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The Golden Notebook

by Doris Lessing

Four notebooks, one fractured life

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Awards & Recognition

  • Critical praise

    Praise from The New York Times Book Review

    The review calls the novel Doris Lessing's most important work and says it influenced a generation of women.

AlbakiReads Editorial

Four notebooks, one fractured life

Anna, a successful novelist, divides her writing among four notebooks: one revisits her earlier years in Africa, another records her political involvement and disillusionment with communism, a third contains a novel that reworks part of her experience, and a fourth serves as a personal diary. The book’s organizing structure brings these distinct records into relation as Anna faces a troubled love affair and fears for her sanity, leading her to attempt to gather their threads in a fifth, golden notebook. The form makes questions of personal identity, political belief, memory, and fiction part of the novel’s subject, not just its framework.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in novels built around diaries, notebooks, and writing within the story.
  • Readers drawn to fiction exploring political disillusionment and personal identity.
  • Readers seeking a classic novel concerned with women’s lives and creative work.

Themes

Fragmented identityPolitical disillusionmentMemory and personal experienceWriting and fictionWomen’s lives

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

"The Golden Notebook is Doris Lessing's most important work and has left its mark upon the ideas and feelings of a whole generation of women." -- New York Times Book Review

Anna is a writer, author of one very successful novel, who now keeps four notebooks. In one, with a black cover, she reviews the African experience of her earlier years. In a red one she records her political life, her disillusionment with communism. In a yellow one she writes a novel in which the heroine relives part of her own experience. And in a blue one she keeps a personal diary. Finally, in love with an American writer and threatened with insanity, Anna resolves to bring the threads of all four books together in a golden notebook.

Lessing's best-known and most influential novel, The Golden Notebook retains its extraordinary power and relevance decades after its initial publication.

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