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Jul 07, 2011

Gail rated it:

When you read about other people's lives, you learn quickly that you are very lucky. The Mitfords, an upper class English family with a long history, have a crazy father, and a mother who seems to have lost control. The girls themselves run the political gamut from Nazi to Communist. One of the great things about this book for me is that it opened my eyes to a whole Fascistic side of England that I was completely unaware of. We learn all about Oswald Mosely, founder of the Black Shirts, who marr More...

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Nov 09, 2011

Lori rated it:

It's so unreal, you almost think it was fiction; a writer couldn't come up with this.
The Mitford Sisters -- from oldest Nancy, renowned author, to youngest Decca, who with first husband ran off to Spain fighting with the Communist brigade against Franco and then emigrating to America where she remarried (after being widowed quite young.) Next youngest is Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, who married the next in line who became Duke upon the death of his brother, who was himself married to K More...

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Mar 15, 2010

Nick is currently reading it

guess i'm not giving this one back anymore.
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Elise insists I read this "rivetingly intense history lesson." Rivetingly intense! I say, old chap, here comes Lord Smartingford of Braintonshire! Shall we dine upon a nice cup of tea, then? We can discuss the economy, and the global situ-AYYY-tion, and ever so many other matters! I am so very versed in such matters, reading as do I The Economist, just as soon as the postman delivers it by the estate, don't you know. I find tha More...

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Jan 04, 2010

Karen added it

Before the Hilton sisters, before the Kardashians, the "It" sisters were 6 women of aristocratic English upbringing who each went very different ways, but still held on to the bonds of sisterhood. In the early twentieth century, these were the Mitfords.[return][return]This biography is very comprehensive and extensive, considering the number of characters that demand attention. Each sister is dynamic and given her due, even Pam, the Mitford sister of whom little is published because sh More...

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Jul 20, 2011

Erik rated it:

This is the biography of a family, an aristocratic family of influence, covering the period from World War I to the time of publication. The principals are David (1878-1958), Baron Redesdale, Winston Churchill's cousin, the father, and Sydney Bowles (1880-1963), his wife, and their seven children, six of them female. Of the girls, Nancy (1904-1973) became prominent as a novelist; Pamela (1907-1994) became the wife of millionaire physicist Derek Jackson; Diana (1910-2003) became the wife of Sir More...

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May 30, 2011

Lois rated it:

This "Saga of the Mitford Family" was better than a good novel. You couldn't make this up. An eccentric, aristocratic English family (father was in the House of Lords) with six daughters who grew up to be so different from each other. They were related to the Churchills and Winston helped them out more than once. They were also connected to the Kennedy's by marriage. Two of the daughters became famous as fascists, one a communist, one Duchess, one famous novelist and just one who kept More...

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Jan 27, 2011

Nell rated it:

Reading The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate made me wonder about the real lives of the family the novels were based on, and they do seem closely modeled on the real-life Mitfords. I couldn't take so much drama and conflict in my life, but it seemed to suit the Mitford children down to the ground, while upsetting their parents. Of course they lived in a time of great social change and political upheaval, and they did go through a great deal of heartache. The author tries to be even-han More...

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Jan 26, 2011

Janet added it

This is the true story of six English sisters born in the early 20th century to David Mitford (Lord Redesdale) and Sydney Bowles (David's 1st cousin Clementine is Winston Churchill's wife). Great account of aristocratic life in Britain but what I enjoyed most about this book is what's going on during the 1930s and 1940s with these women. Two of the sisters, Diane and Unity, become Fascists while another sister, Jessica, embraces communism. Unity becomes infatuated with Hitler and moves to German More...

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May 10, 2010

Sara rated it:

The Mitford sisters -- split between love affairs with fascists, with Hitler, with the Communist party, and with the written word (plus two spare sisters mainly concerned with home and garden, albeit on a rather grand scale) -- make for a fascinating read and Mary Lovell manages it all quite nicely with plenty of juicy details of Unity's close personal friendship with Hitler and subsequent suicide attempt when England declared war on Germany; Diana's three-year war-time internment along with her More...

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Mar 30, 2010

Jen rated it:

I was amazed while reading this book that I'd never heard of this family before- yet their lives unfolded almost as a mirror to reflect what was happening/important in history at that time- politically and culturally (ie- WWII, Nazism, Facism, Communism, Kennedys, etc.) I really enjoyed this book and thought it was very detailed and well-written. I especially enjoyed the first half of their lives growing up and around WWII.

