"The Red Leather Diary" is the magical story of a 75 year old diary found in a New York apartment house dumpster by Times reporter Lily Koppel. I don't know how I missed it in January 2008 when it came out in hardback, but am very glad I found it now. Koppel tracks down Florence Wolfson, returns the diary and has the blanks filled in by this lively nonagenarian who penned the journal from 1929-1934 in Manhatten's Upper Eastside.
The apartment building cleaned out its storage basement in 2003 and dozens of old steamer trunks were piled by the dumpsters. Koppel stumbled onto this sight on her morning trek to work and spent the day rescuing as much as she could. The pages that tell about this are what every collector dreams of and a real vicarious kick to read.
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