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A review by heatherdbooks
Common People: The History of An English Family by Alison Light
5.0
A warning that my 5* rating is influenced by my interest in family history research.
Alison Light's book was listed among recommendations for a family history writing course I just started.
What a great discovery. It is exactly what I might seek to achieve with my own writing - not just the names and dates, but also the context of my ancestors' lives.
She has incorporated herself and her search in the history, which not everyone embraces, but I think it makes her book more readable. I appreciated her observations on family historians, and their motivations. Her deep dives into various trades/poverty and workhouses/maritime history/location history were fascinating. She is like Bill Bryson in this respect, another non-fiction writing I enjoy. She is also very thorough in researching her family branches, and also follows up neighbours, etc...
Some quotes:
Pg. xxix
"As I have written this book, many questions have weighed on my mind but one more than another other: why do we need these stories of people we can never know?"...
"As culture becomes more 'globalized', and migration becomes the norm, as more of us than ever live in cities, what do we want from those stories which both anchor us and tie us down, evoking lost ancestral places to which we can never return? Can there be a family history for a floating world?"
Good questions.
Alison Light's book was listed among recommendations for a family history writing course I just started.
What a great discovery. It is exactly what I might seek to achieve with my own writing - not just the names and dates, but also the context of my ancestors' lives.
She has incorporated herself and her search in the history, which not everyone embraces, but I think it makes her book more readable. I appreciated her observations on family historians, and their motivations. Her deep dives into various trades/poverty and workhouses/maritime history/location history were fascinating. She is like Bill Bryson in this respect, another non-fiction writing I enjoy. She is also very thorough in researching her family branches, and also follows up neighbours, etc...
Some quotes:
Pg. xxix
"As I have written this book, many questions have weighed on my mind but one more than another other: why do we need these stories of people we can never know?"...
"As culture becomes more 'globalized', and migration becomes the norm, as more of us than ever live in cities, what do we want from those stories which both anchor us and tie us down, evoking lost ancestral places to which we can never return? Can there be a family history for a floating world?"
Good questions.