Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War

A very moving read. Diverse, fascinating and incredibly worthwhile. Also inspiring. Virginia Nicholson has made an excellent job of bringing to light, and to life, some of the stories of the two million women in the book's title. I have already recommended it to lots of friends and will definitely be giving a few copies for Christmas. Anyone with an interest in C20th social history will enjoy it.

Refreshing and well researched (4/4 people found this helpful)

Narrates with touching compassion a story too little understood or remembered in the modern day.

It's only flawed in the end by its unrelentingly optimismic view of human nature and almost total faith in progress, which appears to have a religious basis. All lost fiancees, who died in the war here were Boys Own style stalwarts, fair and true for example; with pen portraits that could have been lifted straight from publications of the period. In many ways this approach well suits the mood of the times, so it can be viewed as strength as well as a weakness, but it does grow somewhat wearisome towards the end.

Admirable women (14/15 people found this helpful)

I loved this book. The stories Virginia Nicholson has discovered of women who could never marry, or who did not want to marry, are inspiring and often moving. From the women whose fiancees or husbands were killed in WWI to the women who had never wanted to marry at all but had felt under pressure from society to do so, these women all had to create a life for themselves without a man. For some, it was the making of them. They created their own careers, travelled, made money, formed unconventional relationships and freed themselves from the strictures of society. For others, their singleness, and often, their childlessness, was a sorrow they couldn't get past. Nicholson is to be congratulated for discovering the stories of these women. She doesn't gloss over the problems and heartaches, but she also celebrates the diversity of these women and the lives they made for themselves.

Amazing Women (14/15 people found this helpful)

I was looking at a different book by this same author on Amazon in the US, and they linked to this book, but it was only available in the UK. It cost me almost $50 US dollars, but it was one of the best purchases I will ever make because it changed my life. I know that seems like a dramatic statement, but it is the absolute truth. I am one of the "generation x'ers" so for me the women in this book are of my Great Grandmothers generation, but what amazing women they were. I had always admired my Great Grandmother for her honesty, her stoicism, and now I see that it was not just her, but an entire generation of women. I realized how very much that I have to be thankful to these women for. How much they changed the world, because they had no choice. They were not going to just sit back and let the world go on without them, they changed the world in ways that I am still feeling today. Virginia Nicholson did a wonderful job, this book made me think. It made me think about the past and there future and it made me realize that I have to do something for all the girls who will come after me. I changed my University major to Women's Studies after reading this book and I am so grateful. This book opened my eyes and changed my view of the world. I am still very young and hopefully have a long road in front of me, but this book made me realize that we are all alone in this world and no one can live your life for you, so you have to seize the day and take chances.

A Splendid Book (29/32 people found this helpful)

During the recent serialisation of this book on BBC Radio 4 I was reminded of three very remarkable amd memorable women teachers that I was fortunate enough to encounter at Secondary School over 40 years ago. Obviously at that time I was among many who referred to these elderly spinsters - the youngest of whom was 45 - rather unkindly, in the colloquialisms of the day as "past it", "never had a life", "frustrated", "left on the shelf", "needed a good seeing-to" etc., without ever realising the privations that they must have suffered nor the heavy personal loss that they once bore, be it of a much loved father, brother, uncle or fiance. Yet these women stoically "got on with it" and led fulfilling lives as single, professional women.

Now, through Vera Nicholson's book, which tells the story of the two-million surplus women, we know "why"....

Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War

Virginia Nicholson

Reader Reviews:

My non-fiction book of the year (2/3 people found this helpful)

Refreshing and well researched (4/4 people found this helpful)

Admirable women (14/15 people found this helpful)

Amazing Women (14/15 people found this helpful)

A Splendid Book (29/32 people found this helpful)

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