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Jenny Diski

Jenny Diski is writing a book about St Helena. A novel, Apology for the Woman Writing, is coming out in November.

From the London Review dated 3 July 2008

Diary

The ‘you can’t understand until you’ve lived there’ argument had kept me from visiting South Africa quite effectively. If being there would make me understanding of apartheid, I preferred to stay away. But now it had to be a very different place, 18 years after Nelson Mandela walked free from prison, 14 years on from the day when South Africa had its first democratic election. I was going to be there anyway – Cape Town was the end point of another journey – and I thought I’d spend a couple of weeks and look around; be a regular tourist in a place where minds had been changed. [ read more . . . ]

Selected bibliography

  • Apology for the Woman Writing (2008)  Buy this book
  • On Trying to Keep Still (2006)
  • After These Things: A Novel (2004)
  • A View from the Bed and Other Observations (2003)
  • Stranger on a Train: Daydreaming and Smoking around America (2002)
  • Only Human: A Divine Comedy (2000)
  • Skating to Antarctica (1998)
  • Don’t (1998)
  • The Dream Mistress (1996)
  • The Vanishing Princess (1995)
  • Monkey’s Uncle (1994)
  • Happily Ever After (1991)
  • Then Again (1990)
  • Like Mother (1988)
  • Rainforest (1987)
  • Nothing Natural (1986)

Contributor’s website: www.jennydiski.co.uk

Search the web for Jenny Diski: Google · Yahoo! · AltaVista · Wikipedia

In the LRB archive

Help-Self · 6 November 2008

The Khugistic Sandal · 9 October 2008

Diary: Jenny Diski tries to stay awake · 31 July 2008

Diary: On Not Liking South Africa · 3 July 2008

subscriber-only content Extreme Understanding · 10 April 2008

subscriber-only content Not a Pretty Sight · 24 January 2008

subscriber-only content Don’t Die · 1 November 2007

Short Cuts: Internet Misfit · 18 October 2007

subscriber-only content Not Enjoying Herself · 16 August 2007

subscriber-only content Tunnel Vision · 2 August 2007

Seriously Uncool · 22 March 2007

  • At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches by Susan Sontag, edited by Paolo Dilonardo and Anne Jump, preface by David Rieff
  • A Photographer’s Life 1990-2005 by Annie Leibovitz

Jowls are available · 8 February 2007

Diary: The Friendly Spider Programme · 30 November 2006

subscriber-only content Excessive Bitters · 7 September 2006

  • An Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveller by Jason Roberts

subscriber-only content Heaps upon Heaps · 20 July 2006

  • Lion’s Honey: The Myth of Samson by David Grossman

subscriber-only content Be mean and nasty · 25 May 2006

  • Nothing like a Dame: The Scandals of Shirley Porter by Andrew Hosken  Buy this book

The Housekeeper of a World-Shattering Theory · 23 March 2006

  • Martha Freud: A Biography by Katja Behling, translated by R.D.V. Glasgow  Buy this book

subscriber-only content Had we lived . . . · 9 February 2006

  • Scott of the Antarctic: A Life of Courage and Tragedy in the Extreme South by David Crane

subscriber-only content Diary: The Je Ne Sais Quoi · 15 December 2005

Giving Hysteria a Bad Name · 17 November 2005

  • Take a Girl like Me: Life with George by Diana Melly  Buy this book
  • Slowing Down by George Melly

subscriber-only content I blame Foucault · 22 September 2005

subscriber-only content My word, Miss Perkins · 4 August 2005

Mirror Images · 31 March 2005

  • The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade by Piers Morgan  Buy this book

Who wears hats now? · 3 March 2005

  • Lost Worlds: What Have We Lost and Where Did It Go? by Michael Bywater  Buy this book

