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Diary of an Ordinary Woman
 
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Diary of an Ordinary Woman (Paperback)

by Margaret Forster (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
Price: £6.39 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Diary of an Ordinary Woman + Keeping the World Away + Private Papers
Price For All Three: £19.37

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Product details

  • Paperback: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (4 Mar 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099449285
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099449287
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.2 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 90,085 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #12 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > F > Forster, Margaret

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Product Description

Review
' I rushed through this novel and enjoyed it enormously-what she experienced in her very ' ordinariness' was shared by thousands of real women of her generation' Val Hennessey, Daily Mail

Literary Review. March 2003
'Diary of an Ordinary Woman is certainly more gripping and more immediate than many novels..Forster has pulled off an imaginative feat.' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

13 Reviews
5 star:
 (8)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars An "Ordinary" but very interesting woman, 27 Oct 2004
By A Customer
I loved this book and read it in one sitting. What makes the diary of an "Ordinary" woman so compulsive? The diarist, Millicent King, has such an engaging character and I was surprised and delighted at her modern mindset and sometimes racy life choices - she is a woman ahead of her time.

No passive product of a Victorian upbringing - she is an intelligent, fiesty and determindly independent person and following her life gives us an intriging insight into how her generation coped with the awful tragedy of two world wars. Although I was often moved to tears, her diary entries are also highly amusing - Millicent often being as opinionated and judgemental as a spoiled child.

The other characters are just as strong and interesting and you long to know more of them. Can't say more than this without giving plot details away.

Like other reviewers, I ignored the words "A Novel" on the front cover - you can't and don't want to believe this is fiction.

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28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The real Millicent King, 7 Nov 2003
By Thelma Batchelor (Surrey, U.K.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Diary of an Ordinary Woman (Hardcover)
I can never resist reading any book by Margaret Forster. I loved this book about the fictional character Millicent King. I couldn't put it down! It was so real it has been hard to accept that it is in fact a novel. But of course the story is that of a thousand women who lived through two world wars and whose lives have spanned the century.

Millicent King's life related to that of my mother and grandmothers, to my aunts and uncles and cousins - to all who lived through war and suffered the consequences.

I think that Margaret Forster is a brilliant author and may she continue to write on and on ....

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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Millicent King isn't real?!, 6 Oct 2003
By Kate (Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Diary of an Ordinary Woman (Hardcover)
What a rollercoaster of a day! I finished this book this morning and spent the next few hours grieving - both for the death of this remarkable woman and for the book/diary ending. I had so enjoyed 'knowing' Millicent and felt quite cut adrift to have 'lost' her. I admit it - I had NO idea that the diaries weren't real! I searched the internet to find out more about this amazing woman and her family, only to find that she is a fictional character! Of course seems obvious now - I just hadn't noticed the references to fiction on the book cover. This is a great book - the emotional ambiguities and twists & turns of Millicent's life were, for me, devastatingly real, making this an intense and powerfully engaging reading experience. Inspires reflection on past and present connections with my own mother, my grandmothers, great aunts etc, and a sharp (and uncomfortable) awareness of the ease with which we can, in our relative youth, disregard/dismiss their knowledge, perspective, experience and insight (as did the twins - Connie and Toby - to Millicent).

The rest of my day will be spent adjusting to the fact that there is no Millicent King!!

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars diary of an ordinary woman
An excellent read. It was one of those books you don,t want to end. Fascinating insight into living through some of the major historical events in Britain through the 20th century... Read more
Published 1 month ago by linzim

2.0 out of 5 stars misleading and poor
Having read this particular edition of the book, I did not have the final acknowledgement about it being a complete work of fiction. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Joanne E. Matheson

5.0 out of 5 stars A good travel read.
I read this book while travelling on the trains and was just captured by the attention to detail and by the narrater's talent for recording - yes, this book is a diary and what a... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mrs. Razia B. Welland

2.0 out of 5 stars A patent subterfuge
A curious attempt to fool the reader into believing the author had edited someone else's diary, she gives herself away in her anachronistic use of vocabulary alien to the period... Read more
Published 23 months ago by P. D. G. Tompkins

3.0 out of 5 stars No ordinary woman!
Having read and loved Margaret Forster's "Hidden Lives" I looked forward to reading this book. I realised before starting the "diary" that it was fictional but was still... Read more
Published on 7 Mar 2007 by hiljean

5.0 out of 5 stars Most will know this woman.........
This is the collective story of so many woman of this generation. Ms Foster has captured the complexity of the social situations of this era perfectly. Read more
Published on 18 Mar 2004 by HHP

5.0 out of 5 stars An ordinary, but interesting woman indeed
I relished every sentence of Diary of an Ordinary Woman. The clarity and honesty of Millicent Kings' diary entries are engaging and, at times, very moving. Read more
Published on 24 Jul 2003 by Clare thompson

3.0 out of 5 stars Not one of her best
The period Millicent Price lives through is clearly going to be fascinating - the Great War, the General Strike, the Depression era of the 30's, the War, and then the Swinging... Read more
Published on 20 April 2003 by K Mansfield

5.0 out of 5 stars Well, she could have fooled me...
What an amazing book....only very rarely do I come across a book that I don't want to end - and this is one; and it must because it tells the story of someone's life. Read more
Published on 3 April 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and gripping!
Margaret Forster is definitely one of my favourite authors. Everything she writes is clever and thought-provoking, yet different from what has gone before. Read more
Published on 26 Mar 2003

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