The writer and author of the bestselling “Love, Nina” chooses her favourite diaries. Her latest book “Went to London, Took the Dog: The Diary of a 60-year-old Runaway” is out now.
The Diaries of Samuel Pepys
Edited by Richard Latham, 1825
The Restoration, the Great Plague and the Fire of London are the backdrop, but for me it’s Pepys’ vivid and frank descriptions of his personal life that enchant – romantic entanglements, haircuts, ailments and, on 25 September 1660, his first “cup of tee (a China drink) of which I never had drank before”.
Available on The Week Bookshop
Forbidden Notebook
Alba de Céspedes, translated by Ann Goldstein, 1952
A new translation of a forgotten novella in diary form. It’s 1950 and, on a whim, 43-year-old housewife Valeria Cossati buys a notebook and begins in secret to record daily events in her life. One reviewer called it “the female Stoner”.
Available on The Week Bookshop
The Diary of a Nobody
George and Weedon Grossmith, 1892
On the rare occasion I meet anyone who hasn’t read this, I recommend they do so immediately and envy them the laughter and joy to come. The diary records the everyday life of London clerk Charles Pooter over the course of 15 months. Pooter is ordinary and recognisable with a healthy self-regard bordering on delusional.
Available on The Week Bookshop
Theft by Finding – Diaries Volume One
David Sedaris, 2017
It’s not surprising that genius chronicler of the everyday Sedaris is a habitual diarist, nor that his diaries are a mix of the exquisite, bizarre and mundane. Entries show him variously polishing jade, tidying apples, watching a stranger eating a sandwich with his eyes closed and trying assorted recreational drugs.
Available on The Week Bookshop
The Diary of a Provincial Lady
E.M. Delafield, 1930
This fictional diary chronicles life in a middle-class household in rural Devon at the beginning of the Great Depression. The protagonist anxiously and comically tries to keep up appearances, but when the bills come in she sneaks off to the pawnbrokers in a hat.
Available on The Week Bookshop