XXX · 18 November 2004

  • The Man who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram by Thomas Blass  Buy this book

subscriber-only content Darling, are you mad? · 4 November 2004

subscriber-only content Diary: Jenny Diski nearly jumps · 5 August 2004

subscriber-only content Think of Mrs Darling · 4 March 2004

  • Goffman's Legacy edited by Javier Treviño

subscriber-only content Cuddlesome · 8 January 2004

It’s so beautiful · 20 November 2003

  • The Story of V: Opening Pandora’s Box by Catherine Blackledge

It wasn’t him, it was her · 25 September 2003

  • Nietzsche’s Sister and the Will to Power: A Biography of Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche by Carol Diethe

Flowery, rustic, tippy, smokey · 19 June 2003

  • Green Gold: The Empire of Tea by Alan Macfarlane and Iris Macfarlane

Tremble for Tomorrow · 22 May 2003

  • The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps 1939-44 by Herman Kruk, edited by Benjamin Harshav, translated by Barbara Harshav

subscriber-only content Mad Monk · 6 February 2003

  • The New Biographical Dictionary of Film by David Thomson
  • Nobody’s Perfect: Writings from the ‘New Yorker’ by Anthony Lane
  • Paris Hollywood: Writings on Film by Peter Wollen

Diary: Jenny Diski is dragged to the shoe shop · 14 November 2002

Hang on to the doily · 25 July 2002

  • The Sexual Life of Catherine M. by Catherine Millet, translated by Adriana Hunter

subscriber-only content Damp-Lipped Hilary · 23 May 2002

  • Trouble at Willow Gables and Other Fictions by Philip Larkin, edited by James Booth

Don’t think about it · 25 April 2002

  • The Girl from the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell by Hilary Spurling

subscriber-only content Entitlement · 18 October 2001

  • Dangerous Muse: A Life of Caroline Blackwood by Nancy Schoenberger

Oh, Andrea Dworkin · 6 September 2001

  • Misogyny: The Male Malady by David Gilmore

subscriber-only content My Little Lollipop · 22 March 2001

  • The Truth at Last: My Story by Christine Keeler and Douglas Thompson

subscriber-only content Einstein at the Bus-Stop · 8 February 2001

subscriber-only content Stinking Rich · 16 November 2000

  • Branson by Tom Bower

A Long Forgotten War · 6 July 2000

  • Promise of a Dream: A Memoir of the 1960s by Sheila Rowbotham

A keen horseman with a new pair of green suede chaps is guaranteed to ride into the sunset · 4 March 1999

  • A Slight and Delicate Creature: The Memoirs of Margaret Cook

Did Jesus walk on water because he couldn’t swim? · 20 August 1998

  • The Children of Noah: Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times by Raphael Patai

Not currently in the LRB archive

 not available in archive Thank you, Disney · 24 August 2000

  • The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property Value in Disney’s New Town by Andrew Ross
  • Celebration, USA: Living in Disney’s Brave New Town by Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins

 not available in archive At Free Love Corner · 30 March 2000

  • Literary Seductions: Compulsive Writers and Diverted Readers by Frances Wilson

 not available in archive Diary · 2 March 2000

 not available in archive I thought I saw Dante in Gonzagagassse · 3 February 2000

  • Vertigo by W.G. Sebald, translated by Michael Hulse

 not available in archive A Human Being · 25 November 1999

  • Karl Marx by Francis Wheen
  • Adventures in Marxism by Marshall Berman

 not available in archive Feel the burn · 30 September 1999

  • Pain: The Science of Suffering by Patrick Wall

 not available in archive Perfectly Human · 1 July 1999

  • Lillie Langtry: Manners, Masks and Morals by Laura Beatty
  • Véra (Mrs Vladimir Nabokov): Portrait of a Marriage by Stacy Schiff

 not available in archive A life, surely? · 18 February 1999

  • The Ossie Clark Diaries edited by Henrietta Rous

 not available in archive The Will of the Fathers · 10 December 1998

  • Abraham on Trial: The Social Legacy of the Biblical Myth by Carol Delaney

 not available in archive Diary · 15 October 1998

 not available in archive Diary · 1 January 1998

From the LRB letters page