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Alphabetical Diaries
Sheila Heti collected 500,000 sentences from a decade’s worth of journals, put them in a spreadsheet, and sorted them alphabetically. After extensive edits and cuts, in a process of accumulation and connection, Alphabetical Diaries is the result.
In this intimate archive and inventive chronicle of life and living, Sheila thinks about friends, lovers, work, and sex; how thinking about sex is distracting her from work; where she should live and whom to love; and what writing means to her and why it’s the only thing that matters. Here, the self–constructed by itself–emerges in a new way, in a project that is alive, boundless, captivating.
In this intimate archive and inventive chronicle of life and living, Sheila thinks about friends, lovers, work, and sex; how thinking about sex is distracting her from work; where she should live and whom to love; and what writing means to her and why it’s the only thing that matters. Here, the self–constructed by itself–emerges in a new way, in a project that is alive, boundless, captivating.
224 pages, Paperback
First published February 6, 2024
461 people are currently reading
17132 people want to read
About the author
Sheila Heti
55 books2,190 followersSheila 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 874 reviews
March 26, 2024
i've said that i'd read anything sheila heti writes, including her diary.
but i did not expect that to be literal.
this had moments of being so BRILLIANT i was like this makes me want to write!!! and it had moments where i was like "how many more Ts can there possibly be."
this is more a great idea than it is a readable book, but it did have moments of being both.
bottom line: cool story bro, but earnest.
(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
but i did not expect that to be literal.
this had moments of being so BRILLIANT i was like this makes me want to write!!! and it had moments where i was like "how many more Ts can there possibly be."
this is more a great idea than it is a readable book, but it did have moments of being both.
bottom line: cool story bro, but earnest.
(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
January 26, 2024
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. Some aspects may be familiar from the extracts from earlier versions published in n+1 and later The New York Times.
The end result can be frustratingly enigmatic, even bewildering at times but it can also be strikingly provocative, playful, and weirdly intimate. Heti’s sentences range from banal descriptions of meal plans to aphoristic sayings about art or love or sex worthy of Karl Kraus. Fragments of stories emerge, portraits of friendships, encounters, places, and the process of writing. Stretches read like prose poetry, others hang together precariously – intended meanings inflected by happenstance, associations imposed by the act of reading itself, my brain refusing, or unable, to resist attempts to impose structure or pry out underlying narratives. Heti’s piece has been compared to Joe Brainerd’s representation of his life experiences in his resonant I Remember a work I also found surprisingly rich despite its outward simplicity. Heti’s piece is not quite as visceral, or always as immediate, as Brainerd’s but I found it compelling throughout.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Fitzcarraldo for an ARC
The end result can be frustratingly enigmatic, even bewildering at times but it can also be strikingly provocative, playful, and weirdly intimate. Heti’s sentences range from banal descriptions of meal plans to aphoristic sayings about art or love or sex worthy of Karl Kraus. Fragments of stories emerge, portraits of friendships, encounters, places, and the process of writing. Stretches read like prose poetry, others hang together precariously – intended meanings inflected by happenstance, associations imposed by the act of reading itself, my brain refusing, or unable, to resist attempts to impose structure or pry out underlying narratives. Heti’s piece has been compared to Joe Brainerd’s representation of his life experiences in his resonant I Remember a work I also found surprisingly rich despite its outward simplicity. Heti’s piece is not quite as visceral, or always as immediate, as Brainerd’s but I found it compelling throughout.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Fitzcarraldo for an ARC
May 25, 2024
*reread
“𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯;’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘧𝘦𝘸. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘦, 𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦, 𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨.
…
𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘯. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘸. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘩, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦; 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦.”
Life has been strenuous. Not up to par. Life has been a disservice to me and so I’ve been a disservice to myself.
This has been the quickest reread for me because there was something here so adjacent to my own silly worries and my own silly existence that flourished so beautifully here.
You see, in the grand scheme of things, nothing matters and nobody cares. You really do have to make people care. Be that of voice or style or grace, but here, it’s form. And always and always and always, Heti is playing with form. Because life only offers one container, one body, one vessel. Writing is a ways of testing out new bodies.
A second reading of this has provided me with something new. I think I heard of Renata Adler’s Speedboat by way of Tavi Gevinson’s Rookie Mag where it was described as the kind of book you could pick up at any point and read, maybe lose your place, go back a bit or a page or two forward and not miss anything. Kind of like the way some of Warhol’s films worked. I’m thinking of Empire, where he had the idea of being able to sit in a theater, leave, have lunch, smoke a cigarette, and come back and not have to miss anything.
Heti has perfected this. You could read this backwards or forwards and still have everything intact. It’s not that nothing matters, but anything matters. Or all of it could matter. It’s just how you string things along that makes it all matter. Here by way of which language is first taught, in sing-song order. Playful. Childlike. Crescendos into wonder.
