The Misanthrope’s Corner

Having at last disposed of the avalanche of newspaper clippings known as my Idea Files, I am now sorting out the stack of spiral notebooks that constitute my Journal. All writers are supposed to keep a journal and include it in our literary papers, so that’s where mine is going as soon as I kill two birds with one stone and get a column out of it.

The word “journal” calls to mind small, elegant books bound in hand-tooled Moroccan leather, not drugstore school tablets with Garfield on the cover, but that’s posterity’s problem. My very first spiral volume goes back so far that the faded price sticker says 39 cents. This is the one I’m tempted to toss because it’s full of old chestnuts like Socrates’ “The unexamined life is not worth living” I was still in the stage of writing “How true!” in margins so I come off as positively giddy throughout.

About the Author

Florence King

Florence King was a contributing editor of National Review.

Featured Tags

Having at last disposed of the avalanche of newspaper clippings known as my Idea Files, I am now sorting out the stack of spiral notebooks that constitute my Journal. All writers are supposed to keep a journal and include it in our literary papers, so that’s where mine is going as soon as I kill two birds with one stone and get a column out of it.

The word “journal” calls to mind small, elegant books bound in hand-tooled Moroccan leather, not drugstore school tablets with Garfield on the cover, but that’s posterity’s problem. My very first spiral volume goes back so far that the faded price sticker says 39 cents. This is the one I’m tempted to toss because it’s full of old chestnuts like Socrates’ “The unexamined life is not worth living” I was still in the stage of writing “How true!” in margins so I come off as positively giddy throughout.