Many books have been written on the Sixties: tributes to music and fashion, sex, drugs and revolution. In The Sixties, Jenny Diski breaks the mould, wryly dismantling the big ideas that dominated the era - liberation, permissiveness and self-invention - to consider what she and her generation were really up to. Was it rude to refuse to have sex with someone? Did they take drugs to get by, or to see the world differently? How responsible were they for the self-interest and greed of the Eighties? With characteristic wit and verve, Diski takes an incisive look at the radical beliefs to which her generation subscribed, little realising they were often old ideas dressed up in new forms, sometimes patterned by BIBA. She considers whether she and her peers were as serious as they thought about changing the world, if the radical sixties were funded by the baby-boomers' parents, and if the big idea shaping the Sixties was that it really felt as if it meant something to be young.
The Sixties (Big Ideas)
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'Involving, buoyant, thought-provoking' - Kate Kellaway, Observer -- Kate Kellaway, Observer
'The Sixties is Diski at her most characteristically brilliant' -- Michelle Roberts, Financial Times
'[Diski's] mixture of hard-won experience and intelligent reflection sets her study well beyond the clichés' - Andrew Lycett, Sunday Telegraph -- Andrew Lycett, Sunday Telegraph
`Eloquent and probing...entertaining and accurate' -- Robert Irwin, Independent
`No one has written better abut the contempt with which the counter-culture viewed the 'straight' world.' -- Andrew Lycett, Sunday Telegraph
`Recalls the decade in a way that those who experienced it will recognise and is a singular rethink of that time' -- Kate Kellaway, Observer
`Stimulating' -- Peter Lewis, Daily Mail
'The Sixties is Diski at her most characteristically brilliant' -- Michelle Roberts, Financial Times
'[Diski's] mixture of hard-won experience and intelligent reflection sets her study well beyond the clichés' - Andrew Lycett, Sunday Telegraph -- Andrew Lycett, Sunday Telegraph
`Eloquent and probing...entertaining and accurate' -- Robert Irwin, Independent
`No one has written better abut the contempt with which the counter-culture viewed the 'straight' world.' -- Andrew Lycett, Sunday Telegraph
`Recalls the decade in a way that those who experienced it will recognise and is a singular rethink of that time' -- Kate Kellaway, Observer
`Stimulating' -- Peter Lewis, Daily Mail
Review
'The Sixties is Diski at her most characteristically brilliant'
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Jenny Diski is a distinguished writer and some of her novels are powerful and dark evocations of people under pressure. Here by contrast she offers a witty and shrewd account of the 1960's seen from a personal perspective. She was born in 1947 and speaks of the period under scrutiny at first hand. The book is objective and highly informative history. Some chapters are rather bleak largely because she feels that as one gets older one becomes increasingly frustrated at no longer being able to influence events. She also feels as many of us born around the same time as the author that many of the hopes and opportunities which characterised the 1960's have been disappointed or squandered - sometimes by our own attitudes and actions both then and later.
The book is admirably concise and extremely well written. An accurate and sharply critical evocation of the period.
The book is admirably concise and extremely well written. An accurate and sharply critical evocation of the period.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I really loved this book and I read it very quickly. It is a personal account of the times with much pointed reflection about what was happening in the wider context. The book is cut into chapters tackling subjects such as attitudes to sex, consumerism, work, education, drug taking, protest and mental health. I found Diski's analysis illuminating and found that it shed a lot of light on my own attitudes and beliefs, having been born in the period she is talking about. It also at the end makes an analysis about the period's liberalism and ideals and todays. Wonderful.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
At last Ive found a book that gives a personal view from a baby boomer that draws from personal and detailed experience, rather than from informed sources that will inevitably give an overview.
She looks at her privileged time in the 60s ( and believe me - it was a privileged time - free university education, high disposable income, the easy opportunity for social mobility etc) with a little embarrassment at how she thought she could change the world, along with a large clutch of youth, and also a little humour. Time must have tempered that sixties seriousness.......
It always bemuses me how many young people today say how they would like a time machine to enable them to go back to an era once golden, but were born too late. For those very youngsters who want to know what it was like for the ordinary person in the street, whether they lived at the hub of it all in London - or the provinces, Diski's book will give a good insight. You dont need to read the 500 page encyclopaedic political, social and economic "history lesson" super tomes for that.
Diski's book is a different slant on the current baby boomer literary reminiscences made all the more enjoyable because its written by a genuine "Sixties Chick" !
She looks at her privileged time in the 60s ( and believe me - it was a privileged time - free university education, high disposable income, the easy opportunity for social mobility etc) with a little embarrassment at how she thought she could change the world, along with a large clutch of youth, and also a little humour. Time must have tempered that sixties seriousness.......
It always bemuses me how many young people today say how they would like a time machine to enable them to go back to an era once golden, but were born too late. For those very youngsters who want to know what it was like for the ordinary person in the street, whether they lived at the hub of it all in London - or the provinces, Diski's book will give a good insight. You dont need to read the 500 page encyclopaedic political, social and economic "history lesson" super tomes for that.
Diski's book is a different slant on the current baby boomer literary reminiscences made all the more enjoyable because its written by a genuine "Sixties Chick" !
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Witty guide through the myths and memories
Not everyone in the sixties lived in communes, took drugs, went on protest marches, started experimental schools, spent their time in the Maudsley and was inspired by R. Read more
Published 20 days ago by Sabina
5.0 out of 5 stars
Remembering the 60s as they actually were
I love Jenni Diski's writing, lucid and coming from the heart, in the true sense of the word, perhaps honest would be a better description. Read more
Published 5 months ago by jcd53
2.0 out of 5 stars
I remember it well - but not like that!
This Book was heavier than i expected - probably because it was mainly based in London rather than out in the provinces - I would have preferred a more light hearted view of the... Read more
Published on 11 Oct 2010 by B. M. Martin
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