All of which that matters here is mantra for me. In this reread, I’ve had a closer reading, highlighting all the bits that made the most sense to me because I feel life so intensely now. I don’t know how to describe it, but every second hurts. Every second that blinds itself into that god awful sun at 3 in the afternoon pains me. Forwards is backwards and maybe time has been like that all along. I’m just realizing it a bit better now. But I’m going to read this back and forth for forever. Maybe every year. In between seasons. When I’m down. When I’m up. When I’ve been down for so long it looks like up to me.
READING VLOG
Sheila 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.
*Please consider ordering the book through the link here which carries these words forward into all the book coverage I do!
“𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯;’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘧𝘦𝘸. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘦, 𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦, 𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨.
…
𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘯. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘸. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘩, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦; 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦.”
Life has been strenuous. Not up to par. Life has been a disservice to me and so I’ve been a disservice to myself.
This has been the quickest reread for me because there was something here so adjacent to my own silly worries and my own silly existence that flourished so beautifully here.
You see, in the grand scheme of things, nothing matters and nobody cares. You really do have to make people care. Be that of voice or style or grace, but here, it’s form. And always and always and always, Heti is playing with form. Because life only offers one container, one body, one vessel. Writing is a ways of testing out new bodies.
A second reading of this has provided me with something new. I think I heard of Renata Adler’s Speedboat by way of Tavi Gevinson’s Rookie Mag where it was described as the kind of book you could pick up at any point and read, maybe lose your place, go back a bit or a page or two forward and not miss anything. Kind of like the way some of Warhol’s films worked. I’m thinking of Empire, where he had the idea of being able to sit in a theater, leave, have lunch, smoke a cigarette, and come back and not have to miss anything.
Heti has perfected this. You could read this backwards or forwards and still have everything intact. It’s not that nothing matters, but anything matters. Or all of it could matter. It’s just how you string things along that makes it all matter. Here by way of which language is first taught, in sing-song order. Playful. Childlike. Crescendos into wonder.
All of which that matters here is mantra for me. In this reread, I’ve had a closer reading, highlighting all the bits that made the most sense to me because I feel life so intensely now. I don’t know how to describe it, but every second hurts. Every second that blinds itself into that god awful sun at 3 in the afternoon pains me. Forwards is backwards and maybe time has been like that all along. I’m just realizing it a bit better now. But I’m going to read this back and forth for forever. Maybe every year. In between seasons. When I’m down. When I’m up. When I’ve been down for so long it looks like up to me.
READING VLOG
Sheila 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.
*Please consider ordering the book through the link here which carries these words forward into all the book coverage I do!
September 19, 2023
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. I read the whole book, but confess that I felt like giving up a few times as the more I read, the less I knew. It had a Ducks Newburyport vibe about it that I did not enjoy. This feels like the sort of book that super clever people will love and people who want to be super clever will tell you that they loved.
December 24, 2023
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. You pick up on the narrative threads through bits and pieces, like relationships with people that pop up within whole sections and then not again until 3 letters later. Somehow it works even though you feel like it shouldn’t. Perhaps that is because it’s Sheila Heti and because she’s a writer mainly of autofiction the “character” of herself has been well established in my mind. How much of that is constructed, even in this work of supposed nonfiction, might be up for debate. But whatever the reality of it is, it’s absolutely brilliant and it’s a wildly entertaining ride.
u crazy for this one, Sheila
u crazy for this one, Sheila
February 12, 2024
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!
thank you fsg for the arc!
November 27, 2024
Interesting concept in theory but executed just did not work for me at all. The writing style was driving me up the wall 😭 I’m sure it works for others, but i found the length of this to be overkill, 220+ pages just becomes migraine inducing. Again, wish i got what everyone else is seeing in this but i guess it’s just not for me 🤷♀️
April 1, 2025
5 stars for craftsmanship and vulnerability, 4 stars for enjoyment level
March 26, 2024
25 segments from Heti’s beautiful exploration of form in alphabetical order (because she did not get any X-rays or play any Xylophones, I believe). The highest 4 I can give.
- All of Toronto feels banal.
- But any change is really hard and a real risk because it means not controlling the outcome; it means you don't know where you’re going to end up, so if you’re at all determined to get somewhere–to some fixed spot in the future–it’s hard to let yourself change.
- Curiosity is not a good reason to get married.
- Does the city make me this way, or age, or finishing a book that I think is no good?
- Even walking to the Shoppers Drug Mart, I started to exhaust myself totally.
- Fiction and nonfiction together, because the imagination is more amazing than anything in life, and life is more amazing than anything you can make up.
- Going back to Toronto, it will be cold.
- How can I tell a story about what happens to other people if I cannot even remember stories from my own life, or how certain changes occurred?
- It’s not worth the sex if you have to put up with bad art.
- Just because things are hard, that doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision.
- Keep in mind that none of these projects will make you any money.
- Look at all the books I have.
- Must go and study under a master.
- No one can take away the simple happiness and pleasure I get from my life in Toronto.
