- Hardcover: 416 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday (26 Feb 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0385614233
- ISBN-13: 978-0385614238
- Product Dimensions: 13.7 x 3.7 x 22 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 569,875 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Their Finest Hour And A Half
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Product Description
Review
A beautifully written, minutely observed and researched, evocative and very funny tale. --Guardian
Review
This funny, heart-warming and beautifully crafted novel is a must-read.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Endearing, engrossing, excellent, this novel is an easy read, with a feeling of real people during the war, which is just happening around them. You live this period, rather like David Fiddimore's Tuesday's War, and you feel for the 3 main characters, the capable modern woman, the lonely spinster and even the egocentric actor, Ambrose. Highly recommended.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
"Finest Hour" follows the making, during the early days of the Second World War, of a film about Dunkirk, intended to lift British spirits (and enthuse American ones). This film is based on a story that never happened (or, at least, is greatly exaggerated) and it is done on a shoestring. The description of the film's production is fascinating (and often funny - for example the way in which the writer is kept in his (or her) place).
Lissa Evans brings together the stories of some of the cast and crew and of the development of the film itself against a background of the London blitz. All the characters are portrayed well, especially Ambrose Hilliard, embittered and fading actor, whose grim memories of the previous war surface at times and, and Catrin Cole, who ends up, more or less by accident, helping to write the film.
The book has funny moments, tender moments and sad moments. It creates an entirely believable atmosphere of wartime London, populated by convincing characters who one sympathises with more and more. It is also something of a page turner. The whole things is cleverly structured as a cinema programme, from the "trailers", though "informational shorts", to the "main feature" and finally, "forthcoming attractions". Overall, it is excellent.
Lissa Evans brings together the stories of some of the cast and crew and of the development of the film itself against a background of the London blitz. All the characters are portrayed well, especially Ambrose Hilliard, embittered and fading actor, whose grim memories of the previous war surface at times and, and Catrin Cole, who ends up, more or less by accident, helping to write the film.
The book has funny moments, tender moments and sad moments. It creates an entirely believable atmosphere of wartime London, populated by convincing characters who one sympathises with more and more. It is also something of a page turner. The whole things is cleverly structured as a cinema programme, from the "trailers", though "informational shorts", to the "main feature" and finally, "forthcoming attractions". Overall, it is excellent.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Evans has written an amusing tale of Britain on the Home Front in the Second World War, seen through the POV of a film crew churning out Ministry Of Information Films as part of the war effort, specifically designed to try and bring America into the war.
As I'm particularly fond of novels about theatre, film et al, the background of the story appealed. Evans is perhaps a little too free with the role of coincidence to drive the plot forward, and her characters, through quite nicely quirky, don't really stray too far from their own 'types', and I'd say the book, at 414 pages of quite small type (I assume to try and stop it being an obviously overlong book of 600 pages of a more normal size typeface) is overlong, and needed some drastic pruning.
An enjoyable read, but I'm unlikely to want to revisit it again - despite the enjoyable creation of the rampantly egotistical actor Ambrose Hilliard - though it does make me want to dust off a couple of theatre novels with a much stronger smell of greasepaint lingering in the memory than Their Finest Hour and a Half provided for olfactory celluloid!
Now, where are J.B. Priestley's The Good Companions (Penguin modern classics) and Michael Blakemore's Next Season, with their differently wonderful evocations of live theatre.....
As I'm particularly fond of novels about theatre, film et al, the background of the story appealed. Evans is perhaps a little too free with the role of coincidence to drive the plot forward, and her characters, through quite nicely quirky, don't really stray too far from their own 'types', and I'd say the book, at 414 pages of quite small type (I assume to try and stop it being an obviously overlong book of 600 pages of a more normal size typeface) is overlong, and needed some drastic pruning.
An enjoyable read, but I'm unlikely to want to revisit it again - despite the enjoyable creation of the rampantly egotistical actor Ambrose Hilliard - though it does make me want to dust off a couple of theatre novels with a much stronger smell of greasepaint lingering in the memory than Their Finest Hour and a Half provided for olfactory celluloid!
Now, where are J.B. Priestley's The Good Companions (Penguin modern classics) and Michael Blakemore's Next Season, with their differently wonderful evocations of live theatre.....
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Enjoyable, Unusual and Very Readable
I'm a keen fan of all novels relating to WW2, but it's rare to encounter one about the 'Home Front' and this entertaining but nonetheless realistic novel paints a great picture of... Read more
Published 2 months ago by BookFiend
I haven't enjoyed a novel so much in years
I was given this book as a present and didn't read it until last week (almost a year! Well you should see my 'to be read pile'.) I am SO glad I did. Read more
Published 11 months ago by S. Zigmond
Touching and well-observed.
An unxpected treat almost deceptively well-written.
Her evocation of the time via the details that make up the lives of her characters is excellent whilst not being... Read more
Her evocation of the time via the details that make up the lives of her characters is excellent whilst not being... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Dude15
Amazing!
This book is fantastically well written and was an absolute joy to read - although poignant in places it also made me laugh out loud on several occasions (which I don't usually do... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Liddy
Bad Blurb
I read the blurb on the back of the book and quite liked the idea of a story about a screen writer in the WW2. Read more
Published 22 months ago by jkg
Ignore the naysayers
This is a really engaging book. It takes a while to gather how the book is going to be strung together but once in it gets better and better. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Bibliophile London
Going nowhere
Stuck it out until about half way, and then thought enough is enough. With three disparate threads, none so far remotely connected (although you can see how two might), a bevy of... Read more
Published on 30 May 2010 by Blencathra
Their Finest Hour and a half by Lissa Evans
Had this book not had such a good review in one of the Sunday magazines I would not have bought it, but it did so I did! I have just finished it and can highly recommend it. Read more
Published on 25 April 2010 by Nancy Jane
Very ordinary
Can't think how this book has garnered so many glowing reviews because although competently written, its characters are stereotypes and completely forgettable. Read more
Published on 14 April 2010 by booksetc
finest hour
Book arrived promptly and is in excellent conditiongood value for money and thankyou for such a good service.
Published on 30 Mar 2010 by M. Boland
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