Our Diaries, Ourselves : How Diarists Chronicle Their Lives and Document Our World

A spirited exploration of the diary, from pen-and-paper to TikTok, for the people who write—and read—them

Featuring iconic diary keepers like Audre Lorde, Virginia Woolf, Alison Bechdel, and Taylor Swift

We know what it was like to be an out lesbian in 19th-century England, what the inner world of a young girl in hiding looks like, and what the earliest internet users’ favorite websites were, in part, because of diaries. Our Diaries, Ourselves is a joyful deep dive into this time-honored tradition of preserving who we are.

From Marie Curie to Taylor Swift, this book illustrates how keeping a diary helps us to understand ourselves and our world. Tour Italy’s “City of the Diary,” Pieve Santo Stefano, which boasts a diary archive, museum, and annual festival. Discover how women have used diaries for centuries as canvases for self-expression and self-care and as tools of resistance in a patriarchal society. Travel through time and across cultures, from renowned figures to ordinary people, for glimpses of their lives—different yet comfortingly familiar.

Our Diaries, Ourselves is a treasure trove of social history, feminist rebellion, and personal reflection. This book celebrates the vibrant and varied ways we live our lives and the stories we choose to tell about them. And it reminds us of a uniquely human need that transcends time, language, and technology: to see and be seen, remember and be remembered.