The Diary of a Nobody

11 April Sat down to write a capsule review of The Diary of a Nobody. Interrupted by a loving thump at the door. It was Mark Nicholls from my review of Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, a piece of spoof metafiction that ranks as my most liked GR review. I studied my 23-year-old self......more

Brilliant! A book filled with unimportant characters, not about anything in particular, in which nothing much happens. Well not exactly, this is a satire on being ordinary. Admittedly modern readers may not find it as funny as when it was first published in Punch in the late 19th century, as the cont......more

The nobody is Mr. Pooter, at times Mr. Porter or Mr. Pewter, not memorable enough for people to get his name right. He and his wife have moved in an upward direction from London. This is the suburbs of the 1890s. He’s keen on appearances but has trouble getting respect from his junior colleagues at......more

I so enjoyed this! Such a funny, warming Bd interesting exploration of late 19th century lower middle class life.......more

Every nobody is actually a somebody Forgetting quarantines, Trump, lack of Chinese food, leaf blowers on Saturday mornings, raccoons in the trash, anthropology, and rainy Mondays, I took up THE DIARY OF A NOBODY, which I’d bought seven years ago at a local yard sale and completely neglected since the......more