A Book to Mark an Occasion

Winning the Bath Children’s Novel Award last week was an excellent excuse to go to the bookshop and choose something special: a book I wouldn’t normally buy.

I chose Helen Garner’s How to End a Story. It’s a collection of her diaries, spanning twenty years. And it’s a whopper. It’ll take twenty years to read. But what excites me is how Garner dispenses with dates and context and transitions. Her entries are just gems on a plate. Unlinked. No chain, no setting, no velvet cushion.

Do I have my own yellow notebook? No, but that orange one will do. I’ll see what I’ve got in a year.

“What is the point of this diary? There is always something deeper, that I don’t write, even when I think I’m saying everything.” p.26