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Remarkable Diaries: The World's Greatest Diaries, Journals, Notebooks, & Letters
Remarkable Diaries: The World's Greatest Diaries, Journals, Notebooks, & Letters | DK
14 posts | 4 read | 3 to read
Travel back in time and witness both everyday life and great moments in history in this fascinating compilation of diaries through the ages. Bringing together historical and literary diaries, artists' sketchbooks, explorers' journals, and scientists' notebooks, Remarkable Diaries provides an intimate insight into the lives and thoughts of some of the most interesting people of the last two thousand years. Discover what it was like to build a pyramid, sail the seas with Magellan, travel into the heart of Africa, or serve on the Western Front. Find out how writers and artists planned their masterpieces, and how scientists developed their groundbreaking theories. Arranged chronologically, Remarkable Diaries takes you into the pages of the world's greatest diaries, notebooks, and letters, including those of Samuel Pepys, Henry-David Thoreau, the Goncourt brothers, Virginia Woolf, and Anne Frank. Stunning reproductions of the original notebooks and manuscripts are complemented by extracts and quotations, and illustrated features set the diaries in their cultural and historical context. Essential reading for everyone who is passionate about history and literature, Remarkable Diaries provides a fascinating insight into the everyday lives, thoughts, and feelings of men and women through the centuries.
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Robotswithpersonality
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The coffee table book format may suggest a shallow read, but there's an awful lot of information packed in here! Although it acts more like an appetizer for any one life story you might want to read more about, so many of the original journals, diaries, featured here have been published in book or excerpt form that it simultaneously acts as an introduction and a reading list. 1/?

Robotswithpersonality 2/? Perhaps reflecting the changing technology, moving from handwriting to typing and online, three quarters of the book focuses on accounts from before 1900. Even given that much space, of course, it's no doubt just a sample of a fraction of what is out there in the world, though it tries to feature a number of nations, cultures, languages, even if it seems to me there were more white, western faces. 4w
Robotswithpersonality 3/? The accounts are careful to indicate the wrongdoings of a number of historical figures, even if their place in history still secured them a spot for discussion. 😑
The formatting is interesting because you'll see in images a sample of the diary, perhaps other examples of that person's work or things from their life, and a bit of in context imagery and wording besides the basic bio and what's significant about the diary and their life.
4w
Robotswithpersonality 4/? Some diaries get two two-page spreads, the second set 'in detail', with more aspects of the journal and their life.
The 'directory' at the end of each section of time covered felt a bit odd, because all of a sudden you'd get a two-page spread of columns of text covering a handful of extra diaries from the same time period without any further visuals or details. I mean, if you're going to include them, give them the page spread too!
4w
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Robotswithpersonality 5/? It wouldn't have made the book that much longer. 🤷🏼‍♂️
It makes sense that a good number of the entries are about writers, though I guess from the cover, I was surprised there were not more artists, or people who had made their diaries into art objects. It's really more of a who's who beyond the very first journals which are significant just for their place in the timeline of the medium's existence.
4w
Robotswithpersonality 6/? No surprise, unfortunately, that a number of diaries center on those who experienced or commented on conflicts, wars and revolutions, considering how often they feature in humanity's history.
The collection does include a fair amount of female contributors, the percentages feel as though they represent the timeline, the historical disparity in women having the ability to be recognized for literary achievement or work outside the home.
4w
Robotswithpersonality 7/7 It's a pleasing item to flip through, but if you're planning to read it cover to cover, I recommend taking it slow, it's an awful lot of disparate historical snippets to cram into your brain in a short period *cough* library loan period *cough*, though many figures and events will be familiar.
An interesting read, but I think I like focusing more on the life of one individual at a time. More memoirs to come!
4w
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Robotswithpersonality
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Such elegant phrasing of such an ugly thing.

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Robotswithpersonality
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“Color possess me...“ ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

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Robotswithpersonality
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Not just a prolific inventor, Edison apparently possessed stylish penmanship. A lot of photos of pages from the original journals or their manuscript copies in this collection, this is the first one in I could easily read.

StaceGhost “Slept as sound as a bug in a barrel of morphine” okay eddy you ball 4w
julesG That is remarkable penmanship. 4w
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Robotswithpersonality
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So half my mind is going: happy tree! 🌳☺️
And the other half is picturing the Ents trashing Saruman's tower. 😏 Perhaps no discontented, non-roaming trees....

GingerAntics I dunno, trees that are dying because humans are destroying the environment… could be discontented. Is anyone asking? Is there a tree survey? 1mo
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Robotswithpersonality
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Beautiful images, in words and paint.

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Robotswithpersonality
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“with the colours all shining“ 😌🎨

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Robotswithpersonality
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Wordsworth, obviously a fortuitous surname for Dorothy as well as her more famous brother. 🌼

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Robotswithpersonality
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Two languages in two different directions, and different parts of the date indicated in Arabic vs the Christian calendar, plus squeezing in another angle of text to make the most use of the space. This Sultan is more organized and proficient in handwriting than I will ever be.

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Robotswithpersonality
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😔

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Robotswithpersonality
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🎵“These are a few of my favourite...“🎶

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Robotswithpersonality
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Okay, I know 'breaking the fourth wall' is a thing and it has to do with camera angles and set design and meta in film, but can we pleeaaase figure out a similar expression that uses 'blow the roof off', (aside from its more literal 'expose or disrupt everything in a dramatic fashion') it would be so much fun! ☺️

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Robotswithpersonality
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A title to aspire to...good work, Ennin!

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BekaReid
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