In 1954, the acclaimed novelist Margaret Forster was 15 going on 16, her days filled with homework, housework, evening radio plays, Woman magazine and getting her “mop” cut. ​Edited by her husband, Hunter Davies, following her death in February 2016, this is Forster’s diary of that school year: part social history, part character study – funny, acute and revealing by turns. The Margaret of the diary is a girl on the cusp of adulthood: boys are still “soppy” and Molière is “soft”, but there are telling signs of a precocious intellect, a voracious appetite for books and plays, and a keen interest in international affairs: she documents the Queen’s Australia tour, the four-minute mile and various Russian spy scandals. Pages of the diary itself (now held by the British Library) are reproduced along with photos of Margaret and her family, offering a tantalising, nostalgia-inducing glimpse into a young life and a lost world.

• Diary of an Ordinary Schoolgirl by Margaret Forster is published by Chatto & Windus (£10.99). To order a copy for £9.34 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99