The Six, Laura Thompson
The Six, Laura Thompson
4 Rating(s)
List: $32.99 | Sale: $23.10
Club: $16.49

The Six
The Lives of the Mitford Sisters

Author: Laura Thompson

Narrator: Maggie Mash

Unabridged: 15 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/06/2016


Synopsis

The eldest was a razor-sharp novelist of upper-class manners; the second was loved by John Betjeman; the third was a fascist who married Oswald Mosley; the fourth idolized Hitler and shot herself in the head when Britain declared war on Germany; the fifth was a member of the American Communist Party; the sixth became Duchess of Devonshire.

They were the Mitford sisters: Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah. Born into country-house privilege in the early years of the 20th century, they became prominent as “bright young things” in the high society of interwar London. Then, as the shadows crept over 1930s Europe, the stark—and very public—differences in their outlooks came to symbolize the political polarities of a dangerous decade.

The intertwined stories of their stylish and scandalous lives—recounted in masterly fashion by Laura Thompson—hold up a revelatory mirror to upper-class English life before and after WWII. The Six was previously published as Take Six Girls.

About Laura Thompson

Laura Thompson is the author of several critically acclaimed works of non-fiction. Her first book The Dogs: A Personal History of Greyhound Racing won the Somerset Maugham Award. Rex V. Edith Thompson: A Tale of Two Murders was shortlisted for a CWA Dagger Award. She has written biographies of Nancy Mitford and Agatha Christie, A Different Class of Murder about the Lord Lucan scandal, The Last Landlady about her grandmother, and the New York Times-bestselling Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Elizabeth on January 10, 2018

I quite enjoyed this book. I was aware of who the Mitford sisters were, especially Nancy and Deborah who became the Duchess of Devonshire and brought Chatsworth House back to life. But I had no knowledge of the other sisters, particularly of poor cursed Unity. I found the period of time fascinating......more

Goodreads review by Louise on October 09, 2017

When i was deciding whether or not to buy this book, i asked myself: "do i really need another book about the mitford sisters?" well, it turns out the answer to that is no. While intereting enough, there is nothing here that has not been discussed in more detail in Mary Lovell's excellent Mitford Gi......more


Quotes

“[F]or readers yearning for another take on the glamorous sisters' 'posh past,' Thompson's smart, jaunty, and wittily entertaining book will amply fill their desire. Steeped in Mitford lore and mythmaking, the book offers sharply drawn portraits of each woman, teases out the complexities of their fraught, competitive relationships with one another, and sets their lives within the context of a radically changing world. ... [Thompson's] clear-eyed view of the sisters' strengths and foibles makes this gossipy story a delight.”
Kirkus, starred review

“Thompson astutely compares wry contemporary assessments and countless often-brutal newspaper articles on the Mitford daughters to self-sufficient Nancy’s more benign fictional version and expat Jessica’s heavily embellished tell-all....she successfully shows how this group of six captured the zeitgeist by being utterly committed and completely ‘shame-free.’”
Publishers Weekly

“[Laura Thompson] does a remarkable job of isolating the sisters’ individualism, defining in fluid, sensitive, and authoritative language their individual distinctions, while at the same time keeping a sharp but understanding eye on the bigger picture.” Booklist