Overview

Exhilarating and rich narrative non-fiction that brings to light a dramatic and pivotal moment in our social, political and cultural history for the first time ** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ** 'This book is a must' Peter Hennessy On Boxing Day 1962, when Juliet Nicolson was eight years old, the snow began to fall. It did not stop for ten weeks. The threat of nuclear war had reached its terrifying height with the recent Cuban Missile Crisis, unemployment was on the rise, and yet, underneath the frozen surface, new life was beginning to stir. From poets to pop stars, shopkeepers to schoolchildren, and her own family's experiences, Juliet Nicolson traces the hardship of that frozen winter and the emancipation that followed. That spring, new life was unleashed, along with freedoms we take for granted today. 'An absolutely mesmerising book' Antonia Fraser

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9781529111033

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Reviews

Nicolson makes social history feel like reading the best and most gripping novel. A beautiful, wholly original book -- India Knight A brilliant concept transformed into a brilliant and revelatory book. Completely fascinating and engrossing -- William Boyd As gripping as any thriller, Frostquake is the story of a national trauma that came out of nowhere and changed us forever. Brilliantly written and almost eerily relevant to our current troubles, I read it in one sitting -- Tony Parsons An engagingly written mixture of social history and memoir . . . Nicolson invites us to see the worst winter of the century as a catalyst for social change in a nation that had entered the final months of 1962 in the grip of Edwardian deference and morality, yet emerged the following spring riding the first floods of the Swinging Sixties -- Trevor Phillips * Sunday Times * Fascinating, quirky and evocative . . . Nicolson takes us right back to that muffled, snowbound world . . . The fact we happen to be living through another, different kind of paralysis adds an extra layer of fascination to this book -- Ysenda Maxtone Graham * Daily Mail *

An engagingly written mixture of social history and memoir . . . Nicolson invites us to see the worst winter of the century as a catalyst for social change in a nation that had entered the final months of 1962 in the grip of Edwardian deference and morality, yet emerged the following spring riding the first floods of the Swinging Sixties -- Trevor Phillips * Sunday Times * Fascinating, quirky and evocative . . . Nicolson takes us right back to that muffled, snowbound world . . . The fact we happen to be living through another, different kind of paralysis adds an extra layer of fascination to this book -- Ysenda Maxtone Graham * Daily Mail * An entertaining panorama of life in Britain during the original beast from the east . . . [Nicolson's] striking hypothesis . . . explores the impending social revolution from many angles . . . out of catastrophe can come change for good: a social revolution in 1963; perhaps an environmental awakening in 2021 -- Richard Morrison * The Times BOOK OF THE WEEK * Juliet Nicolson's new book is a treasure trove... beautifully written. Nicolson uses the imagery of freeze and thaw as a metaphor for the new Britain that was being born, a conceit as elegant in its execution in its conception -- Alwyn Turner * BBC History Magazine * Juliet Nicolson's timely study of that pivotal winter in British history has so many parallels with today that it occasionally sends a shiver down your spine . . . Her own memories of the turbulent months before and after that day are the thread that hold this beautifully stitched patchwork of stories together . . . convincing, poetic and often very touching -- Marcus Field * Evening Standard *

Author Information

Juliet Nicolson is the bestselling author of three works of history, The Great Silence- 1918-1920 Living in the Shadow of the Great War; The Perfect Summer- Dancing into Shadow in 1911; and Frostquake- The frozen winter of 1962 and how Britain emerged a different country; as well as a family memoir, A House Full of Daughters. She lives with her husband in East Sussex.

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