Jobs for the Girls

Maxtone Graham, who mined the memories of more than 200 women for their personal job stories, excels in the quirky, comic and often poignant details that resonate with her readers… Witty, clever and warm-hearted, Jobs for the Girls is a book to remind women of how universal our experiences were – Melanie Reid * The Times *
When she seems to be most nostalgic for a dear British past, she shocks the reader by the devastating but always humorous accuracy with which she describes the sheer horror of it. She is a sort of George Orwell, who has taken journalism to a soaring literary height - only she is even better than Orwell. I actually do not know of any writer alive in the English language, in verse or prose, who is cleverer, more observant or who has told us more about ourselves – A.N. Wilson * Spectator, Book of the Year *
Terrific… What struck me, as I devoured the recollections of 200-plus women, is how recently all this thwarting of female lives went on… How poignant and powerful is this secret history as it tells us her story * Daily Telegraph *
Ysenda Maxtone Graham has a talent for conjuring the atmosphere of times past, both comical and tragic * Country Life *
Maxtone Graham [has a] unique blend of high comedy and shrewd social observation… The book thrums with life and noise… With freshness and immediacy, Jobs for the Girls illuminates a period of our very recent history * Spectator *
A riotous new history of women’s decades-long struggle to be taken seriously at work * Mail on Sunday *
There are many beguiling stories… in Jobs for the Girls, receding echoes of another century, bound together by the author’s equally beguiling voice and the crisp intelligence of her observations – Lucy Lethbridge * Tablet *

Ysenda Maxtone Graham was born in 1962 and educated at The King’s School, Canterbury and Girton College, Cambridge. She has written for many newspapers and magazines as a features writer, book reviewer and columnist. She is the author of six books: The Church Hesitant: A Portrait of the Church of England Today; The Real Mrs Miniver, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography of the Year Award; Mr Tibbits’s Catholic School; An Insomniac’s Guide to the Small Hours; Terms & Conditions: Life in Girls’ Boarding Schools, 1939-1979; British Summer Time Begins: The School Summer Holidays, 1930-1980, which was a Sunday Times bestseller. She lives in London with her husband and three sons.

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