SOURCE: D'Evelyn, Thomas. Review of A Book of One's Own: People and Their Diaries, by Thomas Mallon. Christian Science Monitor 77, no. 11 (7 December 1984): B15.

In the following review, D'Evelyn discusses Mallon's examination of the different styles of diarists and diaries in A Book of One's Own.

Since most of us at one time or another, if not continuously, keep a diary, [A Book of One's Own: People and Their Diaries] will have wide appeal. Much more than an anthology of pages from published diaries, it is a nicely written account of, as it says in the subtitle, people and their diaries. Mallon has analyzed the people of the title into seven unambiguous types, and the diary writers among us will want to know where they fit in.

One kind of diary antedates the diary proper. The commonplace book is really a blank book used to record things worth recording...