- One day, when things are other than they are right now, I will wonder why I wanted to leave this time so quickly, as I now wonder the same thing about the past.
- Perhaps always planning to break up is a way of gaining control over the feeling of not having control over the path of love.
- Quiet days, not seeing people, feeling fine.
- Really I’m just spending all of my money on books.
- Some knowledge of literature.
- Toronto, Toronto, Toronto, fine.
- Use whatever techniques you want and remember what you first knew: that it doesn’t matter what the book is about.
- Vig and I were talking on the phone when he said that he wanted to skip a day of talking.
- Wandering in Toronto.
- You are a new person now.
- Zadie Smith’s husband, who was my favourite person to talk to that night, said he thought a pet was a good release valve for the thoughts and feelings one could not share with one’s partner.
- All of Toronto feels banal.
- But any change is really hard and a real risk because it means not controlling the outcome; it means you don't know where you’re going to end up, so if you’re at all determined to get somewhere–to some fixed spot in the future–it’s hard to let yourself change.
- Curiosity is not a good reason to get married.
- Does the city make me this way, or age, or finishing a book that I think is no good?
- Even walking to the Shoppers Drug Mart, I started to exhaust myself totally.
- Fiction and nonfiction together, because the imagination is more amazing than anything in life, and life is more amazing than anything you can make up.
- Going back to Toronto, it will be cold.
- How can I tell a story about what happens to other people if I cannot even remember stories from my own life, or how certain changes occurred?
- It’s not worth the sex if you have to put up with bad art.
- Just because things are hard, that doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision.
- Keep in mind that none of these projects will make you any money.
- Look at all the books I have.
- Must go and study under a master.
- No one can take away the simple happiness and pleasure I get from my life in Toronto.
- One day, when things are other than they are right now, I will wonder why I wanted to leave this time so quickly, as I now wonder the same thing about the past.
- Perhaps always planning to break up is a way of gaining control over the feeling of not having control over the path of love.
- Quiet days, not seeing people, feeling fine.
- Really I’m just spending all of my money on books.
- Some knowledge of literature.
- Toronto, Toronto, Toronto, fine.
- Use whatever techniques you want and remember what you first knew: that it doesn’t matter what the book is about.
- Vig and I were talking on the phone when he said that he wanted to skip a day of talking.
- Wandering in Toronto.
- You are a new person now.
- Zadie Smith’s husband, who was my favourite person to talk to that night, said he thought a pet was a good release valve for the thoughts and feelings one could not share with one’s partner.
Read
October 30, 2023Alphabetical 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. Fear seems to be a good place to go for inspiration. Go preorder this book. How does one “review” a book of disparate thoughts? If you thought Pure Colour was weird, just wait! Joy in reading a stranger’s confessional thoughts. Keep going. Lars is a character (?) in this book and many sentences begin with his name, so I thought I’d include one here as well. Maybe there was some trickery in how this was composed. Never felt a kinship with piece of writing like this before (this is something I say every time I read Heti, but the sentiment stands). Oversharing can be fun. Publishing your diary feels like the most vulnerable act, but who’s to say it’s even “true”? Quit reading this as narrative! Rules - which can, or should, be broken, and what are the consequences? Slow down. This is probably a corny way to reflect on this book but it feels apt (also, who cares?). “Upon reading all of this, my anxiety instantly vanished and I shut down the computer and ran to bed, happy and excited - thrilled, really” (same). Vulnerability: good or bad? Why do we read this as narrative; why does this work when it feels like it shouldn’t? X isn’t in the book so … this is my X sentence. You should read this book and tell me what you think about it. Zip through if you prefer; your loss.
February 18, 2024
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. The publisher's blurb compares this to Édouard Levé's Autoportrait, and it is indeed in the same league. But while in Levé's work one has the sense of a whole life emerging from a string of more or less randomly arranged sentences, Alphabetical Diaries evoke only moods in fast succession — the reader gets to know Heti's obsessions in acute detail, but cannot be certain of how they began or what ever happened to them. In some ways, this is an anti-autibiography; in others, a Rorschach test — I don't believe two readers would quite read this the same way. There is no plot development, and following from that there is no luxury of hindsight, and isn't that precisely what life is like in the moments we are living it?
I also quite liked what the experimentation with form here reveals about the formal aspects of diaristic writing as a relation to the self and to language: the longest 'chapter' here is for entries starting with the letter I, while the shortest, containing only a single line each, are for the letters Q and Z. There is no entry for the letter X — in ten years, Heti never started a sentence with it. So unsettling to think about the strange music created by the elements we record our thoughts with, and how harmony in the whole often depends on a profound lack of balance between its constitutive parts.
Given its careful yet contextless construction, this book was a slow read for me. Yet, not a moment spent with it felt like a waste.
