National Network for Equitable Library Service

"I thought that I would see if the private life of a house could be made to bear witness to the public traumas of a century". Here Penelope Lively recalls Golsoncott, the country house in Somerset her grandparents bought in 1923. Through the sometimes strange, unfamiliar articles there - the gong stand, the picnic rug, the potted meat jars and bon bon dishes - she charts the social changes and transforming moments of the twentieth century. Changing attitudes to social class, the tension between town and country, how one learns to see the world: all are examined in this eloquent, fascinating memoir.