This is a true story. Now most people would walk right by a skip even if ,on looking in, they saw a large assortment of notebooks. Thankfully, not Alexander Masters. Most people on discovering these notebooks were diaries would put them all in date order and set about quickly identifying exactly who the author was. Thankfully, not Alexander Masters. Instead, over a period of years, he randomly dips in and out of the 100 plus books with their 4 million words actively avoiding trying to identify the writer. Indeed, by accident at one point, he believes he has discovered her name but is so pleased when proven wrong, that he delights on calling her "not Mary" for many chapters. His reason for all this is to avoid pigeon- holing her but rather to come to grips with the person behind these seemingly compulsive ramblings that span a period of some 40 years of a woman's life. As a result we go on an intriguing journey in his company and slowly find ourselves giving dimension, character and empathy to "not Mary". But all good things must come to an end and, in this respect, the latter part of this story is both totally unexpected and riveting. To say more would be to spoil things but I can only repeat the diarist is "not Mary"!

I have read several excellent books since I've been reviewing for Netgalley and to be honest when I chose this one I thought it was a novel. It isn't. It's quite unlike anything else and must occupy a category of its own.

Some years ago several boxes of diaries were found in a skip in Cambridge by friends of the writer Alexander Masters. After a another few years he ends up as custodian of the unknown diarist's work. He ignores them for a while but on eventually dipping into them, becomes intrigued. Who is this unnamed person? Why were the diaries thrown out? Who is the oft-mentioned E?

In a manner befitting a detective novel Masters begins his investigation. Picking up the odd clue in the writing, he discovers where the writer lived, details of work done and schools attended and passions felt. He does not at first read the diaries in date order but gathers information sometimes from the early years - the fifties - and sometimes from the later ones.

Assuming the writer must be dead - or why would the books have been in a skip? - he pursues his mysterious quarry from Cambridge to London to the Wirral and back again.

The diarist is an artist - a painter, a pianist, a writer; great symphonies will be composed, novels will be published, the world will one day know this person. There is passion for life - and an inability to do anything other than write about it. The diaries move from teenage fantasies full of sketches, to adult depression; from a head-in-the-clouds inability to concentrate on mundane work, to an obsession with television personalities.

The writer is spiteful, hateful, loving, vulnerable, weak, full of grandiose ideas and ultimately ineffectual. There is hunger for acceptance and the refusal to act in an acceptable manner. An odd attraction to elderly women reveals itself.

This is an amazing book. It has the grip of a detective novel combined with the fascination of a biography. Covering over fifty years, it allows us to see into the mind of another person - to see all the grand schemes and petty annoyances, to gain insight to the private thoughts and private language of another human being in way I have never before encountered. Most published diarists write from the start with an eye on publication. This one did not.

Masters has a warm and human style. He both likes and dislikes the subject of his 'biography' and tells the tale with humour and self-deprecation. All life is here - ordinary life - a life discarded in a skip.

This is a biographical detective story! In 2001 a set of 148 diaries were found in a skip in Cambridge and set the wheels in motion in the authors' mind to find out more about this person contained inside these personal records.

It is a fascinating concept as I think we're all a little nosey when it comes to diaries and just what people put in them, and why! So when this many were found thrown out it makes you wonder what happened to that person and why they kept records for so long - the diaries were started in 1960 and the last entry was just weeks before they were discarded.

The author puts in a great effort in tracing the history of 'I' whose diaries they were, even contacting graphologists and it was interesting to see how he traced the steps over the years to track down any snippet of info he could as to the identity and life story.

It was an easy to read book that showed a wide range of experiences from the happy to the darker side of depression, and the intrigue kept me reading and interested all the way through.

