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9781350434691

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Early in the 2020 lockdown, Mass Observation asked the UK public to record the extraordinary times. In this innovative collage-style publication, Nick Clarke cleverly unites extracts from 5000 heartbreakingly tragic and devastatingly funny accounts, while skillfully contextualizing the diaries with other pandemic literatures and Mass Observation's own history. Highly recommended. * Annebella Pollen, Professor of Visual and Material Culture, University of Brighton, UK * I defy anyone who lived through the lockdown months of 2020 not to be struck by a lightning bolt of recognition as they read these pages. Nick Clarke has brought us a spellbinding portrait of that time fashioned from the writing of diarists who voluntarily offered their words to the Mass Observation project. It is a symphonic work full of surprising harmonies and tragic dissonances, syncopated by the unbreakable will to keep on keeping on. This is collective writing at its very best. * Ben Highmore, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Sussex, UK * I read this book with mounting excitement. It takes us right back into the daily routine of the Covid-19 pandemic with the immediacy of a modernist novel. Clarke's framing discussion of Mass Observation makes a compelling case for recasting the sociology of everyday life as a science of the people. * Nick Hubble, Professor of Modern and Contemporary English, Brunel University London, UK *

Early in the 2020 lockdown, Mass Observation asked the UK public to record the extraordinary times. In this innovative collage-style publication, Nick Clarke cleverly unites extracts from 5000 heartbreakingly tragic and devastatingly funny accounts, while skillfully contextualizing the diaries with other pandemic literatures and Mass Observation's own history. Highly recommended. * Annebella Pollen, Professor of Visual and Material Culture, University of Brighton, UK * I defy anyone who lived through the lockdown months of 2020 not to be struck by a lightning bolt of recognition as they read these pages. Nick Clarke has brought us a spellbinding portrait of that time fashioned from the writing of diarists who voluntarily offered their words to the Mass Observation project. It is a symphonic work full of surprising harmonies and tragic dissonances, syncopated by the unbreakable will to keep on keeping on. This is collective writing at its very best. * Ben Highmore, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Sussex, UK *

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Nick Clarke is Associate Professor of Human Geography at University of Southampton, UK. His books include The Good Politician (2018) and Globalising Responsibility (2010).

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