[My thanks to Fitzcarraldo Editions for providing me with a review copy]
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. The publisher's blurb compares this to Édouard Levé's Autoportrait, and it is indeed in the same league. But while in Levé's work one has the sense of a whole life emerging from a string of more or less randomly arranged sentences, Alphabetical Diaries evoke only moods in fast succession — the reader gets to know Heti's obsessions in acute detail, but cannot be certain of how they began or what ever happened to them. In some ways, this is an anti-autibiography; in others, a Rorschach test — I don't believe two readers would quite read this the same way. There is no plot development, and following from that there is no luxury of hindsight, and isn't that precisely what life is like in the moments we are living it?
I also quite liked what the experimentation with form here reveals about the formal aspects of diaristic writing as a relation to the self and to language: the longest 'chapter' here is for entries starting with the letter I, while the shortest, containing only a single line each, are for the letters Q and Z. There is no entry for the letter X — in ten years, Heti never started a sentence with it. So unsettling to think about the strange music created by the elements we record our thoughts with, and how harmony in the whole often depends on a profound lack of balance between its constitutive parts.
Given its careful yet contextless construction, this book was a slow read for me. Yet, not a moment spent with it felt like a waste.
[My thanks to Fitzcarraldo Editions for providing me with a review copy]
December 21, 2024
Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries at first seemed to me to be the culmination of our self-obsessed era — it felt all too self-absorbed and facile for a writer to collate her diaries, order them alphabetically, throw the best aphoristic lines together, and call it a book. But she being Heti; her deceptively simple, self-reflective style; and the curious way in which ideas and themes find themselves side-by-side in this arrangement — ostensibly related only by their first letters — the collection is an intriguing experiment in how our brain forms images and connections that perhaps aren’t truly there. Threads filed under one letter are picked up again down the line under another; sentences become timelines laid on top of one another, coming in and out of focus, the clock turning backwards: “Today is Thursday. Today is Tuesday.” There are existential epigrams followed by grocery reports which, when read in succession, create a continuity that may not exist. Some chapters emerge as vague stories told in fragments, like “J,” where most sentences concern either “Jack” and/or “John,” both of whom seem locked in a fucked up relationship with one another. The entry ends with a flurry of sentences that begin with the reassuring, rationalizing voice of an outsider saying “just” this, “just” that, seeming to reconcile the tension that has emerged between these two “J”’s.
The repetitive nature of this compilation, where Heti (or the narrator — I’m not utterly convinced of the autobiographical nature of this book) often laments her inability to write, her frustrations, desires, and complicated romances, could be to its detriment. That is the case for some chapters, particularly those that delve into her affairs and heterosexual fantasies based on the unending appearance of certain names (L with Lars, P with Pavel). These entries feel obsessive given the repetitive nature of the book’s organizational structure, which imbue it with the sense of the narrator being utterly suffocated by and consumed with these men, leaving no space for any other thoughts to exist on the pages. Yet overall, I found that the swirling world of self doubt, despair, conviction, guilt, and delusion — where hints and disparate threads build layers of emotion — addicting and mind-tickling, requiring an active reading experience to glean what is said between the lines (and letters). The mood oscillates wildly back and forth as Heti builds herself up in one sentence only to dismantle that in the subsequent one. Tense shifts create tonal shifts, often of lamentation or hope (“I am,” “I was”), and certain words create a torrent of questions or accusations only to give way to repetitive meditations circling around an idea, trying to penetrate a core of truth:
“What have I done? What I have done is what I have always done. What is this cycle all about? What the hell did I think the new book would be about? What will be next? What will the story be? What will you do with all of your time?”
There is an overwhelming feeling of stuckness, frustration, and dissatisfaction that builds, like a hammer striking the same nail over and over, throughout the course of sentences and even chapters. The “I” that was so familiar throughout the diaries suddenly becomes “You” once we reach the 25th letter, and this jump to an outsider’s voice — at one moment accusatory and the next soothing — is so stark that it feels like there is more than one Sheila Heti operating here.
It’s a curious thing for these to be termed “diaries” — a form that typically denudes its author — and yet in this shuffled and arbitrary form, Heti remains a cryptic, unknowable person by their end. She has bared her soul, but only so much; we have bits and pieces of information about her, but can’t fit the full puzzle together. The collection is an utterly unique exercise in assumptions and insinuations and omissions, and I especially couldn’t stop thinking about those very omissions, the words and sentences left out. Most glaringly, I realized that for all Heti’s longings and searching for love, not a single sentence in the “L” chapter began with the word.
