{"title":"Alison Light","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the insightful works of Alison Light, celebrated for her perceptive exploration of literature, biography, and cultural history. Discover compelling narratives and thought-provoking analyses.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"mrs-woolf-and-the-servants-book-alison-light-9780140254105","title":"Mrs Woolf and the Servants","description":"Virginia Woolf was a feminist and a bohemian but without her servants – cooking, cleaning and keeping house  -  she might never have managed to write.  Mrs Woolf and The Servants explores the hidden history of service. Through Virginia Woolf’s extensive diaries and letters and brilliant detective work, Alison Light chronicles the lives of those forgotten women who worked behind the scenes in Bloomsbury, and their fraught relations with one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49508767662353,"sku":"GOR001312836","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49645714702609,"sku":"GOR001289579","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49759250383121,"sku":"NGR9780140254105","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51085807386897,"sku":"GOR006097024","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51513470320913,"sku":"GOR010343021","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52502352560401,"sku":"NLS9780140254105","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0140254102.jpg?v=1770892019"},{"product_id":"mrs-woolf-and-the-servants-book-alison-light-9780670867172","title":"Mrs Woolf and the Servants","description":"Explores the volatile, emotional territory which is the hidden history of domestic service. This book is a study of one of Britain's greatest literary modernists. It is a testimony to the ways in which individual creativity always needs the support of others.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49515143332113,"sku":"GOR001436795","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49886967267601,"sku":"GOR002083951","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49924515463441,"sku":"GOR007229528","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50358984016145,"sku":"CIN0670867179G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0670867179.jpg?v=1751262325"},{"product_id":"common-people-book-alison-light-9780226420851","title":"Common People","description":"Family history begins with missing persons, Alison Light writes in \u003ci\u003eCommon People\u003c\/i\u003e. We wonder about those we've lost, and those we never knew, about the long skein that led to us, and to here, and to now. So we start exploring. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Most of us, however, give up a few generations back. We run into a gap, get embarrassed by a ne'er-do-well, or simply find our ancestors are less glamorous than we'd hoped. That didn't stop Alison Light: in the last weeks of her father's life, she embarked on an attempt to trace the history of her family as far back as she could reasonably go. The result is a clear-eyed, fascinating, frequently moving account of the lives of everyday people, of the tough decisions and hard work, the good luck and bad breaks, that chart the course of a life. Light's forebears--servants, sailors, farm workers--were among the poorest, traveling the country looking for work; they left few lasting marks on the world. But through her painstaking work in archives, and her ability to make the people and struggles of the past come alive, Light reminds us that every life, even glimpsed through the chinks of the census, has its surprises and secrets. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e What she did for the servants of Bloomsbury in her celebrated \u003ci\u003eMrs. Woolf and the Servants\u003c\/i\u003e Light does here for her own ancestors, and, by extension, everyone's: draws their experiences from the shadows of the past and helps us understand their lives, estranged from us by time yet inextricably interwoven with our own. Family history, in her hands, becomes a new kind of public history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49519516746001,"sku":"GOR010133499","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52734641799441,"sku":"NIN9780226420851","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/022642085X.jpg?v=1751430426"},{"product_id":"common-people-book-alison-light-9780141039862","title":"Common People","description":"Shortlisted for the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize  'Part detective story, part Dickensian saga, part labour history. A thrilling and unnerving read'  Observer   'Mesmeric and deeply moving'  Daily Telegraph   'Remarkable, haunting, full of wisdom'  The Times  Family history is a massive phenomenon of our times but what are we after when we go in search of our ancestors? Beginning with her grandparents, Alison Light moves between the present and the past, in an extraordinary series of journeys over two centuries, across Britain and beyond.  Epic in scope and deep in feeling, Common People is a family history but also a new kind of public history, following the lives of the migrants who travelled the country looking for work. Original and eloquent, it is a timely rethinking of who the English were - but ultimately it reflects on history itself, and on our constant need to know who went before us and what we owe them.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49521735270673,"sku":"GOR006753495","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49528169726225,"sku":"GOR007303886","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49538843181329,"sku":"GOR010787907","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50207440208145,"sku":"GOR010542346","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50332689694993,"sku":"CIN0141039868G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50696960049425,"sku":"NGR9780141039862","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0141039868.jpg?v=1751290043"},{"product_id":"radical-romance-book-alison-light-9780241975350","title":"A Radical Romance","description":"WINNER OF THE PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE  'The greatest memoirs offer all the complex shades and colours that we expect in fiction. A Radical Romance is more than just some summing-up: it is a work of art' Guardian  Alison Light met the charismatic social historian, Raphael Samuel, in London in 1986. Within a year they were married. Within ten, Raphael would be dead.  