This story is basically about 6 sisters who had a privilege More...

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Jan 20, 2010

Linda rated it:

I decided to start the year off right by reading something from my endless TBR pile, "The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family," Mary S. Lovell's biography of the famous (or infamous, depending on your view) siblings. It's a totally engaging read and offers something for nearly everyone, with its mix of aristocrats and eccentrics, true love and infidelity, The Great Depression and WWII, fascism and communism. All of it played out in one family who came to define an era and continued More...

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Jan 11, 2012

Sienna rated it:

Unusually for me, I started reading reviews of The Mitford Girls before I'd finished the book, curious what others thought of both the family and Lovell's approach to biography. This immediately led to one of those wonderful tangents of surprise and self-examination; I was taken aback by the vitriol aimed at the sisters simply for being born into a particular class. There's much they could be criticized for: their extreme political views, some of the company they kept, their occasional cruelty More...

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Sep 10, 2011

Amanda added it

The six Mitford sisters and a brother, Tom,were born to a Peer of the realm, Lord Redesdale and his wife Sydney. There were allowed to be individual and pursue their interests at will, although they were not allowed to go to University. They were raised in the manner of the time, with nannies, a nurse and tutors at home and less parental involvement than is common nowadays. The family rambled on in a happy way, surviving World War 1. The run up to the Second World War and the Second War took More...

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Sep 02, 2011

Becky rated it:

This is a great look at the Mitford family as a whole - insightful and honest, based on contemporary letters and more recent interviews. The author really attempts to bring each member of the family to life on the pages, and with the possible exception of Pam, she succeeds.

I was looking for the seed of what went wrong, and while I better understand their personalities and relationships, I'm not sure there is an event or person that can be pointed to. After reading Nancy's semi-au More...

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May 27, 2011

Erin rated it:

It's rather out-of-character for me, but I've always viewed the English aristocracy in the first half of the 20th century kindly. I mean, they did so many things wrong. So, so many things. They believed all the wrong things, they were out-of-touch with reality, and they looked down their noses at absolutely everybody. They were jerks. But they were also watching their way of life disappear. It's kind of silly to feel sorry for lords and ladies suddenly not being able to find people to light thei More...

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Jun 28, 2009

Colleen rated it:

What an absolutely fascinating book about an absolutely fascinating family. I had heard of Nancy Mitford and her novels, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate but nothing about her eccentric life and her family's lives. In fact, I don't know what compelled me to buy this book back when it was first published. Once I started, I couldn't put it down, like a great novel. I guess, having three sisters myself, I was intrigued by a book about six sisters. The author does a superb job of More...

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Jun 24, 2010

Margaret rated it:

The Sisters is a group biography of the famous Mitford sisters. I was particularly interested in more information about the lives of Pamela and Deborah, the less famous sisters, and although they're necessarily less in the spotlight than Nancy, Diana, Unity, and Jessica, I still felt as though I'd learned far more about them than I'd gathered from any other source.

Lovell states up front in the introduction that she was trying "to explore the richness of the personalities, not to More...

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Sep 05, 2010

Shannon rated it:

Incredibly fascinating and well written book about a fascinating family. If you, like me, are interested in all things Mitford, this biography is a can't miss.

The book covers the lives of all of the Mitford sisters, including a background of their parents. Lovell presents a fairly un-biased picture of each sister and covers their lives with an appropriate amount of detail. Pamela is the least well developed of all the sisters in the book, but this may be due to her lack of publishing More...

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May 26, 2010

Kate rated it:

For someone who enjoys biographies of fascinating women, what could be better than the stories of six women in one volume? The Mitford sisters definitely do not disappoint, and Mary Lovell remains my favorite biographer. The Mitford parents are not particularly unusual for their time and class, but the daughters seemed born to be outrageous. Two, Unity and Diana, were friends of Hitler. Diana left her husband, the heir to the Guinness fortune, to pursue an affair with a prominent British Fasci More...

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Jan 10, 2010

Elizabeth rated it:

This book was insane, but also one of the most enlightening books I've read in a long time. It was embarrassing to realize how little I know (or remember) about the years that led up to WWII (I'm going to blame it on a science-focused preliminary education), and the motif that really impressed me was the massive, terrible, tidal wave of momentum that led up to the second "great" war.

The Sisters makes you think a lot about human nature and how ethics begin with the smallest More...

