Essential Doris Lessing

Excerpts from The Golden Notebook read by Doris Lessing

""The Golden Notebook is Doris Lessing's most important work and has left its mark upon the ideas and feelings of a whole generation of women."" — New York Times Book Review

A feminist landmark and widely considered to be Lessing's most influential novel, The Golden Notebook tells the story of writer Anna Wulf, author of one very successful novel, who now keeps four notebooks. In one, with a black cover, she reviews the African experience of her earlier years. In a red one she records her political life, her disillusionment with communism. In a yellow one she writes a novel in which the heroine relives part of her own experience. And in a blue one she keeps a personal diary. Finally, in love with an American writer and threatened with insanity, Anna resolves to bring the threads of all four books together in a golden notebook.

The Golden Notebook retains its extraordinary power and relevance decades after its initial publication.