A Positively Final Appearance: A Journal, 1996-1998

My Name Escapes Me, the January 1995 to June 1996 diary of Alec Guinness, received wide critical acclaim and was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. This new volume contains Sir Alec's journal from June 1996 to December 1998. It is a diary as before, but this time, with the "journal" structure, it is less formally organized and is based around individual months rather than days, giving him more length for various subjects. The summer of 1996 ended well, with an operation that successfully treated an eye that had been useless for almost ten years. Further good news on the health front followed in March 1997. These were tumultuous times for England -- the election of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the death of Diana -- but other matters continued to hold equal importance in Hampshire: the difficulties of the plane trees during the dry summer, the extraordinary appearance in the skies of the Hale-Bopp comet, the vulnerability of the hassocks in Steep Church, and the experiments with Chinese cooking, encouraged by the enthusiasm of a British television chef.