Commonplace Book: A Writer’s Journey Through Quotations, The

A commonplace book is the repository for a personal collection of quotations and scraps, pensees and poems. In vogue from the late sixteenth-century, their fans include John Milton, W H Auden and now Elizabeth Smither. Here she shares three of her commonplace books and reflects on the quotations she’s gathered that act as foil and ballast to her life and writing. There are no platitudes or sententious maxims here; instead the quotations range from the pensive to the screamingly funny; by the great and famous to the little known; from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to Elizabeth Bennet, Charles Simic to Montaigne, Monty Python to Henry James. With diversions serious and more frivolous along the way, The Commonplace Book offers keen insight into the influences and inspirations of a writer. A follow-up to her diary-book The Journal Box (1997), this is Elizabeth Smither - a woman ‘too balanced to be a writer’ - at her thoughtful, witty, delightful best.