The repetitive nature of this compilation, where Heti (or the narrator — I’m not utterly convinced of the autobiographical nature of this book) often laments her inability to write, her frustrations, desires, and complicated romances, could be to its detriment. That is the case for some chapters, particularly those that delve into her affairs and heterosexual fantasies based on the unending appearance of certain names (L with Lars, P with Pavel). These entries feel obsessive given the repetitive nature of the book’s organizational structure, which imbue it with the sense of the narrator being utterly suffocated by and consumed with these men, leaving no space for any other thoughts to exist on the pages. Yet overall, I found that the swirling world of self doubt, despair, conviction, guilt, and delusion — where hints and disparate threads build layers of emotion — addicting and mind-tickling, requiring an active reading experience to glean what is said between the lines (and letters). The mood oscillates wildly back and forth as Heti builds herself up in one sentence only to dismantle that in the subsequent one. Tense shifts create tonal shifts, often of lamentation or hope (“I am,” “I was”), and certain words create a torrent of questions or accusations only to give way to repetitive meditations circling around an idea, trying to penetrate a core of truth:
“What have I done? What I have done is what I have always done. What is this cycle all about? What the hell did I think the new book would be about? What will be next? What will the story be? What will you do with all of your time?”
There is an overwhelming feeling of stuckness, frustration, and dissatisfaction that builds, like a hammer striking the same nail over and over, throughout the course of sentences and even chapters. The “I” that was so familiar throughout the diaries suddenly becomes “You” once we reach the 25th letter, and this jump to an outsider’s voice — at one moment accusatory and the next soothing — is so stark that it feels like there is more than one Sheila Heti operating here.
It’s a curious thing for these to be termed “diaries” — a form that typically denudes its author — and yet in this shuffled and arbitrary form, Heti remains a cryptic, unknowable person by their end. She has bared her soul, but only so much; we have bits and pieces of information about her, but can’t fit the full puzzle together. The collection is an utterly unique exercise in assumptions and insinuations and omissions, and I especially couldn’t stop thinking about those very omissions, the words and sentences left out. Most glaringly, I realized that for all Heti’s longings and searching for love, not a single sentence in the “L” chapter began with the word.
November 14, 2025
Read a lot of books. Read all day. Read As I Lay Dying, perhaps. Read C. S. Lewis again, The Screwtape Letters. Read Faulkner, who does that? Read Kierkegaard's The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress twice. Read Lispector. Read philosophy. Read Ralph Ellison on the train ride home. Read some of the Weschler, need to get on that. Read Tao's new book. Read the book on Tide and whatever other business books. Read the books you brought-you have brought all the right books. Read today that Ernest Hemingway said the best state to write in is that of being in love. Reading all three of them together and the answer is simple: integrity, restraint, do not act. Reading feels like life these days.
March 11, 2024
I disliked this book so much I came up with numerous insults and could not decide on one... enjoy
- I wish the alphabet had no letters
- I have become 26% more pretentious
- I hate Toronto now
- Can't have "diaries" in the title and expect me not to compare you to Greg Heffley
- no
Thank you
- I wish the alphabet had no letters
- I have become 26% more pretentious
- I hate Toronto now
- Can't have "diaries" in the title and expect me not to compare you to Greg Heffley
- no
Thank you
September 10, 2025
Don’t forget that although you aren’t telling a story, you must still do what stories do, which is lead the reader through an experience.
When I heard about Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries—which very much does what it says on the tin—I thought that no one except a super-fan would want to read such a thing. The joke is on me, as I’ve now read the whole thing, despite not being a super-fan, never having read a Heti book before and thinking that all the other ones sound quite annoying (an opinion that may need revising, or may not).
Why do I look for symbols? Why do women go mad? Why does one bra clasp on the front and the other in back?
Arranged into 26 chapters of alphabetical sentences, Heti’s novel/memoir/diary/whatever generally goes down easily, a breezy, sometimes profound collection of sentences that seem to follow on from one another but don’t, and that reflect the same ideas and preoccupations over and over again, in much the same way the human mind will circle around to its key themes over and over.
I didn’t know much about Heti before this and would now define her as “obsessed with sex” and “obsessed with art and very clearly doesn’t have a day job.” The first was one of my least favourite parts of the book—not because she doesn’t write well or entertainingly about these men, but because it was like going for endless drinks with that one friend who will not leave her bad news boyfriend but has to dissect her relationship with you every time you meet. And while I had more sympathy with the art side, I was flummoxed at how she…well, didn’t have a day job. It created a kind of airlessness to the book, and potentially to her life, and I can see how maybe some of the terrible men crept in. All told, this might be why the “I” chapter was a huge slog for me.
However, I really loved the juxtaposition throughout the book.
But as I was saying this, I was realizing that my feeling about it was changing, and I saw that there was something fascinating about living only one life, and in some ways there is a great privilege in getting to live only one life and not having to live any others. But I had some good pierogis anyway.
I also loved when specific people who had been mentioned before would suddenly arrive at their letter and swim into focus. I loved how time became circular, or sometimes moved backwards:
Good editing skills. Good for nothing but publicity….Got the purple jacket… Grandma died. Grandma has been sick. Grandma is ailing still. Grandma said that sex is the glue. Grandma said, and she knew from experience, never leave your home. Great literature: the only thing on earth that doesn’t scare me. Greener pastures, read every day. Grow my brain and my knowledge. Grow out bangs. Grow up.
