Alphabetical Diaries
Sheila Heti
A thrilling confessional from the award-winning, beloved author of Pure Colour. Sheila Heti kept a record of her thoughts over a ten-year period, then arranged the sentences from A to Z. Passionate and reflective, joyful and despairing, these are her alphabetical diaries. more
224 pages, Hardcover
First published Farrar, Straus and Giroux
4.2
Rating
279
Ratings
112
Reviews
Sheila Heti
45 books 1727 followers
Sheila Heti is the author of ten books, including the novels Motherhood and How Should a Person Be? Her upcoming novel, Pure Colour, will be published on February 15, 2022.Her second children’s book, A Garden of Creatures, illustrated by Esme Shapiro, will be published in May 2022.
She was named one of "The New Vanguard" by The New York Times; a list of fifteen writers from around the world who are "shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century." Her books have been translated into twenty-three languages.
Motherhood was chosen by the book critics at the New York Times as one of the top books of 2018, and New York magazine chose it as the Best Book of the year. How Should a Person Be? was named one of the 12 “New Classics of the 21st century” by Vulture. It was a New York Times Notable Book, a best book of the year in The New Yorker, and was cited by Time as "one of the most talked-about books of the year.”
Women in Clothes, a collaboration with Leanne Shapton, Heidi Julavits, and 639 women from around the world, was a New York Times bestseller. She is also the author of a children’s book titled We Need a Horse, with art by Clare Rojas.
Her play, All Our Happy Days are Stupid, had sold-out runs at The Kitchen in New York and Videofag in Toronto.
She is the former Interviews Editor of The Believer magazine, and has conducted many long-form print interviews with writers and artists, including Joan Didion, Elena Ferrante, Agnes Varda, Sophie Calle, Dave Hickey and John Currin. Her fiction and criticism have appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Bookforum, n+1, Granta, The London Review of Books, and elsewhere.
She has spoken at the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern, the New Yorker Festival, the 92nd Street Y, the Hammer Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and at universities across North America, and festivals internationally. Her six-hour lecture on writing, delivered in the Spring of 2021, can be purchased through the Leslie Shipman agency.
She is the founder of the Trampoline Hall lecture series, and appeared in Margaux Williamson’s 2012 film Teenager Hamlet, and in Leanne Shapton’s book, Important Artifacts. She lives in Toronto.
Community reviews
i've said that i'd read anything sheila heti writes, including her diary. but i did not expect that to be literal. (review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc). more
Sheila Heti is known for her willingness to play with form and creative processes. Here she dives into what’s been dubbed experimental non-fiction with a piece that evolved slowly out of Heti’s own diaries. Ones she kept over a period of years, deliberately pared-down and gradually reorganised, ruthlessly edited so that 500,000 sentences became a selection of 60,000. All arranged in alphabetical order, from sentences beginning with ‘A’ onwards. Carefully-curated sentences which Heti then attempted to analyse, searching for patterns, for submerged clues to the nature or meaning of her life in progress. more
READING VLOGSheila Heti does it again. "𝘈𝘳𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘵, 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨—𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦, 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥, 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦, 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵—𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘴 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰, 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘺. "I am a thing trying to love. I am a thing trying to be essential. I am trying,I am trying. more
Sheila Heti is just one of those writers who is so in tune with the comedy of life itself, it’s a rare thing to witness as a reader. You’re almost taken back by the boldness of the humor and also the truth of it. But here, in this work, one sentence can have you in stitches and the next will have you reeling with existential dread, or close to tears with heartbreak, or pondering the mundanity of life, all on the same page. Such is the result of arranging the sentences of your diary for ten years in alphabetical order. The work itself, however, is amazing. more
this was so so beautifully written. i haven't read any of sheila heiti's fiction, but this feels like such a good segue into exploring more of her works. these days, i've been really loving nonlinear narratives and fragmented vignettes, so this was such a good read for me. it's a bit unorthodox and can read as disjointed sometimes so it might not be for everyone, but i found it so fresh and captivating. thank you fsg for the arc. more
Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti publishes February 6, 2024 from @fsgbooks. Books can be deeply weird and that’s okay, even great. Can meaning be found in subjecting sentences to a seemingly arbitrary form; here, alphabetization. Does letting go of conventional frameworks for organizing thought lead to new revelations. Every sentence matters. more
