Why do we read diaries?
posted by anotherpanacea on Dec 6, 2007 - 31 comments

The Diary of John Cam Hobhouse. Hobhouse ^(Wiki) (1786-1869) was a close friend of George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, and "Hobby-O's" diary contains a vivid account of Hobhouse's friendship and travels with Byron. As editor Peter Cochran writes: "Educated at Westminster and Trinity College Cambridge, [Hobhouse] travelled east with Byron in 1809, was Best Man at Byron’s wedding in 1815, travelled across Switzerland in Byron’s company in 1816 after the separation, around Rome with Byron in 1817, and lived with Byron in Venice in the same year. He met Byron at Pisa again in 1822, after Byron’s facetious poem on his imprisonment in Newgate, My Boy Hobby-O, had almost terminated their friendship. As a member of the London Greek Committee he encouraged Byron on his last journey in 1823; and had he insisted, Byron’s memoirs would almost certainly not have been destroyed in 1824." (Memoirs which, in hindsight, are considered a "missing masterpiece.") Also read Hobhouse's account of Byron's funeral.
posted by jayder on Nov 1, 2006 - 6 comments

Letter from Fallujah. From an anonymous Army medic's journal entry.
posted by insomnia_lj on Nov 12, 2004 - 40 comments

Operation Teenage Angst Fest. Is all the war talk getting you down? Make like your younger self and wallow in some self-obsessed teen angst. You might even want to dig our your old journals and submit. Keep in mind the cardinal rule, though: it has to suck.
posted by maud on Mar 29, 2003 - 7 comments

Laurel Wellman thinks blogging is dumb. Well, you knew that was coming.
posted by brookish on Jul 2, 2002 - 32 comments

This is one amazing found diray!
Once you start reading this transcription, it is very hard to stop. Incredible. From the site:
Walking to work the week before Christmas, 2000, I found a notebook on the sidewalk, on 5th street between Mission and Folsom. I thought to find a phone number in it and return it, but after reading it, I couldn't find any contact info at all. What I did find was a diary, spanning about nine months of someone's life. Here is the contents of the notebook, reproduced as faithfully as possible.
posted by DragonBoy on Jan 17, 2001 - 46 comments