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Sep 24, 2011

Rachel rated it:

This was a fascinating book, and I'm now very excited about reading Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love for my Reading the 1940s course...and will probably checking out the other books by the Mitford girls from my university library. My only complaint would be that Pamela and Deborah felt a bit neglected, especially towards the end of the book. Maybe there just isn't much information about them, but it felt like they were pushed aside because they didn't lead such exciting lives. This was an inc More...

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Aug 06, 2009

Stephen rated it:

I'd only read one Mitford book before I began reading this joint biography of the Mitford sisters, and that was The American way of death by Jessica Mitford. But I often like literary biographies better than the works of the authors themselves. Perhaps that is because the lives of the authoers are sometimes more interesting than the subjects they write about, though it seems that the Mitford sisters took a lot of their material from their own lives, writing semi-fictionalised biography.

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Jun 17, 2010

Kristy rated it:

I was stuck between 4 and 5 stars so it's probably more 4 and a half. It's a good thick book but it had me intrigued all the way through,satisfied many of my interests and created more! I've come away from reading this with a list of books and authors that I want to research in particular Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford and I've already got hold of Decca Mitford's Hons and Rebels. Whether you agree with their views or not the Mitfords were a great bunch of characters. I love the honesty, the s More...

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Mar 23, 2009

Treasure rated it:

This is no light read, both figuratively and literally, so be sure to carve out some serious reading time for this one. The time is absolutely worth it, though, as history, culture, scandal, politics, fashion, gossip, love, hate, passion, sex, family, pets, property, books, imagination, death, war, dictators, prison, brain damage, sickness,and joy all collide in this book about the 6 Mitford sisters, their brother, their parents, and the people they fall in love with. Whew! Despite so much going More...

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Nov 23, 2010

Leslie rated it:

The story of the Mitford sisters is a fascinating one for any reader who is interested in twentieth century European history. It seems that there isn't a single significant historical figure from the twentieth century that isn't connected to the Mitford family in some way. How six sisters from a comparatively poor aristicratic family who were, for the most part, indifferently educated, became intimately connected to some of the most radical political movements of their day is a fascinating More...

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Mar 06, 2009

Julie rated it:

Talk about DRAMA! This saga of the Mitford Family really sucked me in. It was so incredibly interesting learning about this high profile English family (once I could keep all the sisters straight). The parents, 6 daughters and 1 brother were all intelligent, vivacious, passionate people, who took their beliefs (some supported Fascism vs. others who supported Communism) and ideals to extremes at times. From funny family stories, traditions and jokes to scandals, forbidden marriages,an elopement, More...

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Apr 06, 2009

Jill rated it:

I thought this would be a fascinating biography of four sisters who come from wealth and how they grew up and went in such divergent directions in pre- to post-war Europe. Someone suggested to me once that I don't like rich people. It's not true, but I prefer to read about people who earned wealth rather than those who inherited it, especially those who believe themselves to be privileged enough to stand above everyone else. These girls do just that. One of them became a writer and was thoug More...

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Jul 07, 2011

Loulou rated it:

I found that this book to be fascinating - a good part of the way through. It did fizzle somewhat for me after the end of WWII, as my interest, I discovered, lay mostly to be with the sisters' forming years, the Bright Young Things and also Unity's relationship with Hitler. I was shocked at the behaviour and the lack of responsibility of the upper classes; it was a naive idea I had clung to and was dashed through this read, and for that I am very grateful. I did find, however, through no fault o More...

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Aug 26, 2010

Lize rated it:

This is how these things happen in my world: when I read Kendall Haley's book, The Day I Became an Autodidact I became intrigued by her favorite author, Nancy Mitford. This is the story of the whole wacked-out bloomin' family--Lord and Lady Redesdale, Nancy the writer, Pam the country woman, beautiful Diana (the fascist's mistress), Deborah the Duchess of Devonshire, Decca the muckraking journalist and Communist, Tom the brother and Unity, Hitler's girlfriend. And you thought your family was s More...

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Feb 21, 2010

Eden rated it:

My plan was to read this biography in time with my thick book of the Midford sisters' letters (Editor, Charlotte Mosley) to one another. But the biography was so interesting I blew through it in just a few days and will be starting the book of letters now. I disowned each stubborn sister at one point or another - and their poor parents! I enjoyed the narrator's voice and even-handed review of the varied politics surrounding WWII, and while obviously not defending the fascist movement, she made i More...

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