This is a collection of ten years of diary entries, thoughts and memories arranged in alphabetical order. As an intellectual exercise this seems like a super interesting thing to do. As a thing that you are doing for yourself this seems like a really fun thing to do, that could throw up some really fascinating connections and ideas that as a traditional narrative you may have missed. As a thing to read, it's not so fun. I found myself frustrated at the non-linear narrative and the time I spent trying to figure out who the people were and who the 'he' and 'she' and 'they' of some of the sentences are. more
I'm still not entirely sold on Sheila Heti's fiction, but boy did I enjoy Alphabetical Diaries. This book is exactly what it says on the tin: 10 years worth of the author's diary entries, a collection of miscellanies broken down and rearranged by letters from A to Z. Naturally, such arbitrary structuring gives the writing a disorienting effect, with sentences that could've been written years apart suddenly flush next to each other. But Heti's experimentation here really does work: amidst a lack of direct context the reader is forced to create context, and I often found myself connecting two unrelated sentences in my quest for meaningmaking and natural inclination to establish control, so that there it is, suddenly — a story, many stories. Themes and narratives start emerging from the ether here, allowing one to read what are essentially the author's innermost thoughts but disjointed enough to resist an overarching story about her life. more
This is very interesting experiment by Sheila Heti, to organize sentences from her diaries into alphabetical order. Some chapters being very short (E, J, K) and others being very long (A, I). In fact, "I am" was about 10% of the book, which I am sure would be true of any diary. The forced order means that certain people get paragraphs and thereafter only pop up sporadically. It is jarring to read out of order like this and I found myself wondering what years these were written, how far apart in time were 2 sentences right next to each other. more
my first heti. what an interesting form for a book. the alphabetization of the diary entries juxtaposes the big and small things in heti’s life over the course of 10 years. a sentence about a life changing event might be right next to a sentence about eating scrambled eggs. i think the non-linear structure really allows you to focus in on the sentence level and sit with the meaning of each individual sentence. more
The kind off woo-woo life reflection my brain enjoys because of the logical way it’s been mapped out. Anything else would be silly to me. more
In one sense, Alphabetical Diaries is exactly as the blurb describes. Heti has taken ten years of journal entries from her young adulthood and organized the sentences alphabetically. This sounds disjointed, and it is, but the arrangement also allows patterns to emerge. We can see the young writer as she navigates her early career and her preoccupation with men and romantic relationships. I had no idea what to expect going into this book, but I really enjoyed it. more
Respect it for its unique narrative structure. Heti chronicles her life over a ten year time period and then alphabetizes her diary entries. It’s a hard one for me to review, but I will say it’s definitely worth the read. I loved reading vulnerable snippets of Heti’s life. From anxieties over her writing career to self deprecating comments, to philosophical questions, to reflections on relationships, some often toxic. more
Initially, I have to admit, I wasn't entirely convinced that the book's premise would provide much depth - arranging the sentences of diaries by letter seemed, at first, more like a gimmick than a real methodology - but in fact (as my 5 star rating would attest) I'm pleased to say my assumption could not have been more wrong. Naturally, there is a sense of randomness, or arbitrariness, in the book's structure: names are clustered together, taking up huge chunks of certain chapters, while others are mentioned only once, without context; the tone and style of narration jumps around, reeling from elation to utter misery, from first-person through to third. Such a structure (or rather, a lack of structure) produces a kind of disorientating effect - one in which the reader is forced to make their own connections, or else submit completely to the whole, hopeless mess - but here, in essence, is the exceptional brilliance of Heti's project. Nothing else I have ever read has managed to represent how it really feels to live, or love - for what else is life itself, except a series of arbitrary connections, an assortment of haphazard, fervent thoughts. Organised in this manner, the individual and overarching stories contained the diaries are allowed to unfold sympathetically, without the heavy burden of hindsight. more
Title and Author: Alphabet Diaries by Sheila HetiOverall Grade: C+Narration: CDepth and Topics covered: BWriting: C (hard to judge since it was alphabetized journal sentences, and this did not work for me to follow the author's life)Best Aspect: The original idea of alphabetizing a journal. Worst Aspect: The narrator made me often feel this was a dramatic novel and the fact the format didn’t allow me to follow the stories accurately. . more