Theirs was an attraction of opposites - he, twenty years her senior, from a Jewish Communist family with its roots in Russia and Eastern Europe, she from the English working class. In this chronicle of a passionate marriage, Alison Light peels back the layers of their time together, its intimacies and its estrangements. A Radical Romance is a luminous account of love and loss, and a celebration of our transformative capacity to share our lives and change our selves.   'Displays her usual sharp but sympathetic appreciation of the finest gradations of culture and class' Margaret Drabble, TLS, Books of the Year  'She writes with precision and tenderness about loss. A Radical Romance is an admirable tribute to a man, a period of rapid change in London, and an unusual marriage' Stephanie Merritt, Observer  'Extremely interesting, moving, brilliantly written, as one would expect from Alison Light' Claire Tomalin","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49527748559121,"sku":"GOR011390412","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50304145916177,"sku":"GOR011956482","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50520270602513,"sku":"GOR012376280","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50697630449937,"sku":"NGR9780241975350","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51177702228241,"sku":"GOR014192553","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0241975352.jpg?v=1751196079"},{"product_id":"radical-romance-book-alison-light-9780241244500","title":"A Radical Romance","description":"WINNER OF THE PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE  'Remarkable, moving, illuminating. A memoir of cauterising honesty. This is a book that deserves to be widely read' Spectator  Alison Light met the radical social historian, Raphael Samuel, in London in 1986.  Twenty years her senior, Raphael was a charismatic figure on the British Left, utterly driven by his work and by a commitment to collective politics.  Within a year they were married. Within ten, Raphael would be dead.     Theirs was an attraction of opposites - he from a Jewish Communist family with its roots in Russia and Eastern Europe, she from the English working class. In this chronicle of a passionate marriage, Alison Light peels back the layers of their time together, its intimacies and its estrangements.    She tells of moving into Raphael's cluttered 18th-century house in Spitalfields and into his equally full, unconventional life; of the whirlwind of change outside their door which brutally transformed London's old East End districts; of being widowed at 41, and finding inspiration in her friendship with Raphael's mother. Finally she reflects on the power of mourning and how it shapes a life. Through its frank and touching account of a marriage between two very different people, it celebrates the capacity we all have to share our lives and to change our selves.  'The greatest memoirs give us something more than scenes from a life - they offer all the complex shades and colours that we expect in fiction. A Radical Romance is more than just some summing-up: it is a work of art' Guardian  'Beautifully crafted...It casts a light on the lightness of love and the profound depression of loss. A truly gifted writer' The Herald","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49527797678353,"sku":"GOR010114860","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49657501450513,"sku":"GOR012278467","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50951391445265,"sku":"GOR011490862","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52403285852433,"sku":"CIN0241244501G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52928892272913,"sku":"GOR010178945","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0241244501.jpg?v=1750877468"},{"product_id":"common-people-book-alison-light-9781905490387","title":"Common People","description":"Shortlisted for the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize  'A remarkable achievement...should become a classic.' - Margaret Drabble  'Light writes beautifully...Common People is part memoir, part thrilling social history of the England of the Industrial Revolution, but above all a work of quiet poetry and insight into human behaviour. It is full of wisdom.' - The Times Book of the Week  Family history is a massive phenomenon of our times but what are we after when we go in search of our ancestors? Beginning with her grandparents, Alison Light moves between the present and the past, in an extraordinary series of journeys over two centuries, across Britain and beyond.  Epic in scope and deep in feeling, Common People is a family history but also a new kind of public history, following the lives of the migrants who travelled the country looking for work. Original and eloquent, it is a timely rethinking of who the English were - but ultimately it reflects on history itself, and on our constant need to know who went before us and what we owe them.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49529769066769,"sku":"GOR006323016","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50401678459153,"sku":"CIN1905490380G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52842401267985,"sku":"GOR006486597","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53491059523857,"sku":"GOR008724758","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1905490380.jpg?v=1751187249"},{"product_id":"island-stories-book-alison-light-9781859841907","title":"Island Stories","description":"A collection of essays which offer a testimony of the dialogue between the present and the past.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49538877030673,"sku":"GOR003647385","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49579923767569,"sku":"GOR013643327","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49745769890065,"sku":"NGR9781859841907","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49931937775889,"sku":"GOR006234937","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50410216325393,"sku":"CIN1859841902VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1859841902.jpg?v=1751185798"},{"product_id":"mrs-woolf-and-the-servants-book-alison-light-9781596915602","title":"Mrs. Woolf and the Servants","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49567321882897,"sku":"GOR004135206","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50385476026641,"sku":"CIN1596915609G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51099896086801,"sku":"CIN1596915609A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53384914075921,"sku":"CIN1596915609VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53408465551633,"sku":"GOR011443753","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1596915609.jpg?v=1750991239"},{"product_id":"mrs-woolf-and-the-servants-book-alison-light-9781596916944","title":"Mrs. Woolf and the Servants","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49634028421393,"sku":"GOR004347752","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50385507057937,"sku":"CIN159691694XA","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50385509450001,"sku":"CIN159691694XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50970587693329,"sku":"CIN159691694XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51231918194961,"sku":"GOR007890286","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/159691694X.jpg?v=1751446505"},{"product_id":"common-people-book-alison-light-9780226330945","title":"Common People","description":"Family history begins with missing persons, Alison Light writes in \u003ci\u003eCommon People\u003c\/i\u003e. We wonder about those we've lost, and those we never knew, about the long skein that led to us, and to here, and to now. So we start exploring. