Frostquake

Nicolson, Juliet

£18.99

On Boxing Day 1962, when Juliet Nicolson was eight years old, the snow began to fall. It did not stop for ten weeks. It was one of the coldest and harshest winters for 300 years. The drifts in East Sussex reached twenty-three feet. In London, milkmen made deliveries on skis. On Dartmoor 2,000 ponies were buried in the snow, and foxes ate sheep alive. It wasn’t just the weather that was bad. The threat of nuclear war had reached its terrifying height with the recent Cuban Missile Crisis. Unemployment was on the rise, de Gaulle was blocking Britain from joining the European Economic Community, Winston Churchill, still the symbol of Great Britishness, was fading. These shadows hung over a country paralysed by frozen heating oil, burst pipes and power cuts which are explored here.

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Publish Date: 04/02/2021

Description

** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER **

‘Juliet Nicolson is brilliant at recapturing mood, moment and character . . . This book is a must’
Peter Hennessy

On Boxing Day 1962, when Juliet Nicolson was eight years old, the snow began to fall. It did not stop for ten weeks. The drifts in East Sussex reached twenty-three feet. In London, milkmen made deliveries on skis. On Dartmoor 2,000 ponies were buried in the snow, and starving foxes ate sheep alive.

It wasn’t just the weather that was bad. The threat of nuclear war had reached its terrifying height with the recent Cuban Missile Crisis. Unemployment was on the rise, de Gaulle was blocking Britain from joining the European Economic Community, Winston Churchill, still the symbol of Great Britishness, was fading. These shadows hung over a country paralysed by frozen heating oil, burst pipes and power cuts.

And yet underneath the frozen surface, new life was beginning to stir. From poets to pop stars, shopkeepers to schoolchildren, and her own family’s experiences, Juliet Nicolson traces the hardship of that frozen winter and the emancipation that followed. That spring, new life was unleashed, along with freedoms we take for granted today.

‘Frostquake is wholly remarkable . . . a rare and engrossing read that brought that time straight back to my memory and consciousness’ Vanessa Redgrave

‘As gripping as any thriller, Frostquake is the story of a national trauma that came out of nowhere and changed us forever. Brilliantly written and almost eerily relevant to our current troubles, I read it in one sitting’ Tony Parsons

**A THE TIMES/SUNDAY TIMES ‘BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR’ IN 2021**

Additional information

Weight 507 g
Dimensions 224 × 145 × 33 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Hardback

Pages

356 , 16 unnumbered of plates

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

306.094109046 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K