Diaries, 1942-1954

James Lees-Milne (1908-1997) worked for the National Trust from 1936 to 1973, where he helped evaluate country estates for potential acquisition. This role placed him squarely in the middle of British high society, where he got a first-hand education into the attitudes and day-to-day activities of the rich. Diaries, 1942-1954 is a collection of Lees-Milne's WWII-era entries; most of them focus on gossipy personal details, but they are occasionally enlivened by sharp insights: 

The coffee room at Brooks’s was full. I was just going to withdraw when Professor Richardson hailed me and told me to sit with him. He is a dear man, and a little dotty. I don’t always understand his esoteric jokes and insinuations. He is always punning. He spoke disparagingly of Groping Ass and Meddlesome, his two bêtes noires. He says all great architecture is derivative when it is not deliberately imitative. He claims to have discovered Wren’s own working notebooks, but will not reveal or publish them, for there is no one alive worthy to profit from them. He only reads eighteenth-century newspapers, of which he has an enormous stock, for he says the news is just the same in them as it is today. You merely need to substitute the names of countries occasionally, and not invariably.

Fans of 20th century British haut monde will probably like this book a great deal.