The Golden Notebook: A Novel (Harper Perennial Deluxe Editions) (Paperback)
Staff Reviews
I chose "The Golden Notebook" by Doris Lessing as my 2019 notable book of the year. The story is written via four notebooks: black, red, yellow, and blue. All work together to form this complex, thought provoking, and at times disturbing novel. Doris Lessing explores early feminism, class relations, race, and sexuality throughout this tale. In the conclusion, she and her romantic partner slide into madness and a "golden notebook." For readers who enjoy examining real life issues through fiction, give this a read. For readers who feel that their own stories are complex and confusing, reading this will give you solace and representation.
— From Rose's Picks"The Golden Notebook is Doris Lessing's most important work and has left its mark upon the ideas and feelings of a whole generation of women." — New York Times Book Review
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 she 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 and threatened with insanity, Anna resolves to bring the threads of all four books together in a golden notebook.
Lessing's best-known and most influential novel, The Golden Notebook retains its extraordinary power and relevance decades after its initial publication.
Winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature, Doris Lessing was one of the most celebrated and distinguished writers of our time, the recipient of a host of international awards. She wrote more than thirty books—among them the novels Martha Quest, The Golden Notebook, and The Fifth Child. She died in 2013.
“A work of high seriousness....Absorbing and exciting.” — Irving Howe, New Republic
“The Golden Notebook is Doris Lessing’s most important work and has left its mark upon the ideas and feelings of a whole generation of women.” — Elizabeth Hardwick, New York Times Book Review
“A rewarding book, and an unusually perceptive one.” — Milwaukee Journal
“This exciting writer has tried much, aimed high, and has paraded a galaxy of gifts.” — Baltimore Sun
“No ordinary work of fiction…The technique, in a word, is brilliant.” — Saturday Review