A Book of One's Own

“Charming, diverting, and exceptionally intelligent.” —The New Yorker

“A marvelous book. . . . An engaging meditation on the varied and irrepressible spirit of life that insists upon preserving itself on paper.” —Los Angeles Times

“A highly original, witty, new literary species—an anthology of diaries told mainly in the anthologist’s own words.” —Mary McCarthy

“Entrants in this dense and unprecedented volume range from the heroic to the villainous, from Albert Camus to Lee Harvey Oswald. Mallon welcomes them all to his vast storehouse. The disclosures, the introspections and secret desires give diaries their special appeal. This assemblage compounds the interest; reading it is like screening other people’s dreams—at once intriguing and familiar.” —TIME

“Mallon is the best kind of literary critic, one who seemingly has read everything and retained a feverish and communicable enthusiasm for the best of what he has read. A Book of One’s Own adds dozens of titles to that long list of books one must read now. If one feels grateful to Mallon for the books he makes us wish to read, there is gratitude, too, for the books he has read for us, for all the bits and pieces he has assembled with wit and intelligence into a kind of commonplace book that’s anything but commonplace.” —USA Today

“This is more than a book about diaries: it’s a celebration of life and the many ways people have of savoring it. Mallon is a dazzling, inventive, witty, unfailingly enjoyable writer—one of the finest prose stylists at work in America today.” —Phyllis Rose