The Golden Notebook

Lessing, Doris

ISBN 10: 0060975903 / ISBN 13: 9780060975906

Published by HarperPerennial, New York, 1995

About this Item

A very good+ paperback with crinkle on front cover & writing on 1st end page. 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 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, threatened with insanity, Anna tries to bring the threads of all four books together in a golden notebook.

Seller Inventory # PA0992

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Golden Notebook
• Publisher: HarperPerennial, New York
• Publication Date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060975903
• ISBN 13: 9780060975906
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 2nd HarperPerrenial.
• Condition: Very Good+
• Seller catalogs:
  • Fiction
  • Gender

About this title

Synopsis

One of the most important books of the growing feminist movement of the 1950s, it was brought to a wider public by the Nobel Prize award to Doris Lessing in 2007. Authoress Anna Wulf attempts to overcome writers block by writing a comprehensive golden notebook which draws together the preoccupations of her life, each of which is examined in a different notebook: sources of her creative inspiration in a black book, communism in a red book, the breakdown of her marriage in a yellow book, and day-to-day emotions and dreams in a black book. Annas struggle to unify the various strands of her life - emotional, political and professional amasses into a fascinating encyclopaedia of female experience in the 50s. In this authentic, taboo-breaking novel, Lessing brings the plight of womens lives, from obscurity behind closed doors, into broad daylight. The Golden Notebook resonates with the concerns and experiences of a great many women and is a true modern classic, thoroughly deserving of its reputation as a feminist bible. A notoriously long and complex work, it is given a new life by this - its first unabridged recording.

Review

British stage, film and television actress Juliet Stevenson ... gives a masterful performance, especially considering the wide range of characters in this book... --Joanna Theiss

First published in 1962, Doris Lessing's brilliant work defined a generation of women disillusioned by a world that relegated them to second-class citizenship. Lessing's book became a 'feminist bible' for women of the '60s, taking on the ideas of female sexuality, professional responsibility, friendship, political disenchantment and personal betrayal. Juliet Stevenson gives a no-nonsense yet deeply sensitive portrayal of writer Anna Wulf, who is trying to keep herself from falling apart by keeping four notebooks: black for her writing experiences, red for her politics, yellow for her relationships and emotions and blue for her daily accounts. As Anna explores her life, Stevenson's sharp, intelligent narration clarifies each thoughtful comment, each personal failure and each triumph. --AudioFile