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How Diaries Evolved from Lists to Personal Histories

Roland Allen’s new book, The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper explores the history of journals and why we need them.

There’s one big question at the heart of it, which no one’s ever answered, which is why people who were using notebooks all the time—in Italy, for instance, but also Germany, France, everywhere in Europe—for hundreds of years, yet no one keeps what we think of as a personal diary. This Content is Available for Slate Plus members only Simone Biles Just Did the Unthinkable Not Because She Could—but Because She Had To What’s Going On With the Two Women Boxers Who “Failed” a Gender Test I love the Mark Twain notebook that had, was it three layers so that he could write notes about his travels and then rip out a page?

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