Fictional Diaries

Well, I've been shamed into writing a new post, after many months absence. Life had taken over, I'm afraid. But nobody wants a run-down of the dull minutiae of my life. Or do they? Diaries are some of my favourite books for that very reason. Real diaries are fascinating in their own right - not for dazzling political or intellectual insights, but for the tiny crumbs of trivia, the petty details and ridiculous foibles of the great and the good - but fictional diaries are even better: funny, and crammed with the kind of domestic detail that make me want to pour myself a cup of earl grey and imagine myself at someone else's kitchen table, eavesdropping and flicking crumbs off the oilcloth.

King of the fictional diaries has to be Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith, written back in the 1890s. The premise sounds deeply unpromising: the life of a clerk in Victorian London. But boy, oh boy, it's funny. Utterly English, fascinating in its revelations of Victorian life, but most of all, one of those books that you wish you're still to discover. I love it, and it's hero, Charles Pooter, a man whose personality can be summed up in the entry, "I left the room with silent dignity, but caught my foot in the mat".

Here are more of my favourites:

The Diary of A Provincial Lady by EM Delafield (see previous posts for more on this book)

Mrs Miniver by Jan Struther  - more mid-twentieth century afternoon teas

The Hens Dancing series by Raffaella Barker - modern, eccentric, but with the same vibe

The Dulcie Domum books by Sue Limb -a late 20th century Mrs Miniver

And the ones I can't bear to read, because I couldn't stand it if they weren't as good as the ones I've listed above:

The Bridget Jones diaries, by Helen Fielding.

Let me know if you have any more recommendations.