About the Author

Alan Taylor has been a journalist for over thirty years. He was deputy editor of the Scotsman, managing editor of Scotsman Publications, and writer-at-large for the Sunday Herald. He has edited several acclaimed anthologies, most recently Glasgow: The Autobiography (2016). He is the author of Appointment in Arezzo: A Friendship with Muriel Spark and, in 2018, series editor of the centenary edition of Spark's novels. He is the co-founder and editor of the Scottish Review of Books.

Irene Taylor was born and brought up in Edinburgh. For many years she worked in public libraries. She has a degree in history from Edinburgh University and she now works for the National Trust for Scotland.

Reviews

Triumphantly eclectic and entertaining . . . What this delightful book demonstrates is that there is nothing more gripping than everyday life, and nothing more extraordinary than the commonplace
* * Observer * *

Utterly compulsive, thanks, in part, to the excellent editing and the way in which they have allowed the commonplace to co-exist with the sage, the hackneyed with the gnostic. Its cumulative effect is surprisingly moving
* * The Times * *

Wonderful . . . The range of diarists and subjects is remarkable, and the anthology is one to which you will want to return again and again
* * Sunday Times * *

For a delicious daily read, nothing can eclipse The Assassin's Cloak. This is the ultimate bedside book
* * Daily Mail * *

This gloriously serendipitous gathering of diarists provides wonderfully diverse comments on virtually everything under the sun
* * Sunday Telegraph * *

A superb collection . . . Gossipy, funny, perceptive and vicious . . . Every dip-in is a sheer delight
* * Observer * *

So enthralling that one devours chunks at a time. One of the paperbacks of this year, or any year
* * Herald * *

The sublime and the ridiculous for once co-exist rather marvellously, letting us take insight from the mundane or the momentous, or simply from unique moments in time
* * Observer * *

There are tremendous riches here. You are left with a kaleidoscope of images . . . There is profound despair, excitement, hope and a great deal of confession. The overall result is strangely uplifting
* * Daily Telegraph * *

Like Shakespeare, the Bible and some of those other bedside titles, The Assassin's Cloak is not so much a book as a world
* * Washington Post * *