Frostquake
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The frozen winter of 1962 and how Britain emerged a different country
** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER **
'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 threat of nuclear war had reached its terrifying height with the recent Cuban Missile Crisis, unemployment was on the rise, 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.
'An absolutely mesmerising book' Antonia Fraser
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Imprint: Vintage Digital
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Published: 04/02/2021
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ISBN: 9781473566712
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Length: 368 Pages
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RRP: £9.99
Reviews
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Nicolson makes social history feel like reading the best and most gripping novel. A beautiful, wholly original book
India Knight
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A brilliant concept transformed into a brilliant and revelatory book. Completely fascinating and engrossing
William Boyd
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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
Tony Parsons
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An engagingly written mixture of social history and memoir
Trevor Phillips, Sunday Times
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Fascinating, quirky and evocative . . . Nicolson takes us right back to that muffled, snowbound world
Ysenda Maxtone Graham, Daily Mail
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An entertaining panorama of life in Britain during the original "beast from the east" . . . [Nicolson's] striking hypothesis . . . explores the impending social revolution from many angles . . . out of catastrophe can come change for good: a social revolution in 1963; perhaps an environmental awakening in 2021
Richard Morrison, The Times BOOK OF THE WEEK
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Juliet Nicolson's new book is a treasure trove... beautifully written. Nicolson uses the imagery of freeze and thaw as a metaphor for the new Britain that was being born, a conceit as elegant in its execution in its conception
Alwyn Turner, BBC History Magazine
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Juliet Nicolson's timely study of that pivotal winter in British history has so many parallels with today that it occasionally sends a shiver down your spine . . . Her own memories of the turbulent months before and after that day are the thread that hold this beautifully stitched patchwork of stories together . . . convincing, poetic and often very touching
Marcus Field, Evening Standard
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In this lively chronicle Juliet Nicolson, who was eight years old at the time, argues that the winter of 1962-63 marked a turning point in society, with Britain's social conventions beginning to burst apart at the seams. With cameos from Joanna Lumley and Harold Evans, and a nod to imminent Beatlemania, Nicolson buoyantly contends that out of devastation good can come
New Statesman
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Nicolson aims to do much more than present a charming word picture of the freakish winter of 1962-63 . . . where Frostquake triumphs is as a metaphor -- a network of images that describes how Britain was beginning to unfreeze from the 50s
Kathryn Hughes, Guardian