It’s really hard to review a book like this, but if you’re a fan of Sheila Heti -you’re definitely going to love it. Sheila takes diary entries sprawling a decade of her life and arranges her thoughts alphabetically, presenting us dear readers with such a fascinating and unique narrative structure. Some ranting, venting, philosophical , anxiety ridden moments , extremely confessional, dizzying entries , passages on love and longing and sex and desire for both genders. This is something I can absolutely see myself returning to and dipping in/ out of. It was fun to see the threads and themes, and she would often mention someone by name or sometimes just pronouns and we wouldn’t be able to piece together the story until many letters later, or sometimes not at all. more
Obsessed with and addicted to this book…… heti’s sentences are so so good; this book is proof they can stand alone. more
Hetian bias af but this is one of the most impressive incredible life altering books I’ve ever read. Felt like every page contained at least one revelation that was really just an obvious fact of life in disguise . more
Such a relief to find out that Sheila, too, spends all her journaling worrying that she spends too much time worrying about her romantic relationships. There is still hope for me as a writer. . more
“Thinking about lovers is a form of vanity, another form of thinking about oneself. ” Heti uploaded ten years worth of online diaries into an Excel document and alphabetized the sentences to make this book. I’ve been following/reading Heti for a while, and I am always impressed with the way in which she experiments with form. I’m often nervous that her experiments with form could end up reading as gimmicky, but I think she always successfully produces something that is unlike and fresh. Alphabetical Diaries creates a sort of Rorschach test, or even better, acts like one of those crossword puzzle memes that say “First three words you see describes you. more
Couldn't stop listening to the audiobook. I found it very interesting how such a heavily edited book could be so candid. It ruptures linearity in favor of aesthetics, highlighting the cyclical nature of time and the categories that structure memory. Beautiful insight into the mind of a writer and a lover. more
". this is another good thing about reading--one replaces thinking about one's self and life with thinking about the selves and lives of fictional people. "5 I don't know how she does it starsIf you love the way Heti writes, you will enjoy this. It shouldn't work, alphabetizing diary entries for a decade, but it becomes this beautiful, stream of consciousness as you're walking down the street sort of fever dream where the individual lines all manage to become the story. I can't explain it, you just need to read it and see for yourself. more
*received an arc from netgalley in exchange for an honest review* experimental but not at all appealing to me. she writes that she prefers books over novels but this isn't even a book it's just a collection of writings. can you even call it a diary. . more
This one was a gem. It is a magical gem that makes me wish there were more letters in the alphabet so this beautiful collection of essays and prose could continue. I am beyond thankful to FSG, Sheila Heti, and Netgalley for audio and physical access to this beauty before it hits shelves on February 6, 2024. Each essay is told alphabetically, so the first word of every sentence starts with the correct alphabetical letter in order. Throughout each passage, readers are transported into the life of our narrator, struggling to know themselves better while settling scores with romantic partners. more
thank you to netgalley & Macmillan Audio for letting me have an audio copy of this one. this book comes out February 6, 2024 and like sheila heti's collected works, it's not one you're going to want to miss. --i remember about a year or so ago, Cain's Jawbone was making the rounds on book socials, gaining notoriety for being a book that's completely out of order - pages meant to be pulled out and rearranged to accurately order the story. heti's memoir here is much the same; alphabetical diaries is ten years of thoughts on career, money, sex, love, aging, motherhood, and her own reason for being and the paragraphs and diary entries are ripped apart at the seams, organized alphabetically. if you're a heti fan, it's not going to surprise you that the writing itself here is lush and interesting - though she's writing about herself and her own life she does it in a way that makes the story she's telling feel like they're about you. more
Very fun Walter Abish style writing experiment. Reads as advertised; a cascade of alphabetically organized sentences, all diary entries. The compilation of these sentences leads to some fascinating pronoun / antecedent play, every successive sentence referencing an indeterminate subject, though you can superficially read it as a continuation (and who is to say that it’s not. ) I always recommend Heti . more
felt like a living, breathing thing precisely because of how random, mismatched, frenzied, varied the text was. I loved this honestly . more
The format really makes you think about how your brain reads and makes associations. Shout out to Zadie Smith‘a husband. . more