This month’s column was inspired by a recent email from a friend. She’d just read No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club by Virginia Ironside and wondered if I knew of any more books written in diary format. A couple of titles came to mind immediately; upon doing a little research, I discovered there’s a plethora of books out there. Indeed, our library catalog has a separate genre category for "diary fiction" with more than 400 titles listed! Here's just a sampling; check with your local librarian for more suggestions.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes was one of the books that came to mind immediately. It began life in 1958 as a Hugo-Award winning short story, going on to win a Nebula Award for best novel in 1966 and an Academy Award for Cliff Robertson in the 1968 film version, Charly. Charly is a mentally disabled man who becomes a test subject for an experimental surgery to increase his intelligence. Algernon is a lab mouse who receives the same surgery. Both of their stories are told through Charly’s poignant journal entries. Suffice it to say, have some hankies ready when you read this one.

Two other "classic" diary novels worth a look are Diary of a Mad Housewife by Sue Kaufman and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos. Housewife is the story of upper-class New Yorker, Bettina Balser, who fears she is going mad and begins keeping a secret journal as part of her therapy. Her humor and insight as she searches for life’s meaning still resonate with readers 50 years later.

I was surprised to learn that the movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes starring Marilyn Monroe, was based on Anita Loos’ diary-format novel, first published in 1925. Loos’ book tells the story of Lorelei Lee, the "Little Girl from Little Rock" who charms her way across Europe in search of love and luxury.

The diary format also lends itself well to "tales of the Old West." One of my favorites and one I recommend to anyone who will listen is The Diary of Mattie Spenser by Sandra Dallas. It’s the story of a woman who travels with her husband by Conestoga wagon from Iowa to the Colorado Territories in 1865.

Along those same lines is These is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine by Nancy Turner. In 1881, at age 17, Sarah moves with her family to a ranch in the Arizona Territories. Based on the real-life exploits of the author’s great-grandmother, the journal follows Sarah’s growth from an unschooled and fiery teenager into a literate and well-respected Western woman. Turner has written two sequels to this book: Sarah’s Quilt and Star Garden.

Another intriguing look at western life is One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus. This novel is based on a clandestine (and fictional) Brides for Indians program which gave the Cheyenne nation 1,000 white women, recruited from various jails, debtor’s prisons and mental institutions, in exchange for 1,000 horses and peace between their nation and the United States.

More Diary Novels

• Any Human Heart by William Boyd
• Breaking Out of Bedlam by Leslie Larson
• Clara Callan by Richard Bruce Wright
• The Darwin Conspiracy by John Darnton
• The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain
• The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
• I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
• The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen by Syrie James
• A Season of Fire and Ice by Lloyd Zimpel
• The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn by Robin Maxwell
• Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich

Look for the books mentioned above on our website or talk to your librarian for more reading suggestions.