There's a point near the end of this book where Morris makes a comment along the lines of "perhaps I'll regret this book" and yes, I think she will. Or maybe not: who knows? The book is a compilation of diary entries and, poorly edited, reads like someone found scraps of said entries blowing in the wind and tried to fix them all together. Morris's trademark raconteur personal is on display, but often ill-advisiedly, and her tone, once a quasi-acceptable one (albeit given to imperialist apologizing), now feels ignorantly out of touch and lacking in compassion. But did Morris ever exhibit compassion before? I re-read some of her work after reading this, and realized that no, she's always been brutal and has always written from her position of great privilege and dismissing those she's deemed beneath her. So perhaps it isn't so much that Morris will regret this book, but that I regret having read it.

I am apparently in the minority on this book, as I just don’t think that I actually get it. There are rambling nuggets of wisdom, mixed in with bits of humor, which are thrown together with highly opinionated, often scattered and in-cohesive, thoughts in what is referred to as a diary. I have not read anything else by Jan Morris, nor have I heard of her before, but I will not be reading anything by her in the future based on this one outing with her book. Thank you NetGalley for the advance read copy.