I also loved the mystery. That I could have my own opinions about a disaster man, and have them confirmed when I got to his letter, but that he could also exist in different moments of the book only as “he,” and I would not know which “he” this was, and whether those “he’s” were damning or redeeming him. Or the mystery of which version of Heti this was—in part because it’s a decade’s worth of diaries but clearly ending some time ago, and concerned with her fears and longings to create art, which she has now done, and in part because it is highly edited, down to 60K words from 500K. I wondered what had been cut. More of the same? Or whole narrative threads that have been suppressed for reasons of the authors own. In that sense it is definitively unlike reading a diary, even a writer’s diary that has been composed with a potential public in mind.
I wondered, too, if she had done any finessing… rewriting sentences to place them more opportunely, perhaps. I assume she has changed the names, and of course that affects placement and what you might feel about a character.
Make enough money to live. Make him feel loved and special. Make sure you buy warmer boots. Make sure you have breakfast. Make sure you publish another theatre review. Making out with the anti-neo-Nazi girl, who confided that the anti-neos had no chance against the neos, for the neos have better self-discipline and are not always taking drugs and getting drunk, are not undisciplined and lazy.
All in all, this was clever, frustrating, idiosyncratic, and rather fun.
Now that the book is done, I need not panic about anything. Now the idea spins into hubris. Now the sky is the colour of computers.
When I heard about Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries—which very much does what it says on the tin—I thought that no one except a super-fan would want to read such a thing. The joke is on me, as I’ve now read the whole thing, despite not being a super-fan, never having read a Heti book before and thinking that all the other ones sound quite annoying (an opinion that may need revising, or may not).
Why do I look for symbols? Why do women go mad? Why does one bra clasp on the front and the other in back?
Arranged into 26 chapters of alphabetical sentences, Heti’s novel/memoir/diary/whatever generally goes down easily, a breezy, sometimes profound collection of sentences that seem to follow on from one another but don’t, and that reflect the same ideas and preoccupations over and over again, in much the same way the human mind will circle around to its key themes over and over.
I didn’t know much about Heti before this and would now define her as “obsessed with sex” and “obsessed with art and very clearly doesn’t have a day job.” The first was one of my least favourite parts of the book—not because she doesn’t write well or entertainingly about these men, but because it was like going for endless drinks with that one friend who will not leave her bad news boyfriend but has to dissect her relationship with you every time you meet. And while I had more sympathy with the art side, I was flummoxed at how she…well, didn’t have a day job. It created a kind of airlessness to the book, and potentially to her life, and I can see how maybe some of the terrible men crept in. All told, this might be why the “I” chapter was a huge slog for me.
However, I really loved the juxtaposition throughout the book.
But as I was saying this, I was realizing that my feeling about it was changing, and I saw that there was something fascinating about living only one life, and in some ways there is a great privilege in getting to live only one life and not having to live any others. But I had some good pierogis anyway.
I also loved when specific people who had been mentioned before would suddenly arrive at their letter and swim into focus. I loved how time became circular, or sometimes moved backwards:
Good editing skills. Good for nothing but publicity….Got the purple jacket… Grandma died. Grandma has been sick. Grandma is ailing still. Grandma said that sex is the glue. Grandma said, and she knew from experience, never leave your home. Great literature: the only thing on earth that doesn’t scare me. Greener pastures, read every day. Grow my brain and my knowledge. Grow out bangs. Grow up.
I also loved the mystery. That I could have my own opinions about a disaster man, and have them confirmed when I got to his letter, but that he could also exist in different moments of the book only as “he,” and I would not know which “he” this was, and whether those “he’s” were damning or redeeming him. Or the mystery of which version of Heti this was—in part because it’s a decade’s worth of diaries but clearly ending some time ago, and concerned with her fears and longings to create art, which she has now done, and in part because it is highly edited, down to 60K words from 500K. I wondered what had been cut. More of the same? Or whole narrative threads that have been suppressed for reasons of the authors own. In that sense it is definitively unlike reading a diary, even a writer’s diary that has been composed with a potential public in mind.
I wondered, too, if she had done any finessing… rewriting sentences to place them more opportunely, perhaps. I assume she has changed the names, and of course that affects placement and what you might feel about a character.
Make enough money to live. Make him feel loved and special. Make sure you buy warmer boots. Make sure you have breakfast. Make sure you publish another theatre review. Making out with the anti-neo-Nazi girl, who confided that the anti-neos had no chance against the neos, for the neos have better self-discipline and are not always taking drugs and getting drunk, are not undisciplined and lazy.
All in all, this was clever, frustrating, idiosyncratic, and rather fun.
Now that the book is done, I need not panic about anything. Now the idea spins into hubris. Now the sky is the colour of computers.
