Frostquake

Frostquake

How the frozen winter of 1962 changed Britain forever

Summary

** 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

Reviews

  • Nicolson makes social history feel like reading the best and most gripping novel. A beautiful, wholly original book
    India Knight

About the author

Juliet Nicolson

Juliet Nicolson is the bestselling author of three works of history, The Great Silence: 1918-1920 Living in the Shadow of the Great War; The Perfect Summer: Dancing into Shadow in 1911; and Frostquake: The frozen winter of 1962 and how Britain emerged a different country; as well as a family memoir, A House Full of Daughters. She lives with her husband in East Sussex, not far from Sissinghurst, where she spent her childhood.
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