Simon Garfield

We Are At War: The Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times

Of all the accounts written about the Second World War, none are more compelling than the personal diaries of those who lived through it. We Are At War is the story of five everyday folk, who, living on the brink of chaos, recorded privately on paper thei

Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World

In 1856 eighteen-year-old English chemist William Perkin accidentally discovered a way to mass-produce color. In a "witty, erudite, and entertaining" (Esquire) style, Simon Garfield explains how the experimental mishap that produced an odd shade of purple

The Wrestling

Our Hidden Lives: The Remarkable Diaries of Postwar Britain

In 1936 anthropologist Tom Harrison, poet and journalist Charles Madge and documentary filmmaker Humphrey Jennings set up the Mass Observation Project. The idea was simple: ordinary people would record, in diary form, the events of their everyday lives. A

To the Letter: A Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing

The New York Times bestselling author of Just My Type and On the Map offers an ode to letter writing and its possible salvation in the digital age. Few things are as exciting—and potentially life-changing—as discovering an old letter. And while etique

On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks

Cartography enthusiasts rejoice: the bestselling author of the Just My Type reveals the fascinating relationship between man and map.Simon Garfield’s Just My Type illuminated the world of fonts and made everyone take a stand on Comic Sans and care about

A Notable Woman: The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt

In April 1925, Jean Lucey Pratt began writing a journal. She continued to write until just a few days before her death in 1986, producing well over a million words in 45 exercise books over the course of her lifetime. For sixty years, no one had an inklin

My Dear Bessie: A Love Story in Letters

Twenty hours have gone since I last wrote. I have been thinking of you. I shall think of you until I post this, and until you get it. Can you feel, as you read these words, that I am thinking of you now; aglow, alive, alert at the thought that you are in

The Error World: An Affair with Stamps

Private Battles: Our Intimate Diaries: How The War Almost Defeated Us