We are at war : the diaries of five ordinary people in extraordinary times

'Snowdrops have been in flower for weeks. Violets are still waiting to bloom. Broad beans are showing their heads perkily. But I forget. We are at war. The boys in the village are leaving one by one.' - Maggie Joy Blunt. "We Are At War" continues Simon Garfield's successful formula of interweaving five ordinary lives from the Mass-Observation archive begun with "Our Hidden Lives".

Of all the accounts written about the Second World War, none are more compelling than the personal diaries composed by those who lived through it.

Beginning in the weeks before the war, and ending a year later with the Battle of Britain, the book will tell the story of the 'phoney war' on the home front.

The five ordinary diarists are: Pam Ashford, an unmarried secretary at a large Glasgow shipping merchant; Tilly Rice who moves her children to safety in Cornwall, but returns to her home in Surrey just as the bombs start to fall; Eileen Potter, a social worker in central London; Christopher Tomlin, a God-fearing salesman doing the rounds in Preston; and Maggie Joy Blunt, familiar to readers of "Our Hidden Lives" as an elegant and reflective writer.