The book blurb describes A Life Discarded as a true, shocking, poignant and often hilarious story. True it is, but I struggled with the rest. Mr Masters worked for five years to produce a novel which would represent the life he uncovered in the 148 diaries discarded in a skip. I found myself unable to join in with his enthusiasm about, and theories on the writer until very late on.
This is at least partly due to my lack of understanding of diary writing. Ordinary diarists can be self- indulgent, single minded, with their musings on commonplace happenings, and more importantly, they are not writing with an audience in mind. When I cast my mind back to my own short-lived 12th and 13th year journals (which I still have, but have never re-read), I forgave the immature, bodily- function- absorbed vague person ‘I’ was being revealed as.
All that remained then was to try to enjoy the method employed to reveal the identity of ‘I’. Mr Masters displayed enormous self-discipline in turning his back when clues led to facts.
I breathed a huge sigh of relief when Flora suggested that the diaries be catalogued into chronological order. And following that advice did indeed produce results. At the same time, I did appreciate the argument that to tidy up is not necessarily the best way to make order of a mess.
The final few chapters were for me the most enjoyable. An interesting and thought- provoking experience.
Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins UK, 4th Estate for this copy.

I looked forward to reading this book as "A Life Backwards" had been so good. Sadly the author's unusual approach to writing biographies misfires in this book. If the owner of the discarded diaries, plus the person who threw them in the skip, doesn't care about the diaries, then why should anyone else? - that was the challenge and it was not met. At worst this book felt like prying, and the most interesting chapters were the early ones when the diaries were found. A disappointing read.

I really enjoyed A Life Discarded and thought the concept was very original for a biography. I thought the concept was very original – finding hundreds of diaries dumped in a skip and trying to figure out who they belonged to. This is a bit different from the usual biographies. I liked the sketches and snippets of handwriting samples scattered throughout A Life Discarded. This added a level of authenticity. I thought A Life Discarded was fascinating – what would I do in similar circumstances? There’s something fascinating and appealing about getting to nosy inside someone else’s life. I would probably have read the diaries out to sheer nosiness but wouldn’t have spared much thought to who they belonged to. I liked the way Masters goes about investigating the diaries and their potential owner, gradually finding little truths which added up to bigger piece of the puzzle. I’d recommend A Life Discarded if you’re looking for a biography that offers something a little different.

I really could not engage with this book and gave up after the first few pages.

When I saw this book on NetGalley I was so intrigued! Sadly, the book was a little disappointing and did seem to be padded out in places. The diaries were a good find, but the book left me a little baffled by the end.

I love the idea. Over 100 old diaries to read and puzzle over. And it started well, with lots of clues and red herrings. An interesting detective story with no gory murders.
But the it began to feel artificially drawn out. There were simple and obvious avenues which could have been followed but were ignored or even deliberately avoided. I felt this detracted from the story and it lost its impetus.
I did continue to read as the whole idea is intriguing but I must confess to some skipping from about halfway.

Stuart A life Backwards was my first introduction to Masters' work, he clearly has a real talent for the biographical story format! Now I really enjoyed the aforementioned book this didn't quite live up to expectations but it's well written and pulls you in. Masters' allows the private world of diaries to burst forth. It's interesting and engaging just not as a much as Stuart.

Really interesting read. Bit like a biography, with hints of mystery. Enjoyed that each chapter, little pieces of the puzzle was coming together. A really interesting book!

A Life Discarded by Alexander Masters is the most unusual book I’ve read this year. Thinking about this review, I tried to come up with a novel to compare it to and the only one I can think of is Tristram Shandy.

Like Sterne's novel, A Life Discarded is curious and whimsical. It's a much shorter work than Tristram Shandy though and, to me, that's a good thing.

It was the description of A Life Discarded that first caught my attention. A biographical detective story based on diaries found in a skip sounded intriguing.

The diarist is a young woman, interested in the arts and apparently a bit eccentric. She writes a lot — thousands of words every week — and her notebooks are illustrated with occasional drawings.

Much of her writing is about how she isn’t exploiting her talent for writing. This is partly because the diaries take up time that she could spend more creatively. Somewhere, the narrator admits he spent five years “studying diaries nobody wants in which nothing happens”. However, don’t let that put you off because, if anything, that’s kind of the point of A Life Discarded.

It took me a while to get into this book. This was because, initially, I found it frustrating that the narrator didn’t put the diaries into chronological order and get on with cracking the case.

As the book progressed, I began to see method in the narrator’s madness. But I still questioned whether I wanted to continue reading because neither the diarist nor the narrator captured my interest.