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Most of us, however, give up a few generations back. We run into a gap, get embarrassed by a ne'er-do-well, or simply find our ancestors are less glamorous than we'd hoped. That didn't stop Alison Light: in the last weeks of her father's life, she embarked on an attempt to trace the history of her family as far back as she could reasonably go. The result is a clear-eyed, fascinating, frequently moving account of the lives of everyday people, of the tough decisions and hard work, the good luck and bad breaks, that chart the course of a life. Light's forebears--servants, sailors, farm workers--were among the poorest, traveling the country looking for work; they left few lasting marks on the world. But through her painstaking work in archives, and her ability to make the people and struggles of the past come alive, Light reminds us that every life, even glimpsed through the chinks of the census, has its surprises and secrets. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e What she did for the servants of Bloomsbury in her celebrated \u003ci\u003eMrs. Woolf and the Servants\u003c\/i\u003e Light does here for her own ancestors, and, by extension, everyone's: draws their experiences from the shadows of the past and helps us understand their lives, estranged from us by time yet inextricably interwoven with our own. Family history, in her hands, becomes a new kind of public history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50150521930001,"sku":"GOR013871894","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50152482078993,"sku":"GOR009447122","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/022633094X.jpg?v=1751227671"},{"product_id":"alison-light-inside-history-book-alison-light-9781474481724","title":"Alison Light   Inside History","description":"A collection of thought-provoking essays spanning thirty-five years of Alison Light's work.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51028447756561,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51028451721489,"sku":"NIN9781474481724","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1474481728.jpg?v=1773918842"},{"product_id":"radical-romance-book-alison-light-9781956474251","title":"A Radical Romance","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51060622065937,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51060624851217,"sku":"NIN9781956474251","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52689402888465,"sku":"NLS9781956474251","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1956474250.jpg?v=1751414137"},{"product_id":"forever-england-book-alison-light-9780415016612","title":"Forever England","description":"Shows how ideas of nation identity were bound up with notions of femininity and private life during the period between the wars. Alison Light looks at a range of writers from Ivy Compton-Burnett and Daphne du Maurier to Agatha Christie.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52122883752209,"sku":"NLS9780415016612","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53081557369105,"sku":"NIN9780415016612","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780415016612.jpg?v=1757443774"},{"product_id":"forever-england-book-alison-light-9780415861892","title":"Forever England","description":"Shows how ideas of nation identity were bound up with notions of femininity and private life during the period between the wars. Alison Light looks at a range of writers from Ivy Compton-Burnett and Daphne du Maurier to Agatha Christie.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52522291593489,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52522292019473,"sku":"NLS9780415861892","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780415861892.jpg?v=1760576238"},{"product_id":"red-red-robin-book-alison-light-9781474619912","title":"Red, Red Robin","description":"'Joins the very front rank of memoirs of post-war Britain' DAVID KYNASTON 'A winning blend of personal memories, evoked with startling clarity, and fascinating social history' CLARE CHAMBERS  In Red, Red Robin, Alison Light puts herself into history, conjuring her girlhood from the 1950s to the 1970s, growing up in an extended family in Portsmouth, a blitzed city with its collective memory of war. Drawing on the souvenirs of her childhood - from her doll's house to her infant and teenage diaries, her comics and schoolbooks - she uses her own story to tell a richly-textured social history of post-war England: its popular culture and music, its language and humour.   Warm, witty and often moving, Light recalls the all-singing, all-dancing little girl who becomes a grammar-school snob; the street kid turned fashion-conscious teenager, searching for the ideal boy, navigating a rapidly modernising world and a family life equally transformed. Going to university, she asks: what does it mean to leave home - and do we ever truly leave?  Beautifully crafted and deeply pleasurable, Red, Red Robin is an exploration of the making of an English girl and of her sense of self. It asks whether we can retain a strong attachment to our place of origin - honouring our histories and beliefs - while resisting both nostalgia and disavowal. In this lyrical, analytical and politically astute memoir, one of our most compelling writers evokes a child's eye view of the past through the lens of her adult reflections, querying too how we document that past and the nature of memory itself.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52957971841297,"sku":"NGR9781474619912","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53615342846225,"sku":"GOR014982169","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781474619912.jpg?v=1774519157"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-alison-light.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}