Dear diary

 

 

    I'm so enjoying reading all the comments about fountain pens on Thursday's post, discovering new makes to investigate, and wondering about seeing whether I can get my Parker going again - it has a bent nib caused years ago by a colleague borrowing it to sign a document and dropping it on a hard floor (which vexed me) and though it worked alright for ages after that it then seized up.

   

    Anyway, from pens to paper and specifically diaries. Over on Cornflower Books today you can see a few pictures of Edinburgh, the locations of some of  the events of Kate Summerscale's new book Mrs Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady. I'm giving away a copy of the book - enter the draw here - and as you'll see I'm asking about the habit of diary-keeping. Do you keep a diary, or have you ever done so? What function does it perform for you? Do you have a favourite make or type? Please put your name in the hat to win the book, or tell us a bit about your journal here.

Comments

[B R Wombat]

As mentioned yesterday, I keep a diary. It's a simple way of letting the day go, I suppose. The only problem is that, with age, there are an awful lot of diaries piling up. I've recently discovered the Leuchtturm range of notebooks and like them very much. The paper is smooth and they have numbered pages and other refinements. They come in a good range of colours (including one called Cornflower, although it's rather pale) and, most importantly, one can get unlined pages. I detest writing on lined paper.

[Darlene]

Ooh, I can't wait to get my hands on this book after reading an excerpt in The Daily Telegraph. In the basement, tucked away in a storage container, are a few journals I kept when my daughter was small. They were used mostly to record the little day to day things that I thought she would delight in when her parents are old. They would probably be good for a laugh now!

[Ruth M]

Diary, journal, lists of books, things to do, the occasional prayer -- I've been filling notebooks most of my adult life. There are boxes of them. Most of the writing is forgetable or worse, but there's the occasional passage that sings. I write to find out what I think and how I feel. Less diary, perhaps, than a journey charted, navigating with words as I go.