However, the idea on which the book is based held my attention, perhaps more than the quirkiness of the writing. So, by the end, I found it an easier read and felt that, at least partly, I understood what the author was trying to achieve.

I really enjoyed the whole concept of trying to find out who the mystery diary writer was from the stacks of densely written diaries found in a skip. I liked the way that we follow the process of Masters thoughts. He was convinced from the start, for example, that the diarist was a man but we find out she isn't and he doesn't try to disguise his mistakes or assumptions. I did find it quite frustrating that he jumped about all over the place - I would have preferred the more angular approach that Masters friend advocated - and I did want to hear more from some parts of her life and less from others. But I enjoyed Masters quirky, personal way of telling the story, blending his own life with his diary discoveries - just sometimes got a bit lost in his logic. I found the final part fascinating when he met the diarist and talked about the diaries. It would have been a loss to the book if she had been dead, as Masters was convinced she was for most of it, as it demonstrated how condensed, private, fierce, unedited, are thoughts entered into a diary and how our social and public faces are filtered down. An intriguing if sometimes frustrating read but different in a good way.

Honestly? This book did not work for me. I only pushed myself to finish it because I'd received it for review.

Essentially over 100 diaries are found in a skip and after some time make their way to Masters. As a biographer Masters attempts to find out about the life of the mysterious diarist about whom he knows nothing. The premise sounded good but the execution was incredibly frustrating. Things like the diarists name, date of birth and a whole host of other details are staring Masters in the face and yet it takes him up to 5 years to 'discover' them. It takes him 5 years to put the diaries IN ORDER, surely as a biographer that would be one of the first things you do? He pays for people to read diary extracts and attempt to 'figure out' things such as the diarists date of birth, which naturally they find quickly as the diarist actually writes about it....

It felt like Masters refused to do certain thing (put the diaries in order, look up the diarists name etc) just so he could produce a book and publish it.

There's so many issues with Masters' practices (I'm not a biographer but they seemed wrong to me), that the book was frustrating and felt slightly like a trick to earn money.

Not my usual read but I really enjoyed this book and will keep a watch for this author in future.

I found this a very strange book to read. I was really looking forward to it - it's description really appealed to me, but I'm left not knowing if I liked it or not. I didn't like the author - I found him quite annoying, and his style of writing....the book is supposed to be about the person in the diaries, but it is also about the biographer and two of his friends, which I found quite annoying - this book should be nothing about him. He author is worried that the diaries will belong to someone famous, and then he will lose interest, luckily for him, the subject is not, the subject is just an ordinary person who writes because they like writing - they have achieved nothing in life, in fact, their life has been a disappointment, much like the rest of the general population I imagine - spending their youth expecting great things, but then not really managing to fulfil them. This is a short book for which I am pleased - I found it didn't really go anywhere, but I suppose it was good that a book is finally written about nothing happening in someone's life...I think...

Review: A Life Discarded.

Finding one diary discarded in a skip would be a dream come true for me - let alone 148 of them.
However, as biographer Alexander Masters discovers, working out what to do with them next is no easy matter.
I quite often find myself on eBay wondering whether bidding on tatty journals written in scrawling, often-illegible handwriting by people unknown is a good use of my limited funds.
I’ve never “won” one (yet). It seems a lot of other people are willing to pay far more than I have available for the honour of owning a little slice of someone else’s life.
I’m not sure what it is I think I’m going to find within their pages.
Maybe it’s because I wrote a journal consistently from the age of 18 until I was about 26 and then sporadically afterwards.
Perhaps there is an affinity with people who put pen to paper (so rare these days) to record their thoughts.
Or maybe I’m just nosy?
I know, though, that if I had found “148 tattered and mould-covered notebooks” lying among “broken bricks in a skip on a building site in Cambridge” I would have felt like I’d hit the jackpot.
They were initially discovered by two of his friends. Unsure what to do with them, they handed the three boxes of books over to Masters, the award-winning author of Stuart: A Life Backwards and Simon: The Genius In My Basement, with the idea that he could write about them.
The anonymous diaries begin in 1952 and end half a century later, which, as we learn, is a few weeks before they were thrown out.
When I heard about this book, I was incredibly excited and thrilled to get my hands on it.
I’ll admit to daydreaming about where I would start if they had suddenly fallen into my lap – and I think that’s where I went wrong.

