The Red Leather Diary

Categories: Nonfiction

A young newspaper reporter who lives in New York City is given an old diary that was found in a dumpster.  The young reporter is intrigued and tracks down the diarist, who is now in her nineties.  Together they embark on a life-changing journey.  Sounds like fiction, but it's a true story, as described in this marvelous new book.   The Red Leather Diary is a real treasure.   

  

The diary was given to Miss Florence Wolfson on her fourteenth birthday.  What makes her story truly remarkable is that she wrote her entries during the dark days of the Great Depression, from 1929 to 1934, and although the economy of the nation as a whole was heading toward an all-time low, Florence enjoyed parties, tea dances, and voyages to Europe.  Through crumbling pages we are allowed a glimpse into a life that was both average in its teenage angst and exceptional in its privileges.  And the story of how Florence was found more than 60 years later is a marvelous one, both for her and for the reporter, Lily Koppel.  The book's web site contains a lovely video, a slide show, and the New York Times article that started it all.