July 31, 2024
Heerlijk! 😻
February 22, 2024
i'm so happy to be alive
February 23, 2025
i think this is one of, if not my most, favorite nonfiction piece i’ve ever read. i love heti and how she’s always trying something new in her storytelling. conceptually i was interested by the premise but wasn’t sure how it would read, but despite its nonlinear approach, for the most part it felt cohesive. the most thought-provoking quote could be followed by the most mundane comment, but it all just somehow worked. a work that leaves the reader thinking about so much, taking heti’s observations about the world and her own life and applying them personally. i absolutely loved pure colour when i read it a couple years ago, and this just made heti 2 for 2 with me, can’t wait to explore her work further.
October 2, 2023
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? I guess you just have to go along for the ride, but that also made it harder for inertia to take me through the pages.
Coincidentally, I was reading The Secret Diaries of Anne Lister at the same time as Alphabetical Diaries. Lister's diary entries were written about 200 years earlier (salacious bits written in code and de-coded posthumously) but the parallels were uncanny. Both diaries ponder on relationships, queer sex, desire, writing, work, unsavory inner thoughts, money, friends, etc. Anne Lister wrote in one diary about being so restless in bed that she tried to sleep on the floor, which I could distinctly see Sheila Heti doing. To be honest, I enjoyed Lister's diaries more.
I still liked reading Heti's diaries but part of my enjoyment came from having a different writer to compare against, plus the fact I have read & loved 3 of her previous novels and listened to many of her interviews to know her themes. I am guessing that this diary publication will be a nice read for fans of Heti but gibberish to new readers.
Coincidentally, I was reading The Secret Diaries of Anne Lister at the same time as Alphabetical Diaries. Lister's diary entries were written about 200 years earlier (salacious bits written in code and de-coded posthumously) but the parallels were uncanny. Both diaries ponder on relationships, queer sex, desire, writing, work, unsavory inner thoughts, money, friends, etc. Anne Lister wrote in one diary about being so restless in bed that she tried to sleep on the floor, which I could distinctly see Sheila Heti doing. To be honest, I enjoyed Lister's diaries more.
I still liked reading Heti's diaries but part of my enjoyment came from having a different writer to compare against, plus the fact I have read & loved 3 of her previous novels and listened to many of her interviews to know her themes. I am guessing that this diary publication will be a nice read for fans of Heti but gibberish to new readers.
Read
April 15, 2024“Write the book that — when a person is taking a thirteen-hour train to a city they’re not sure they want to go, to stay with a man they’re not sure they can stay with, leaving behind their marriage on New Year’s Day, nervous about having enticed a new man too much, and having listened to the mixtape made by their ex-husband, which is so heartbreaking, so now it’s finally clear what he is feeling and the things he has been thinking, and her heart is aching, and maybe she will go back to him but she doesn’t want to yet, and this lostness — this feeling like she just wants someone to take her heart in their hands and lay it in a bowl of warm blood and lap it in the blood with their hands, just wash their heart gently, polishing it like a pearl so it will come out thicker, shinier, and ready to be put back in the coffin of her chest, so she can step off the train like someone who’s had a good upbringing and has been loved, who can look herself square in the eye without deceit, and can look everyone square in the eye without deceit, so they are understood by her and she by them, like a fresh rain and a sudden blooming — write the book that this person would choose.”
Is this is a relevant aspiration? Did she manage it? Is this book great or a huge ball of bourgeois corn? Idk but I’m gonna read it again
Is this is a relevant aspiration? Did she manage it? Is this book great or a huge ball of bourgeois corn? Idk but I’m gonna read it again
March 7, 2024
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. it almost feels like a highlight reel of all of the things you would underline in a book. really enjoyable to make your own connections between unrelated sentences that could have been written 6 years apart, and to see the reoccurring themes that make themselves clear throughout the course of a letter/chapter.
funny, sometimes sad, always relatable! 4.25 stars!
reading wrap up!
funny, sometimes sad, always relatable! 4.25 stars!
reading wrap up!
July 20, 2024
Ett koncept lika mycket som en bok och ett strålande sådant. Det blir intimt och ärligt, motsägelsefullt och lyriskt och idén fungerar så oväntat väl. Boken rinner fram precis så som ens inre tankar kan vandra och det är en ynnest att få läsa. Allt så inspirerande att jag bestämmer mig för att ta två år av mitt eget skrivande och sortera det i bokstavsordning i jakt på något liknande.
October 25, 2025
I
M
N
T
Powerful, raw, and deeply vulnerable, Alphabetical Diaries completely captivated me. I’ve never read anything quite like it. I admired Sheila Heti’s courage and dedication in turning ten years of journal entries into art. This book made me want to take journaling more seriously and turn it into a constant, mindful practice in my life.
I am happy with my solitude, punctuated by close friends.
I am happiest in my anonymity and in my head, without having to make compromises, and without having to deal with anything too scary, just me alone in my fantasy world.
I wonder if the beginning of a friendship is the optimistic waiting for something bad to happen, which can be overcome together, at which point the real friendship can begin.
