Virginia Woolf's diaries and letters provide one of the finest views we have of the life of the British intelligencia in the first half of the 20th century. Her writing is fluid, urgent, whimsical and provoking - and a joy to read. Nothing can beat the complete twelve volumes compiled from all the diaries and letters she left, but if you haven't got the time or money, this 500 page compilation of her letters is not a bad alternative. From her cautious earliest letters to the final heartbreaking note she left for her husband before she walked across the fields to drown herself, Woolf's voice rings clearly and compelling down through the years to us.