The writer and author of the bestseller “Love, Nina” selects her favorite 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 form the backdrop, but what enchants me are Pepys’ vivid and frank descriptions of his private life – romantic entanglements, haircuts, suffering and, on September 25, 1660, his first “cup of tea (a Chinese drink) which I had never drunk before”.
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Available on The Weekly Bookstore
Forbidden Notebook
Alba de Céspedes, translated by Ann Goldstein, 1952
A new translation of a forgotten novella in diary form. It is 1950 and on a whim, 43-year-old housewife Valeria Cossati buys a notebook and secretly begins to record the daily events of her life. One reviewer called it “the female stoner.”
Available on The Weekly Bookstore
The diary of a nobody
George and Weedon Grossmith, 1892
On the rare occasion that I meet someone who has not read this, I recommend that they do so immediately, envying the laughter and joy they will then experience. The diary chronicles the daily life of London clerk Charles Pooter over a period of 15 months. Pooter is an ordinary and recognizable human being with a healthy self-esteem that borders on delusional.
Available on The Weekly Bookstore
Theft by Finding – Diaries Volume One
David Sedaris, 2017
It’s no surprise that Sedaris, a brilliant chronicler of everyday life, is a habitual diarist, nor that his journals are a mix of the exquisite, the bizarre, and the mundane. Entries show him polishing jade, cleaning up apples, watching a stranger eat a sandwich with his eyes closed, and trying various recreational drugs.
Available on The Weekly Bookstore
The diary of a provincial lady
E. M. Delafield, 1930
This fictional diary describes life in a middle-class household in rural Devon at the start of the Great Depression. The protagonist anxiously and comically tries to keep up appearances, but when the bills arrive she sneaks off to the pawn shop wearing a hat.
Available on The Weekly Bookstore
