The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing Group Read

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing was first published in 1962. Some tags applied to this work include Women Novelists, Diaries (will work for BINGO epistolary), Friendships, England, London. Interestingly the chapters are FREE WOMEN 1, FREE WOMEN 2, FREE WOMEN 3, FREEWOMEN 4 AND FREE WOMEN 5. i am guessing that this will be a work of and about women. The author has two introductions in my book, one written in 1971 (the year I graduated high school, and 1993 when my daughter was in high school).

Doris Lessing was born 1919 in Iran and died 2013 in England.

Thanks for starting this. I'm planning to join in. I've read a few of Lessing's other books. I loved The Grass is Singing. I didn't like The Fifth Child as much. And I also read the companion books that make up The Diaries of Jane Somers - I loved the first and thought the second was less interesting.

I don't know much about The Golden Notebook except that it's long and has been on my shelf for quite a while.

>2 japaul22: I recently read The Grass is Singing so I hope I like this one too. It has been on my shelf for a very long time.

I have Doris Lessing on my radar this year for my Nobel winners category and am planning to read The Grass Is Singing. When I saw this thread I thought maybe I'd switch to this book but I don't have it and there's a wait for the e-book at the library, so I guess I'll just pop in here now and then to see what it's about.

>4 dudes22: I think The Grass is Singing is a perfect place to start from what I've read of Lessing.

I am doing a tiny bit of research on The Golden Notebook to see what I'm getting into, and I came upon this article. It asks 4 women authors of different ages to write about what The Golden Notebook means to them. I only scanned the article because I didn't want to read spoilers, but I'll link it here for future reference.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/06/the-golden-notebook-50-years-on

I have two books started already. Once I finish one of them, probably in the next few days, I will start this.

So i did start this. I read the first section and a little of the "black notebook" and I'm not sure I'll continue right now. I don't think I'm in the right frame of mind to read this. I've never been a fan of this era and really don't buy in to all the psychoanalysis. I'd still like to read it sometime, but with the quarantine frame of mine I don't think I can do it.