Here’s the synopsis.
A Life Discarded is a biographical detective story. In 2001, 148 tattered and mould-covered notebooks were discovered lying among broken bricks in a skip on a building site in Cambridge.
Tens of thousands of pages were filled to the edges with urgent handwriting. They were a small part of an intimate, anonymous diary, starting in 1952 and ending half a century later, a few weeks before the books were thrown out.
Over five years, the award-winning biographer Alexander Masters uncovers the identity and real history of their author, with an astounding final revelation.
A Life Discarded is a true, shocking, poignant, often hilarious story of an ordinary life.
The author of the diaries, known only as ‘I’, is the tragicomic patron saint of everyone who feels their life should have been more successful.
Part thrilling detective story, part love story, part social history, A Life Discarded is also an account of two writers’ obsessions: of ‘I’s need to record every second of life and of Masters’ pursuit of this mysterious yet universal diarist.

My first instinct would be to discover who they belong to but, for Masters, it almost felt as if finding the identity of ‘I’ would somehow ruin it for him.
The book follows his rather twisty-turny route towards that conclusion, including consulting a private detective and a graphologist – which, though interesting, felt like padding to me.
There are excerpts from the diaries (and Masters’ attempts to make sense of them and his own life) together with drawings and photographs.
By all accounts, ‘I’ lives what I would consider a normal life, never fully realising the potential they clearly see in themselves, which makes the story all the more fascinating.
Intertwined with the main story are other threads about his two friends, which, though poignant, again feel like they take the focus away from the actual focus on the diaries.
I’m not saying the book isn’t a good read, it is.
Chapters often end with the punch of a new discovery (I’m not going to give any away), which makes it impossible to put down.
From my point of view, I just found it a bit frustrating.

Format: Kindle.
Price: £5.49.
My rating: Three and a half stars.

With thanks for Fourth Estate (via NetGalley) for the ARC in return for an honest review.

This is one of the most incredible, enthralling books I have ever read. Never have I read a book that made me audibly gasp at least three times. I've bought copies for the library service, for friends and families, and am handing them out like candy, giving nothing away. A remarkable life in its ordinariness, a true mystery, and an honest representation of the everyman. I adored it.

Quite an enjoyable read. I thought that by the description of the book that it would have been more interesting.

This is an unusual read for me, the author tries to get to the bottom of the mystery that is the discarded 148 journals discovered by two friends of his in a Cambridge skip. The friends, Richard and Dido, experience traumatic circumstances, Richard is involved in a car crashing into a tree in Australia which results in him being confined to a wheelchair and Dido is discovered to have a neuroendocrine pancreatic tumour. Hardly surprisingly, this delays the author in tackling the diaries. When he does start to look at them he makes several assumptions, such as the writer is male but turns out to be a woman.

It feels like a work of detective fiction in the approach Masters takes. You really need to be both obsessive and exceedingly curious to take on such a project for four years. However, the author has form in this, given his other works. It is difficult to approach the task in a linear fashion so it fills in like a jigsaw puzzle that slowly begins to come together. There are musings about being a voyeur on the private thoughts and life of the diarist, which I can relate to, it is how I would feel about reading the diary of another. We learn of the medical issues. It is a life revolved around the arts, such as drawings, playing the piano, and engaging in writing. Masters uses a graphologist with a humorous outcome in that the conclusion is that the diarist is mad.

What we have uncovered is a story of ambitions, dashed dreams, and disappointments. It does not have the feel of a compelling life story in the way fiction can be moulded but it is a social history and personal life story of an ordinary human being that the author does eventually meet. I liked the way the author tells us how he went about discovering the life of the diarist, which perhaps is more exciting. This is a short read that I become fascinated and engaged with. This is not my usual type of read but I recommend it to others. Thanks to HarperCollins 4th Estate for an ARC.