David Patterson's Along the Edge of Annihilation: The Collapse and Recovery of Life in the Holocaust Diary adds to the ever-growing collection of analyses of Holocaust literature by focussing specifically on diaries. Two obvious goals of a study such as this would be to give the diarists a voice (or, to put it another way, to give readers an introduction to a variety of diaries) and to develop a theory about the place of diaries in Holocaust literature. In the first matter, Patterson bases his study on more than fifty diaries written during the Holocaust by Jewish victims. The reader need only consult the primary sources in the bibliography for a listing of diaries available to be read in their entirety. (I will say more about this later.)