Normal Women
900 Years of Making History
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Normal Women
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By:
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Philippa Gregory
About this listen
A NEW STATESMEN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
‘A lasting work of social history’ THE TIMES
‘A genuinely new history of our nation’ DAN JONES
‘This celebration of women is a triumph of popular history’ SPECTATOR
FROM THE MULTI-MILLION BESTSELLING HISTORICAL NOVELIST COMES THE CULMINATION OF HER LIFE’S WORK
- Did you know that there are more penises than women in the Bayeux Tapestry?
- That the Peasant’s Revolt was started and propelled by women, protesting a tax on women?
- Or that celebrated naturalist Charles Darwin believed not just that women were naturally inferior to men but that they’d evolve to become ever more inferior?
These are just a few of the startling findings you will learn from reading Philippa Gregory’s Normal Women. In this ambitious and ground-breaking book, she tells the story of our nation over 900 years, but for the very first time women – some fifty per cent of the population – are no longer invisible in this history of England, but are at its beating heart.
Using research skills honed in her work as one of our foremost historical novelists, Gregory trawled through court records to find highway women, beggars and shepherdesses, through newspapers and diaries to find murderers and brides, housewives and pirates, female husbands and hermits. The ‘normal women’ you will meet in her pages went to war, ploughed the fields, campaigned, wrote, and loved. They rode in jousts, flew Spitfires, issued their own currency and built ships, corn mills and houses as part of their everyday lives They committed crimes, or treason, worshipped many gods, cooked and nursed, invented things and rioted. A lot. They built our society to be as diverse and varied as the women themselves. They are there in the archives – if you look – and they made our history.
‘You’ll lose count of the number of things you learn about women and their skewed place in history as you read Philippa Gregory’s stunning Normal Women … the book reframes the past … an essential read’ INDEPENDENT, FIVE-STAR REVIEW
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2023 Philippa Gregory (P)2023 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
‘Radically reframes our national story’ OBSERVER
What listeners say about Normal Women
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- PPG
- 05-11-23
Powerful Herstory of Britain
Brilliant and thought provoking.
Essential reading shows progress of women but how far we still need to go, especially with safety and empowerment.
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8 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Jessica
- 25-05-24
Sweeping and well researched
A triumph from the brilliant Philippa Gregory. Such an interesting history and I loved that the author read it.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Bede
- 15-03-24
Required Reading
Highly recommend for anyone of any gender or sex, very engaging writing and passionate reading by the author.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- Michelle
- 05-07-24
Interesting
I am near the beginning of this book, in chapter 2 it sounds like the narrator is yawning! So far it is very interesting and shocking how women have been treated through the years but it also shows that 'girl power' was around long before the Spice Girls. We have come a long, long way but there is so much more still to do
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5 people found this helpful
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- Aletta E F Theron
- 20-12-23
Incredibly interesting
A wonderful challenge of the handed-down, male-dominated history. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Every woman should read this.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Mike Hax
- 15-05-24
The title says it all
Loved it! Thank you Philippa for a thoroughly well researched and well told history and stories of women in the UK
I liked the way book divided into chunks of time from Norman invasion up
to today and then various topics covered in great depth within each.
And the topics ….. work, sex, rape, women loving women, marriage for eg
Shaking my head in anger and outgrew at the injustice and cruelty women have faced in past and still face.
Makes me reflect and question my own position/life/role as a woman now
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 11-12-23
knowledge
it kept me interested all the way through and made me think a very good book
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2 people found this helpful
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- Kincowie
- 20-01-24
Astonishing, Wonderful, concise but evocative history of women in England
Beautifully read, astonishing history and summation. should be read/ listened to by all, but especially all women (I have bought a copy for all my friends). Thank you for writing it. It has changed my understanding entirely and I don't think it an exaggeration to say it has/ will change my life as it has certainly changed my understanding of what it is to be a woman.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Mrs Meryl Perryman
- 23-01-24
Thank you
I think this book should be part of the school curriculum, available to every gender. Amazing.
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- Barbaramcdonagh
- 02-01-24
The Truth .
I have learned a lot from this version of P .G.’s great work .Id like to hear a version that had more about other nationalities of women but I realise that this undertaking would be too vast for one book .I will return to this book again for fear of forgetting the underlying message emerging from such thorough research .
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