This Day in the Life: Diaries from Women Across America

There is not one piece in this compilation that is not captivating. Following up on the editors' first collection of journal entries published in 2003, they selected 34 diaries out of 493 submissions written by a cross-section of American women on June 29, 2004. The collection's success rests on both the astonishing variety of participants and the sincerity with which they describe an ordinary day. Connie Linnell Ambrose-Gates, a 79-year-old who married her high school sweetheart when she was over 60, spends many hours attending to her husband, who is now on dialysis, and despite the physical and emotional toll, she is grateful for this very good day. Musician and songwriter Rosanne Cash, daughter of the late Johnny Cash, beautifully expresses the grief she will always feel over the loss of her father. A unique contribution comes from Laraine Harper, manager of a legal brothel outside Las Vegas, who details the minutiae of running a business and looking after her working girls in a responsible manner. African-American writer Crystal Wilkinson relates typical conflicts with her two teenage daughters as well as her ambivalence about moving from her Kentucky home to a new job in Indiana. These women communicate bravery, compassion, humor and perseverance in this compulsively readable volume. (Dec.)