A Book of One's Own: People and Their Diaries [Paperback]

Thomas Mallon (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Strangely enough, this exploration of one of the most private of writing endeavors is likely to send readers off in a zillion different directions. Thomas Mallon's survey of diarists throughout the ages introduces us to the most personal writings of more than 100 diarists, including Samuel Pepys, Leonardo da Vinci, Virginia Woolf, and Lee Harvey Oswald. Mallon divides the diarists into seven categories--chroniclers, travelers, pilgrims, creators, apologists, confessors, and prisoners--that he uses as a basis for his inquiries into the nature of these apparently private writings. (From the start Mallon admits that "I still don't believe that one can write to oneself for many words more than get used in a note tacked to the refrigerator saying 'Buy bread.' ") Glimpsing the many, vastly different lives that have been thrown together on these pages is fascinating in and of itself, but Mallon's thoughts about the whys and wherefores of diary-keeping are what make his dense prose so worth reading. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Novelist Mallon's 1984 exploration of diaries through the ages, drawing on both the famous and the obscure, inaugurates a new series-the Hungry Mind Find-devoted to bringing back into print literary nonfiction titles.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 318 pages
• Publisher: Ticknor & Fields (November 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0899192424
• ISBN-13: 978-0899192420
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 4.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,352,811 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You will be charmed . . ., February 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Book of One's Own: People and Their Diaries (Paperback)

I finally got around to reading a yellowed Penquin edition of A Book of One's Own and am pleased to see that Hungry Mind is keeping this alive and available for everyone else who has yet to enjoy it. Essentially, it is a pageant of diarists and their words, with Mallon standing to the side, offering an often witty, always insightful commentary. It is a literate, sensitive dialogue. As a sometime diarist, I fought for awhile with his notion that everyone writes with an audience in mind, that our most private writings are not unselfconscious, that we intend to be found out. But I did not go reading this to locate my own opinions. It is delightful, and with the bibliography neatly situated in the back, it reads silkily, without the interruption of footnotes.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Book That Made Me a Diarist, February 16, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Book of One's Own: People and Their Diaries (Paperback)

I read this book over thirteen years ago, and I was hooked on diaries ever since. After reading in Mallon's book about some of the most interesting diarists, I found other diaries to read-one about a man's search for an institution for his retarded son, one by a woman facing major surgery and hospitalization (Walking Through the Fire), and a few others. He also inspired me to start my own diary, which I kept for over twelve years, seldom missing a day. This last year or so, I have fallen off but still add to my diary now and then. This is an activity I was hardly aware of, but when diary keeping is presented in such an interesting way, one sees it in a whole new way. I think of it as "the word made flesh." Mr. Mallon's book has added more to my life than practically any other I have ever read.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Peeking through keyholes..., August 2, 1998

By 

"rrr338" - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Book of One's Own: People and Their Diaries (Paperback)

Peeking through keyholes of private lives. That's one feeling generated from reading Mallon's analysis of both famous and obscure diarists. Not that the scenes brought to our own mind's vision always ring with truth. Mallon offers fascinating commentary on how the records might reflect deeply seated frustrations, anomosities, or other sources of bias.

One real pleasure of this book is its ability to convey, through snippets of diaries, the rich diversity of style which is possible in writing about one's own life and times. Despite some very different approaches, Mallon still manages to keep focused on the unifying theme of why people write in the first place, insisting that all diarists really expect that, sometime (and that may be after death), their words will be read and their voices will matter. Hungry Mind Find Press is to be commended for re-issuing this fascinating little book, filled with some very big ideas about life and the challenge of making sense out o! f it all. Anyone who has ever written in a diary, or has thought about that pursuit, will find this read to be very intriguing indeed.