A spirited exploration of the diary, from pen-and-paper to TikTok, for the people who write—and read—them
Featuring iconic diary keepers like Audre Lorde, Virginia Woolf, Alison Bechdel, and Taylor Swift
We know what it was like to be an out lesbian in 19th-century England, what the inner world of a young girl in hiding looks like, and what the earliest internet users’ favorite websites were, in part, because of diaries. Our Diaries, Ourselves is a joyful deep dive into this time-honored tradition of preserving who we are.
From Marie Curie to Taylor Swift,
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Deva, a Brazilian nightclub singer, accepts a mysterious invitation to become the companion to a wealthy recluse living in a London penthouse. Known only as Harry, he suffers from a traumatic brain injury where he rises each morning, having forgotten all that has transpired the day before. One cryptic clue offers a glimpse into Harry’s past—a photograph of a man in a field, picking a daffodil. Endeavoring to identify the man, Deva discovers that her own turbulent past intertwines not only with Harry’s but with the unnamed man in the photograph, and that all of their movements are being monitored,
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“I was immediately besotted . . . Brilliant.” —Janice Hallett, internationally bestselling author of The Appeal
The first in a delightful new mystery series set in the hidden heart of London’s legal world, introducing a wonderfully unwilling sleuth, perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Nita Prose.
When barrister Gabriel Ward steps out of his rooms at exactly two minutes to seven on a sunny May morning in 1901, his mind is so full of his latest case—the disputed authorship of bestselling children’s book Millie the Temple Church Mouse—that he scarcely registers the body of the Lord Chief Justice of England on his doorstep.
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A brilliant debut memoir about a young writer—struggling with depression, family issues, and addiction—and his life-changing decade working for Joan Didion
As an aspiring novelist in his early twenties, Cory Leadbeater was presented with an opportunity to work for a well-known writer whose identity was kept confidential. Since the tumultuous days of childhood, Cory had sought refuge from the rougher parts of life in the pages of books. Suddenly, he found himself the personal assistant to a titan of literature: Joan Didion.
In the nine years that followed, Cory shared Joan’s rarefied world, transformed not only by her blazing intellect but by her generous friendship and mentorship.
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With his father dead, a gifted, fourteen-year-old pianist finds himself sent away from his Caribbean home against his will, to study classical music in the U.S. with a family friend he’s never met. His first angry, frightened step away from the controlling mother he’s never been able to reach becomes a sharp break with her expectations: he leaps into the dramatic and cutthroat world of opera. In this high-stakes milieu, his fierce desire to be a star fires both his brilliance and the dark distrust of women and of love that is the legacy of his childhood, a legacy that threatens his career,
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Ming, born in a bleak outpost of Sichuan province, finds an unexpected glimpse of the world beyond when she meets a talking monkey with golden eyes and supernatural abilities—the immortal Monkey King, with whom Ming’s destiny is inextricably intertwined. Determined to become a writer, Ming finds her way to New York, but to make ends meet she goes to work for a crime ring and returns to China on the lam. Hope arrives in the form of her American friend Zoe. Together, they travel to the village of Ming’s birth, where the clouds writhe like phantoms and the rain never stops,
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