‘Virginia Nicholson is one of the great social historians of our time, and How Was It For You? is another jewel in her crown. No one else makes history this fun’ Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
‘Every baby boomer should read this great and wonderfully revelatory book if only to shout, “Ah yes, that’s exactly what it was like for me!”’ Anne Sebba, author of Les Parisiennes
‘How Was It For You? brings it all back. As always Virginia Nicholson’s book is full of fascinating history and fascinating new material. It makes it feel like the Sixties have never been away, which they never have, as far as I’m concerned. Wonderful’ Hunter Davies, author of The Beatles: The Authorised Biography
‘Written with verve, wit and empathy, this account of the 1960s skilfully interweaves the lives of individual women with broader social and cultural changes. Best of all How Was It For You? neither idealizes nor excoriates the bouncy, controversial decade’ Sheila Rowbotham, author of Women, Resistance and Revolution
‘Intimate, immersive, often moving, How Was It For You? subtly but powerfully subverts complacent male assumptions about a legendary decade’ David Kynaston, author of Modernity Britain
‘Virginia Nicholson is the outstanding recorder of British lives in the twentieth century. She has told us how it was for British women – and therefore of course for men and children – in the twentieth century. The formidable research and sympathetic understanding of so many different lives make this account of the 1960s – that swinging, sexy, revolutionary decade – the most vivid and moving of all her works. A fascinating decade, a fascinating book’ Carmen Callil, author of Bad Faith
‘Virginia Nicholson’s social history of the lives of women during the 1960s is an absorbing study of an extraordinary age. Beautifully written and intensively researched … I am sure How Was It For You? will remain a vital study for many years to come’ Selina Hastings, author of The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham
‘Essential reading for all those who lived through it, and for those who came after’ Marina Lewycka, author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
‘I loved this. Yes, the 1960s were good fun, sometimes. But Virginia Nicholson forensically unpicks what “permissiveness” really meant for flower-chicks, fearful of seeming uncool. They were perpetuating a society as patriarchal and phallocentric as ever – even in the counterculture. I was there, and she’s right. Amazingly right about so many things. Roll on the 1970s when things did change – but that’s for another of her excellent books’ Valerie Grove, author of Laurie Lee
‘They say that if you remember the 1960s you weren’t really there. But if you really weren’t, then the next best thing is to read this fascinating book … a razor-sharp account of the women who lived through that tumultuous decade’ Juliet Nicolson, author of A House Full of Daughters
‘A hugely ambitious kaleidoscope of a book, written in a sympathetic but also hard-headed tone that captures squalor and tragedy as well as glamour’ Richard Vinen, author of The Long ’68