When I picked this up I assumed that Alan had approved the release of his diaries, to find out he didn’t when I started reading this made me very uncomfortable.  It is obvious that it had been edited but how and why it had been edited is unclear.   As although there is times when Alan’s witty comments and observations leave you laughing, I found it quite uncomfortable to read the sometimes rude and mean thoughts he probably never intended to share with anyone, why they were left I have no idea.  It’s also obvious the diary was snippets of Alan’s life and made sense to him but they were not edited in a way to allow a reader’s understanding, while there are sometimes footnotes more often then not there aren’t which leaves you wondering what the passage was about.  The lack of contextual editing leaves the diary feeling choppy and surface level, whereas the obvious editing of certain people makes you question what had been missed out, there is very little commentary about his wife, and family barley mentioned, and when they were it was very surface level.  Which does not make you think he didn’t write about them, but a decision to exclude those parts, maybe for kindness or privacy but why done for his wife and family and not others??  Overall while interested to hear some inner wit, thoughts and points of view from Alan overall I’m not sure it really was anything more than a money making opportunity.  However the physical book which shows some beautiful images of his hand written and hand drawn diary entries certainly are interesting, it makes me think this was the lost opportunity.  Instead of this huge tomb, maybe a smaller selected interesting selection, full colour and in his handwriting would have been a more interesting read.