Readers of "Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love" who aren't completely familiar with the singer/actress' tumultuous history might need a decoder ring to get through her fractured writings, which were published Tuesday (October 31).

Maneuvering throughout Love's scribblings from childhood through her recent recovery period — all illustrated by scattered photos and correspondences — it's helpful to know that "Nancy" means the lead role in "Sid & Nancy," coveted by Courtney but given to Chloe Webb instead (while Courtney's role was relegated to "Nancy's friend"), and "VF" stands for Vanity Fair, the magazine that, in a profile of Love, claimed the rocker had used heroin during the early stages of her pregnancy with daughter Frances Bean Cobain.

But only Courtney herself can convey, as she does here in several excerpts from the book, how her search for fame, music and meaning in her life brought her to hell and back. Here's a sampling of the journal entries, letters, e-mails and lyrics that comprise the book:

Page 31: From Hillcrest School of Oregon's student-review committee report: "Courtney's main problem areas seem to be her low self image. Courtney does not feel that she is as strong as she appears to be. She puts up a very good 'front.' "

Page 40: "I can't have what I want. I never will. I want love nonstop and adulation for a million faces. A mother that loves me and a father that's always there."

Page 65: "I stand everyone up. Romantic, tragic, and not so damned skinny at all. I need makeup. Most of all I need Nancy & fame."

Page 91: "Dear the right guys at 4AD, This is our band Hole ... I started Babes in Toyland with my friend Kat and even used to be the singer in Faith No More, which is a fairly cheesy thing to go around boasting about but I really will do just about anything for us..."

Page 106: "Can't sleep ... The occasional twinge of bad conscience... My band and thirst and hunger for some sort of everything. Glory. Maybe. But also freedom."

Page 122: "I just wish we were friends in my band, me and Eric are, but we're the ones that fight insanely ... I hate being in control, I hate not being in control."

Page 146: "To Kitty Cobain — let's be mountain junkies and breed satanic mall rats."

Page 185: "Frances grounds me ... Someday I hope to make her so proud and so happy."

Page 194: "I love being famous. I f---ing enjoy it so much. Why do I have to explain that? ... I love playing music. ... It affords me the power to feel that I am worth something. In order to do it right, I would renounce just about anything."

Page 250: "I feel ready for a brand new life now. I've scrubbed clean the mud of 2000-01-02-03-04 & 05. Five years of hell."

Page 274: "I'm not paying anyone, everyone's doing everything for free, and the bad stuff seems to have f---ing evaporated ... The shabby demos aren't even skeletons at this point. It's dreamy & sexy & magical & beautiful & dark. Billy played guitar in New Order ... and they gifted him with Ian's vocal effect box and *the* Joy Division amp and head. We've come up with an arrangement for 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' that is as good if not better than the original... and Peter is I hear going to play bass on it."

Page 271: Via e-mail to Lindsay Lohan: "I remember reading my first VF — I thought the world had split open and was going to swallow me whole... I realize now that ... it made me a lot more interesting and somehow employable. Keep your chin up."

Via e-mail, Lindsay Lohan responds: "I really admire your perspective on things, as well [as] you taking the thing to be so [courteous] in my situation and these [sycophants] that invest in our lives ... Can we meet sometime and talk and chat like normal people so that I can pick your brain?"

Page 282: "I burn better in the dark/ Don't let the light in."

All excerpts from "Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love," published by Faber and Faber, an affiliate of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Copyright (c) 2006 by Courtney Love.