The private life of the diary: from pepys to tweets : a history of the diary as an art form

The Serendipity Foundation demands anarchy over apathy. They deal in terrorism with a social conscience. And they're going to make the British government play along. When four British citizens are kidnapped in Cairo, they soon realise this is no ordinary hostage situation: the accommodation is three star and the menu à la carte. Without the deep regrets and thwarted ambitions of their lives back home, they soon come to view their kidnapping as a welcome escape. They are the captives of the Serendipity Foundation, a tiny collective with a millennium-old prophecy to fulfil and a rather redeeming quality: they only demand ransoms that people would want to give. As the ransom demands begin, the British government has no choice but to play along... can they really allow four men to die because parliament refuses to conduct Prime Minister's Questions in Haiku? As the threats and demands escalate, so does the tension, until they challenge the very foundations and assumptions of the media, industry and society. The Serendipity Foundation , bursting with the satirical deftness of a Douglas Coupland and the subversive intensity of an Owen Jones, is a thrilling yet endearing satirical novel for the new political generation that will make us question why we settle for a lesser world when we have the power to make it better. The Serendipity Foundation demands anarchy over apathy. They deal in terrorism with a social conscience. And they're going to make the British government play along. When four British citizens are kidnapped in Cairo, they soon realise this is no ordinary hostage situation: the accommodation is three star and the menu A la carte. Without the deep regrets and thwarted ambitions of their lives back home, they soon come to view their kidnapping as a welcome escape. They are the captives of the Serendipity Foundation, a tiny collective with a millennium-old prophecy to fulfil and a rather redeeming quality: they only demand ransoms that people would want to give. As the ransom demands begin, the British government has no choice but to play along ... can they really allow four men to die because parliament refuses to conduct Prime Minister's Questions in Haiku' As the threats and demands escalate, so does the tension, until they challenge the very foundations and assumptions of the media, industry and society. The Serendipity Foundation, bursting with the satirical deftness of a Douglas Coupland and the subversive intensity of an Owen Jones, is a thrilling yet endearing satirical novel for the new political generation that will make us question why we settle for a lesser world when we have the power to make it better Diaries keep secrets, harbouring our fantasies and fictional histories. They are substitute boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses and friends. But in this age of social media, the role of the diary as a private confidante has been replaced by a culture of public self-disclosure. The Private Life of the Diary: from Pepys to Tweets is an elegantly-told story of the evolution – and perhaps death – of the diary. It traces its origins to seventeenth-century naval administrator, Samuel Pepys, and continues to twentieth-century diarist Virginia Woolf, who recorded everything from her personal confessions about her irritation with her servants to her memories of Armistice Day and the solar eclipse of 1927. Sally Bayley explores how diaries can sometimes record our lives as we live them, but that we often indulge our fondness for self-dramatization, like the teenaged Sylvia Plath who proclaimed herself 'The Girl Who Would be God'. This book is an examination of the importance of writing and self-reflection as a means of forging identity. It mourns the loss of the diary as an acutely private form of writing. And it champions it as a conduit to self-discovery, allowing us to ask ourselves the question: Who or What am I in relation to the world? Diaries keep secrets, harboring our fantasies and fictional histories. They are substitute boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses and friends. But in this age of social media, the role of the diary as a private confidante has been replaced by a culture of public self-disclosure. This is an elegantly-told story of the evolutionand perhaps deathof the diary. It traces its origins to 17th-century naval administrator, Samuel Pepys, and continues to 20th-century diarist Virginia Woolf, who recorded everything from her personal confessions about her irritation with her servants to her memories of Armistice Day and the solar eclipse of 1927. Sally Bayley explores how diaries can sometimes record our lives as we live them, but that we often indulge our fondness for self-dramatization, like the teenaged Sylvia Plath who proclaimed herself "The Girl Who Would be God." This book is an examination of the importance of writing and self-reflection as a means of forging identity. It mourns the loss of the diary as an acutely private form of writing, and champions it as a conduit to self-discovery, allowing us to ask ourselves the Who or What am I in relation to the world? Diaries keep secrets, harbouring our fantasies and fictional histories. They are substitute boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses and friends. But in this age of social media, the role of the diary as a private confidante has been replaced by a culture of public self-disclosure. 'The Private Life of the Diary' is an elegantly-told story of the evolution - and perhaps death - of the diary. It traces its origins to 17th-century naval administrator, Samuel Pepys, and continues to 20th-century diarist Virginia Woolf, who recorded everything from her personal confessions about her irritation with her servants to her memories of Armistice Day and the solar eclipse of 1927. Sally Bayley explores how diaries can sometimes record our lives as we live them, but that we often indulge our fondness for self-dramatisation, like the teenaged Sylvia Plath who proclaimed herself 'The Girl Who Would be God' The elegantly told story of the evolution of the diary - from a private means of self-expression in the seventeenth century to the public sharing of our life via social media.