The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists

Though production difficulties prevented full reviews of the young Scotland press's latest volumes, readers shouldn't miss Irene and Alan Taylor's doorstop-sized, decade-in-the-making assemblage of notable diary excerpts. The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists gathers brief and often wonderful entries by poets and philosophers, businessmen and barons for each day of the year. On January 1st, for example, the ""first real diarist"" Samuel Pepys records how, on waking suddenly, he knocked his wife on the nose with his elbow; Katherine Mansfield deems her new diary ""vile"" but vows to keep it anyway; James Boswell relishes a romantic encounter; and the fictional Adrian Mole resolves to stop cleaning the tub with his mother's Buff-Puff. Spanning four centuries and addressing countless topics (from thoughtful reflections diary-keeping to gossip, politics and mundane musings) this book is for the expert and the dilettante, for the coffee table and the reference shelf. ( Nov.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.