Book description
Fifteen-year-old Laura lives with her family in the seaside town of Camperlea. It is the Swinging Sixties, and Laura's ambition is to leave home for London and work in a Chelsea boutique. Meanwhile she worships her schoolfriend Vicky Logan who is all Laura longs to popular, outrageous, sensual, she lives…
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Why read it?
1 author picked The Play Room as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This novel has a particular poignancy for me as it comes from my mum’s vast collection of books, which she bequeathed to my daughter as she neared the end of her life.
Here, Olivia Manning conjures life in early 1960s Plymouth at a time of rapidly changing social attitudes and captures the awkwardness and yearning of her adolescent protagonists with exquisite skill. Although the events depicted are 60 years into the past, her characters are so fresh their lives come vividly to life.
My mum has died now, and I’m sad I’ll never be able to discuss this magnificent book…
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