If you go into the deepest, most base feeling inside yourself, which is the fundamental feeling that doesn’t change, then you can start writing and continue writing from there, for that is the feeling that is most fundamentally you, which maybe most calls upon to be expressed.
M
Maybe one day you’ll be called away and you’ll go, but for now you’re here, and you have to be here or else you’re not really here.
My initial point and what I meant to say was that every situation is different, and I’m realizing that you cannot avoid unhappiness, and you cannot avoid pain, and you cannot make rules and live by them in order to create a happy life, for I really think that leads to a life of total isolation from other people and experiences that bring you pain.
N
No one at this point in history knows how to live, so we read biographies and memoirs, hoping to get some clues.
T
The fear is that it will multiply and become other fears, and I will end up a fearful person, leading a fearful little life, bolstering myself with tiny shards of evidence that I ever had any success.
Then today I was thinking about how I don’t need to justify everything, and that this is the cause of so much of my misery, this constant monologue in my head, as though I have to account for the way I am, my every action, my entire existence.
This is what makes living increasingly difficult — that one has other times to compare with present.
Powerful, raw, and deeply vulnerable, Alphabetical Diaries completely captivated me. I’ve never read anything quite like it. I admired Sheila Heti’s courage and dedication in turning ten years of journal entries into art. This book made me want to take journaling more seriously and turn it into a constant, mindful practice in my life.
April 21, 2025
I enjoyed how cringey, hilarious and relatable this confessional was. My favorite part of this is since it was written alphabetically and not chronologically it is funny to see how the story advances regarding certain subjects and people without the introduction.
May 1, 2024
You don’t always need a glimpse into your favourite writer’s inner life.
I found the structure and the author's arranging of her alphabetised sentences the least interesting aspects of the book. My mind was too busy searching for themes and reasons to care. What was strange was that it didn’t feel like a decade’s worth of sentences: there’s always mention of a book the author isdreading working on, there’s always a lover, a friend, a conversation with a parent, and the endless thinking about sex. And on and on. Maybe Heti has some cathartic moments doing this exercise. I just wasn’t feeling it.
⇝ 2.5 stars
I found the structure and the author's arranging of her alphabetised sentences the least interesting aspects of the book. My mind was too busy searching for themes and reasons to care. What was strange was that it didn’t feel like a decade’s worth of sentences: there’s always mention of a book the author is
⇝ 2.5 stars
May 20, 2024
listing disparate journal entries and grouping every single sentence alphabetically puts in close conversation the most random thought with something so profound. it’s genius. a revolution in form! what pleasure to wade through someone’s mind like this. despite being a slim volume, this feels like slow cinema. poetry in motion
it’s a great rearranging of a life where new meanings spring from old words so dissonant or far from contexts that new contexts are created, often working backwards, new temporalities and small worlds collide
it’s a great rearranging of a life where new meanings spring from old words so dissonant or far from contexts that new contexts are created, often working backwards, new temporalities and small worlds collide
March 15, 2024
Rompe la causalidad, se autogenera/se hace aguantar por sí mismo: 'I like books more than I like novels.'
July 24, 2024
As always, Sheila Heti accomplishes brilliance with her writing.
February 11, 2024
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.
September 28, 2025
Just what’s on the tin: a decade’s worth of sentences from Sheila Heti’s diaries, curated and rearranged into alphabetical order.
Is it literary wank? Possibly, but it’s literary wank that made me feel almost every emotion there is. I borrowed this from the library and still stuffed it full of little bits of paper, wanting to return to this page and that. It’s a testament to Sheila’s ability to construct a good sentence that a project as necessarily fragmented as this flowed as well as it did.
It also made me feel remarkably unremarkable, in a way that was both good and bad - seen, and small. I don’t think anyone should feel diminished for discovering their experiences are not unique; I myself was under no such delusion. Still, it’s one thing to know that, intellectually, and another thing entirely to be slapped in the face with the bald truth of it, as Heti has done here.
I’ve yet to read any of Heti’s fiction, as the source of that recommendation brings with it some unresolved emotional baggage I’d like to see to before I do, but Alphabetical Diaries was the taster I wanted. Improbably, unbelievably good.
Is it literary wank? Possibly, but it’s literary wank that made me feel almost every emotion there is. I borrowed this from the library and still stuffed it full of little bits of paper, wanting to return to this page and that. It’s a testament to Sheila’s ability to construct a good sentence that a project as necessarily fragmented as this flowed as well as it did.
It also made me feel remarkably unremarkable, in a way that was both good and bad - seen, and small. I don’t think anyone should feel diminished for discovering their experiences are not unique; I myself was under no such delusion. Still, it’s one thing to know that, intellectually, and another thing entirely to be slapped in the face with the bald truth of it, as Heti has done here.
I’ve yet to read any of Heti’s fiction, as the source of that recommendation brings with it some unresolved emotional baggage I’d like to see to before I do, but Alphabetical Diaries was the taster I wanted. Improbably, unbelievably good.
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