I did not care for the repetition, which is part and parcel of the looping structure.

I can understand why this is considered a literary classic, but… Certain sections of the notebooks are engaging and memorable. There are several keen observations about human nature. I especially appreciated her discussions with her therapist. I liked parts of this book and found other parts annoying. She is on the edge of mental instability and suffers from writer’s block. Anna is attempting to compartmentalize her life. It is written in a looping style, alternating segments from the different colored notebooks. It is a mix of autobiography, news clippings of the time period, and novels within a novel. The titular golden notebook is Anna’s attempt to bring the other four together into one cohesive whole.Įxcerpts from the notebooks are interspersed with segments called Free Women, which relate the lives of Anna, her friend Molly, their families, and relationship partners. The yellow notebook is an attempt to write a second novel based on a failed relationship. The red notebook recounts her membership in the Communist Party, and her growing disillusion with it. The black notebook documents her time in Southern Rhodesia before and during WWII, which inspired her successful first novel.

Published in 1962, this book is a character study of Anna Wulf, a divorced writer with a young daughter living in London in the 1950s.

Author of the golden notebook