship reasons.

Nearly every family in Britain lost someone in the Great War; this is how the women left behind picked up the pieces and moved forward without their men. Because of the sheer volume of stories, the narrative can become a bit confusing at times (I would go back occasionally to remind myself about whom I was reading), but the stories were so compelling on the whole that I now wish to read more about their experiences. Vera Brittain, especially, presents a fascinating life story.

hiljean
Wiltshire, England
3rd November 2008

Very interesting material which makes you think
This was a fascinating book which I was very glad to have read as it gave me a lot to think about. It made me realise how far women have come during the last 80 years (my mother's lifetime in fact) but also how little some things have changed. These women were able to make strides in their careers because they were single and had no husbands or family (with one exception who adopted adopted a child when she was in her 40s and could afford a nanny!). Memorable quote by Dame Evelyn Sharp (in the last chapter): "I should have preferred to be a man: then I could have had a career and marriage too". That still has the ring of truth today as I have found it very difficult in my life juggling a career with home and family.

Nevertheless these women paved the way for today's generation to take up careers that were previously closed to them, and what is most striking is that they were so accepting of their fate (ie to remain spinsters) and simply got on with life. Lacking self-pity they turned things to their advantage by taking up causes, having careers, or simply enjoying their friendships and the world around them. It teaches us a lot about our attitudes to the hand life has dealt us, and makes me value how many more choices women have today as to how they choose to live their lives.

One quibble; I think Nicholson crams too much material into the book. She would have done better concentrating on a handful of real life examples (more biography as one other reviewer says) and leaving out the literary examples from novels of the time.

Gemma

30th September 2008

So near, yet so far away from perfection...
As Virginia Nicholson righly points out, many of the women left without men following WW1 were often forgotton about or viewed as a problem. Ms Nicholson has done a wonderful job of describing both the achievements of these women and the prejudices they faced. The book is extremely well-researched - the author has sought out survivors of this period, and reached into diaries, letters, news reports, literature, problem pages, etc.

However, the book feels like a missed opportunity. The women's stories are rarely accompanied by any critical analysis or historical background - the book often descends into hero worship. I would have also appreciated biographies of some of the key individuals in the book.

This book is certainly worth reading for anyone interested in the topic, but it left me wanting to know more.

Denorios
Northampton, UK
21st September 2008

A very moving book...
This is a wonderful book - very moving and touching in places, very inspiring and admirable in others. It's about the generation born just before the turn of the century, who were raised to believe that being a wife and mother should be the sum total of their ambitions and then found after WWI that there simply weren't enough men to go around and most of them would never marry. It's about how they faced that, how some rose above the difficulty to become leaders of their sex, how many entered public life and fought against male prejudice, and how in the end it's likely that the war and the two million 'surplus women' actually hastened the equal rights movement and the equality of the sexes. A very very good book and one every woman should read.