The Daily Telegraph Written by CM. 23/Feb/2008	"Jenna Bailey has made a tremendous find in the Cooperative Correspondence Club . . . Pen-names such as "Ubique" and "Cotton Goods" show a wry awareness of the universality of their experience, but it was surely their isolation as educated housewives that produced their straightforward eloquence - even their desperation is never dreary. This is a valuable record of the necessity of friendship and the difficulty, elation and boredom of motherhood"
The Times Written by JW. 17/Feb/2008	"This engaging book comprises their letters and comments, contextualised with biographical details . . . their correspondence gives a rare insight into the quotidian activities and preoccupations during this time of extraordinary change. The club membership was diverse, and the women's letters (honest, articulate, humorous and moving) reflect their distinct backgrounds, families and politics, and their shared resilience and humour."
The Financial Times Written by Isabel Berwick. 09/Feb/2008	"This is a marvellous book about women's lives in the 20th century. . .What's most illuminating is how open-minded and modern these women of the 1940s and 1950s seem. By the end, they feel like friends . . . Jenna Bailey has done them - and us - a great service in gathering and editing this gem of social history."
The Guardian Written by Judith Rice. 09/Feb/2008	"This CCC compilation, edited and annotated with intelligence and sensitivity by Jenna Bailey, offers a unique record of female friendship during the last century. They write in intimate detail, often as events unfold; many with eloquence and all with immediacy. Engrossing."
London Review of Books Written by Rosemary Hill. Vol 29. No. 10. 24/May/2007	"Jenna Bailey has skillfully compiled and edited some of what survives of the magazines . . . what remains is compelling: a behind the scenes account of women's history through one of its most formative periods."
Montreal Gazette Written by Pat Donnelly 12/May/2007	"As non-fiction, woman-centred historical books go, this one is juicy. It's also groundbreaking" "Given the wealth of material gathered, it could easily become fodder for a play or a film." "... the quality of the editing, which allows for a series of letters completing a narrative by each writer, brings out the raw beauty of the writing."
Time Out Magazine Written by John O'Connell. 14-20/Mar/2007	"It's extremely moving and beautifully written, like an Elizabeth Taylor novel condensed into 30 pages." "Bailey has compiled this material with great skill and respect."
The Guardian Written by Veronica Horwell. 10/Mar/2007.	"Jenna Bailey explains, in an introduction as loving and modest as her biographical notes (researched among surviving members and families), that many contributions were about politics, religion and art - an "intellectual coffee morning". But most pieces she has selected are personal. All female human life is here... To be honest I wept as I read it. Time in the book became non-linear as I fast-forwarded to the biographies at the back, or a postscript at a chapter end (Bailey has a gift for the coda), even while I was with each woman in the vivid present of her long-gone past, with her future unsure." "Grand girls, ordinary goddesses: I wish I'd known them, but reading Bailey's compilation, I felt I did".
The Daily Mail Written by Val Hennessy. 05/Mar/2007	"It is the wonderful intimacy and spontaneity of the writing... that make Bailey's selection so compelling. Here are hearts and lives opened, an important social history, the authentic voices of intelligent women speaking to us from a fascinating archive"
The Observer Written by Alex Clark. Published: 4/ Mar/ 2007.	"...fantastically absorbing, frequently funny and always affecting book..." "...what Jenna Bailey has achieved with her sensitive arrangement of material and unassuming commentary - gives us a remarkable opportunity to indulge in that most human of pleasures, eavesdropping..."
THE INDEPENDENT Written By Sue Gaisford. Published: 25/ Feb/ 2007.	"Jenna Bailey was looking through the Mass Observation archives in search of a subject for her thesis when she came across some of these magazines. As happens to the best of them, the thesis grew into a large research project and now into an engaging and informative book, often touching, occasionally hilarious, sometimes profoundly moving..." "Jenna Bailey has organised this rich material cleverly, telling the story of the club chronologically through the lives of its most active members..." "Mostly, though, the book is a celebration of the kind of real and enduring friendship that some lucky women still enjoy today, though email has replaced the sewn linen magazine. The last chapters show this most powerfully, as grandmothers, friends for 50 years, support each other through illness, bereavement and grief."
The Times Written by Bel Mooney. Published: 24/Feb/ 2007. Title "Listen With Mothers"	"In unearthing these pieces of the recent past – equally entertaining and moving – from the Mass Observation archive at Sussex University and editing them with such care and affection, the historian Jenna Bailey has done us all a service that goes beyond a contribution to women's history. At the end of the book we mourn these remarkable, ordinary women as if they had been our own."
The Daily Telegraph. Written by Sarah Wise. Published: 17/Feb/ 2007.	"Beautifully written and emotionally engaging...Bailey's selection and organisation of the material is very good indeed."