3.5
Human Voices
ByPublisher Description
The nation is listening. It's 1940, and BBC radio is on the air. Dedicated to the cause, it's going to do what it does best: keep the British upper lip stiff without resorting to lies. But nightly blackouts and the thunder of exploding enemy bombs are only part of the chaos faced by the staff.
There's a battle for control between two program directors—one recklessly randy, the other efficient. Their comely assistant is suffering the pangs of unrequited love; an unwed mother is resisting the impending birth of her baby; and an exiled French general takes to the airwaves demanding Britain's surrender. Then there's the concert hall itself—a makeshift shelter for the displaced that quickly becomes a hotbed for quick trysts, bloody brawls, private wars between the sexes, political grandstanding, pointless deaths, and overriding fear, as the news unfolds just outside the building's vulnerable walls.
Inspired by the Booker Prize–winning author's own wartime experiences at the BBC,
is a novel at once "funny, touching, and authentic" (
, London).
"Made me laugh out loud as I have hardly done since
. It is extraordinary and immensely praiseworthy that a book with such an ultimately serious idea can be so brilliantly funny." —
"A tribute to the unsung and quintessentially English heroism of imperfect people." —
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesHuman Voices Reviews
3.5
“Made me laugh out loud. A lot.”
“The original goal in picking this book up from work was “I’m going to finish this before I leave today”. Then everyone decided to donate books at 4 pm so I unfortunately did not make it. It took some time but now I have finally finished it ! I read one Penelope Fitzgerald book before this and have had beef with her ever since. The ending was violently realistic and it just made me bitter. In the end, I couldn’t stay away from her books because I adore her writing style. It’s dense yet beautiful, and I will most likely read all of her work one day. It’s true that there is not too much going on in her books and they are very calm, but I’ve really needed it recently and I’m glad I picked this up. Now, I do once again have some issues with the ending, but I’m not going to let that change my opinion on the entire book this time around. Also I have never actually read a WW2 book relating to radio stations in the middle of it so it was an interesting and welcomed perspective. I highly recommend trying one of her books at some point ! <3”
“I absolutely loved this delightfully quirky and well written book, with plenty of gentle humour. It centres upon the lives and loves of some of those working at Broadcasting House during WW2. I enjoyed Fitzgerald’s satirical look back at the prejudices and casual misogyny prevalent at that time. There are poignant moments too, reflecting the arbitrary effects of the Blitz on the lives, families and homes of Londoners.
Overall a lovely book to curl up with on a Sunday afternoon.”
About Penelope Fitzgerald
PENELOPE FITZGERALD wrote many books small in size but enormous in popular and critical acclaim over the past two decades. Over 300,000 copies of her novels are in print, and profiles of her life appeared in both the
and the
. In 1979, her novel
won Britain's Booker Prize, and in 1998 she won the National Book Critics Circle Prize for
. Though Fitzgerald embarked on her literary career when she was in her 60s, her career was praised as "the best argument . . . for a publishing debut made late in life" (
). She told the
, "In all that time, I could have written books and I didn't. I think you can write at any time of your life." Dinitia Smith, in her
obituary of May 3, 2000, quoted Penelope Fitzgerald from 1998 as saying, "I have remained true to my deepest convictions, I mean to the courage of those who are born to be defeated, the weaknesses of the strong, and the tragedy of misunderstandings and missed opportunities, which I have done my best to treat as comedy, for otherwise how can we manage to bear it?"
Other books by Penelope Fitzgerald
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