Summary
A NEW volume of diaries from Simon Gray is always a rare treat - The Smoking Diaries (Granta, Pounds 12.99) is (literally) achingly and frequently very movingly funny, though quite why it should be is rather mysterious, concerning as it very often does, illness and death, addiction and despair.
Gray has stopped drinking (from four bottles of champagne a day) and has halved his cigarette intake to just 30 a day, and still he remains human. The honesty of the diaries is the main thing here - that and the seemingly effortless articulacy and very grownup humour.See the full content of this document
Extract
Who's Reading What... ; Joseph Connolly
Judith Flanders's The Victorian ...
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