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I elect this required reading. WNP Barbellion was the pseudonym of Bruce Frederick Cummings, an avid English naturalist and diarist. Sadly, Cummings did not have very long to live (we now know he had multiple sclerosis). It‘s his written ruminations on death, on scientific ambitions cut short, and a great love for Literature, Nature and his wife/child that make this one of the greatest journals published. He died in 1919 at the age of 30.

It's hard to explain the particular pleasure reading this book gives. In theory, it ought to be rather dull, but something about Barbellion's unflinching honesty as he attempts to describe his thoughts and feelings, especially when they are far from flattering to himself, makes it oddly compelling and as his death approaches extremely moving.