Product Description

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

Joan Didion’s incomparable and distinctive essays and journalism are admired for their acute, incisive observations and their spare, elegant style. Now the seven books of nonfiction that appeared between 1968 and 2003 have been brought together into one thrilling collection.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem captures the counterculture of the sixties, its mood and lifestyle, as symbolized by California, Joan Baez, Haight-Ashbury. The White Album covers the revolutionary politics and the “contemporary wasteland” of the late sixties and early seventies, in pieces on the Manson family, the Black Panthers, and Hollywood. Salvador is a riveting look at the social and political landscape of civil war. Miami exposes the secret role this largely Latin city played in the Cold War, from the Bay of Pigs through Watergate. In After Henry Didion reports on the Reagans, Patty Hearst, and the Central Park jogger case. The eight essays in Political Fictions–on censorship in the media, Gingrich, Clinton, Starr, and “compassionate conservatism,” among others–show us how we got to the political scene of today. And in Where I Was From Didion shows that California was never the land of the golden dream.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41496 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-17
• Released on: 2006-10-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1160 pages

Review
“[Didion’s is] one of the most recognizable—and brilliant—literary styles to emerge in America during the past four decades . . . [She is] a great American writer.”
—New York Times Book Review

“One beautiful sentence follows another . . . Didion has remained a clearheaded and original writer all her long life.”
—Newsweek

“Her intelligence is as honed as ever . . . Her vision is ice-water clear . . . Didion has captured the mood of America.”
—New York Times

“Many of us have tried, and failed, to master [Didion’s] gift for the single ordinary deflating word, the word that spins an otherwise flat sentence through five degrees of irony. But her sentences could only be hers.”
—Chicago Tribune

“I have been trying forever to figure out why [Didion’s] sentences are better than mine or yours . . . Something about [their] cadence. They come at you, if not from ambush, then in gnomic haikus, ice pick laser beams, or waves. Even the space on the page around these sentences is more interesting than it ought to be, as if to square a sandbox for a Sphinx.”
—from the Introduction by John Leonard

About the Author
Joan Didion was born in California and lives in New York City. She is the author of five novels and seven previous books of nonfiction.

Customer Reviews

Worthwhile compilation
I only became aware of Joan Didion after hearing about her bestseller, The Year of Magical Thinking, which I got, and found absolutely touching. When I came across this compilation, I thought I'd give it a try...I wasn't disappointed...each of the essays/ articles have something to offer, and Didion is truly a gifted writer. I'm only sorry that I had missed out on such a talented author before finding her on a bestseller list.

What a great compilation
I checked this out from our local library the other day and it turned out to be a serendipitous find. I've read some of Didion's work previously of which _The Year of the Magical Thinking_ was the most recent.

This compilation was actually fun to read. My favourite pieces were the ones that focused on California or Southern California, respectively. She is a gifted storyteller.

I couldn't help but feel a keen sense of sadness for her with the noted timeline of her life (and historical moments, too). She lost both her parents, then her spouse and two years later her daughter.

I would suggest this book to others. It's a real treasure.

A Wonderful collection
Joan Didion is the one writer I can return to again and again. I marvel at each paragraph, each sentence. Her voice is unique and though she has many imitators she has no equal. I still regularly reread The White Album which I discovered as a teenager over 20 years ago. This it a beautiful edition and a wonderful collection.