Books

Can Any Mother Help Me?

“Fantastically absorbing, frequently funny and always affecting.” – Observer
“A unique record of female friendship during the last century.” – Guardian
“Equally entertaining and moving.” – The Times
“Top Ten Books Ever Written on Motherhood” – The Guardian

In 1935, a young woman wrote a letter to Nursery World magazine, expressing her feelings of isolation and loneliness. Women from all over the country experiencing similar frustrations wrote back. To create an outlet for their abundant ideas and opinions they started a secret magazine, The Cooperative Correspondence Club.

With startling honesty, the women wrote about every aspect of their lives – the pain and elation of childbirth, the challenges of marriage, broken hearts and fading dreams. None of them could have anticipated the friendships that would grow; nor that the magazine would last their lifetimes. This is their story.

Het Geheime Tijdschrift
Can Any Mother Help Me? (Dutch)

Het geheime tijdschrift werd 1935 opgericht naar aanleiding van een ingezonden brief van een wanhopige, jonge moeder. Zij schreef naar een vrouwenblad over de eenzaamheid en de verveling van haar bestaan als huismoeder. Ondanks haar studie en ambities moest zij na haar huwelijk stoppen met werken. Maar aangezien de brievenschrijfster geen enkele voldoening vond in haar huishoudelijke taken, zocht zij naar een bezigheid. Er reageerden vrouwen uit het hele land, en een aantal van hen besloot een geheim tijdschrift op te richten. Niemand van hen kon op dat moment vermoeden dat de vriendschap die op deze manier ontstond zo sterk zou blijken dat het tijdschrift gedurende hun hele leven zou blijven bestaan.

A Grief Observed Readers Edition

“A classic of the genre, a literary answer to the pain of loss.” – Robert McCrum

In April 1965, C.S. Lewis, a confirmed bachelor, married Joy Davidman, an American poet with two small children. After four intensely happy years, Davidman died of cancer and Lewis found himself alone again, and inconsolable. In response, he wrote this journal, freely confessing his pain, rage, and struggle to sustain his faith. In it he finds the way back to life. A modern classic, A Grief Observed has offered solace and insight to countless readers worldwide. This new edition contains the original text of A Grief Observed alongside specially commissioned responses to the book and its themes from respected contemporary writers and thinkers: Hilary Mantel, Jessica Martin, Jenna Bailey, Rowan Williams, Kate Saunders, Francis Spufford and Maureen Freely.

Ivy Benson’s All Girl Band

Between 1940 and the early 1980s, a formidable woman named Ivy Benson ran the first nationally known, and longest running, all girl dance band in British history. Throughout her career as a bandleader, Benson organized her eighteen to twenty-four piece band like a music school for young women by recruiting, training, mentoring and managing over 300 musicians over a period of four decades.

From the height of the big band era to the end of the disco days, Ivy and her girls played alongside all the top British bands including the Beatles and Tom Jones. This band biography tells not only Ivy Benson’s story but brings to light the hidden stories of Britain’s top female musicians who made a career in what was otherwise a man’s world.