The Private Life Of The Diary

Diaries keep secrets, harbouring our fantasies and fictional histories. They are substitute boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses and friends. But in this age of social media, the role of the diary as a private confidante has been replaced by a culture of public self-disclosure. The Private Life of the Diary: from Pepys to Tweets is an elegantly-told story of the evolution – and perhaps death – of the diary. It traces its origins to seventeenth-century naval administrator, Samuel Pepys, and continues to twentieth-century diarist Virginia Woolf, who recorded everything from her personal confessions about her irritation with her servants to her memories of Armistice Day and the solar eclipse of 1927. Sally Bayley explores how diaries can sometimes record our lives as we live them, but that we often indulge our fondness for self-dramatization, like the teenaged Sylvia Plath who proclaimed herself 'The Girl Who Would be God'. This book is an examination of the importance of writing and self-reflection as a means of forging identity. It mourns the loss of the diary as an acutely private form of writing. And it champions it as a conduit to self-discovery, allowing us to ask ourselves the question: Who or What am I in relation to the world?

"Written at the end of Twain's career, Extracts from Adam's Diary was first published in 1897 and Extracts from Eve's Diary in 1905. Twain's Adam was based on himself while Eve was modelled after his wife Livy. It is fitting that these two essays be joined together in one package."--Goodreads

"Fearing for her life, Faye D. Resnick, as confidante of O.J. whenever he and his ex-wife fought - went into hiding to write Nicole's story. Her phones were tapped, private journals and photographs were stolen from her home, veiled threats were made by "private investigators" - and O.J.'s defense team, desperate to find another suspect, spread slanderous "theories" that purportedly tied Faye to the murders." "Now the truth about Nicole is revealed by the only person - except O.J. himself - who knew the real story: How O.J. raged out of control just two days before he bought the now-infamous "stiletto knife" - and told Faye over and over: "I'm going to kill her... I'm going to kill her if I find her with another man!" That same day, Nicole told Faye, "O.J. loves me so much he's going to kill me... and get away with it." Six days before the murders, a furious O.J. panicked Nicole by threatening to inform the IRS about a tax problem that could force her and their two children out of the home they loved. Five days before her death, a frightened Nicole told Faye that O.J. had stolen the spare set of keys to her condo. How Nicole committed the one sexual "taboo" O.J. had forbidden." "It's more than sensational! It's the touching, intimate portrait of a devoted wife and mother, molded from age 17 by a charismatic American hero who always showed the world the happy, smiling face he drew on his so-called suicide note... but beat her savagely behind closed doors." "New unrevealed secrets... How O.J. left her beaten and near-naked in a Las Vegas hotel corridor... O.J.'s boast of his "sexual revenge" against the man he raged against in the headline-making "911 tape"... How Nicole's "frog phobia" doomed the reconciliation when O.J. became "Frog Man"... The bizarre story of the thumb ring found next to Nicole's body - identical to the one worn by Faye, and..." "It's the heartbreak of a woman who tried desperately to return what she thought was her husband's total love - and her final realization that it wasn't love, but a hellish obsession!" "Details of the final 35-minute phone call Nicole had with Faye during the final moments of her life." "It's an unexpected love story about two women who formed a bond so strong even death can't break it - and how they teamed up in a futile, last-ditch effort to save the life of Nicole Brown Simpson." "It's an angry cry for help... help for women trapped in the brutal prison of abuse from men who claim to love them. Nicole Brown Simpson was known as a "strong woman" by her friends and family - but Faye D. Resnick, who was an abused child, has learned one powerful lesson from writing this book: Strength should never be equated with keeping silent about abuse. Sadly, it's a lesson Nicole never learned. That's why she'd want you to read her story..."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

“The most revealing book ever published on Mao, perhaps on any dictator in history.”—Professor Andrew J. Nathan, Columbia University From 1954 until Mao Zedong's death twenty-two years later, Dr. Li Zhisui was the Chinese ruler's personal physician, which put him in daily—and increasingly intimate—contact with Mao and his inner circle. in The Private Life of Chairman Mao, Dr. Li vividly reconstructs his extraordinary experience at the center of Mao's decadent imperial court. Dr. Li clarifies numerous long-standing puzzles, such as the true nature of Mao's feelings toward the United States and the Soviet Union. He describes Mao's deliberate rudeness toward Khrushchev and reveals the actual catalyst of Nixon's historic visit. Here are also surprising details of Mao's personal depravity (we see him dependent on barbiturates and refusing to wash, dress, or brush his teeth) and the sexual politics of his court. To millions of Chinese, Mao was more god than man, but for Dr. Li, he was all too human. Dr. Li's intimate account of this lecherous, paranoid tyrant, callously indifferent to the suffering of his people, will forever alter our view of Chairman Mao and of China under his rule. Praise for The Private Life of Chairman Mao “From now one no one will be able to pretend to understand Chairman Mao's place in history without reference to this revealing account.”—Professor Lucian Pye, Massachusetts Institute of Technology “Dr. Li does for Mao what the physician Lord Moran's memoir did for Winston Churchill—turns him into a human being. Here is Mao unveiled: eccentric, demanding, suspicious, unregretful, lascivious, and unfailingly fascinating. Our view of Mao will never be the same again.”—Ross Terrill, author of China in Our Time “An extraordinarily intimate portrait of Mao. [Dr. Li] portrays [Mao's imperial court] as a place of boundless decadence, licentiousness, selfishness, relentless toadying and cutthroat political intrigue.”—Richard Bernstein, The New York Times “One of the most provocative books on Mao to appear since the publication of Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China.”—Paul G. Pickowicz, The Wall Street Journal

Complemented by full notes and many illustrations, this book is a major contribution to our knowledge of life in Tudor England.

The classic collection of personal prayers updated in modern, accessible language.

In a beautiful literary exploration, Sally Bayley tracks the evolution - and the potential twenty first century death of - the diary, mourning what it means to lose the art of writing simply for oneself.