Joan Didion

A thrilling and exhilarating exploration of U. S. politics in Central America from Joan Didion, the hugely acclaimed author of The Year of Magical Thinking.

An engrossing examination of political and personal life in Central America, from the award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking. Writing with the economical swiftness and concentrated perception that has made her one of America’s most distinguished writers, Joan Didion creates a gleaming novel of innocence and evil. Set in the ruined Central American nation of Boca Grande, A Book of Common Prayer is the story of two American women and their conflicting experiences of wealth, politics and personal history. We follow the intriguing life of Grace Strasser-Mendana – an American expatriate and member of one of Boca Grande’s most influential families – alongside the story of Charlotte Douglas, whose daughter Medin has run off with a group of Marxist radicals. What follows is an exploration of the women’s ability to make sense of the behaviour that surrounds them, as their worlds are made hazy by the atmosphere of evil and innocence that envelops their strained and entangled lives. Writing with her inimitable mix of candid emotional frankness and razor-sharp political astuteness, Joan Didion’s third novel is at once utterly particular whilst emblematic of an age of unscrupulous authority and seemingly inevitable bloodshed.

A profoundly disturbing novel that ruthlessly dissects American life in the late 1960s, from the author of The White Album and The Year of Magical Thinking.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old. Blue Nights opens on July 26, 2010, as Didion thinks back to Quintana's wedding in New York seven years before. Today would be her wedding anniversary. This fact triggers vivid snapshots of Quintana's childhood--in Malibu, in Brentwood, at school in Holmby Hills. Reflecting on her daughter but also on her role as a parent, Didion asks the candid questions any parent might about how she feels she failed either because cues were not taken or perhaps displaced. "How could I have missed what was clearly there to be seen?" Finally, perhaps we all remain unknown to each other. Seamlessly woven in are incidents Didion sees as underscoring her own age, something she finds hard to acknowledge, much less accept. Blue Nights--the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, "the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warning"--like The Year of Magical Thinking before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty, haunting and profoundly moving.

Två amerikanska kvinnor träffas i en centralamerikansk diktatur i mitten av 1970-talet. Grace kontrollerar genom sitt äktenskap med landets ledare enorma ekonomiska rikedomar – och känner till det lilla landets alla hemligheter. Charlotte har hamnat i landet av en slump, på jakt efter sin dotter, Marin, som är på flykt efter att ha deltagit i bombattentat i San Francisco. Grace och Charlottes vägar korsas och Joan Didion skildrar de två kvinnornas öden i en tid och ett samhälle präglat av avtrubbade känslor. "Didion är en av få samtida författare som närmar sig sina karaktärer med absolut allvar: med skräck, ödmjukhet och förundran. Hennes hårda ironi är snarare sorglig än smart; språket i Bönbok för en vän är, precis som i Lagt kort, sparsmakat, sarkastisk och nedtonat." – Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review

Celebrated, iconic, and indispensable, Joan Didion's first work of nonfiction, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, is considered a watershed moment in American writing. First published in 1968, the collection was critically praised as one of the "best prose written in this country." More than perhaps any other book, this collection by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era captures the unique time and place of Joan Didion's focus, exploring subjects such as John Wayne and Howard Hughes, growing up in California and the nature of good and evil in a Death Valley motel room, and, especially, the essence of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, the heart of the counterculture. As Joyce Carol Oates remarked: " Didion] has been an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time, a memorable voice, partly eulogistic, partly despairing; always in control."

‘This happened on December 30, 2003. That may seem a while ago but it won't when it happens to you…’ Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later – the night before New Year’s Eve – the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma. This powerful book is Didion's ‘attempt to make sense of the weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness…about marriage and children and memory…about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself’. *Notes to John, the remarkable recently discovered journal from Joan Didion is available now*

"Livet förändras snabbt. Livet förändras på ett ögonblick. Man sätter sig ner för att äta middag och livet som man känner det tar slut." Det är kvällen före nyårsafton 2003. Joan Didion och hennes make sedan 40 år, John Gregory Dunne, har kommit tillbaka från sjukhuset där deras enda dotter, Quintana, ligger i koma svävande mellan liv och död: en vanlig influensa har utvecklats till lunginflammation och svår blodförgiftning. De har precis satt sig för att äta middag när John plötsligt drabbas av en massiv hjärtinfarkt och dör. Ett år av magsikt tänkande är Joan Didions försök att förstå den tid som följde: "veckor och sedan månader, som vände upp och ner på alla de föreställningar jag någonsin haft om döden, om sjukdomar, om sannolikhet och slump, om tur och otur, om äktenskap och barn och minnet, om sorg, om hur människor handskas eller inte handskas med det faktum att livet tar slut, om hur ytlig den mentala hälsan är och om livet självt." Joan Didion bor i New York. Hon skrivit ett dussin böcker, varav fem romaner, och är en starkt lysande stjärna på den amerikanska litterära himlen. Ett år av magiskt tänkande blev en stor framgång när den publicerades i USA: hyllad av kritikerna, i topp på bestsellerlistorna och belönad med det mest prestigefyllda amerikanska bokpriset, National Book Award. Recensioner om boken: "En fantastisk bok, som jag inte visste hur väl jag behövde... lika trösterikt vacker som välgörande saklig." Dagens Nyheter "Det går inte att komma förbi att Joan Didion med sitt magiska år i sig själv är en gåva. Hennes nedtecknat ofattbara tragedi ger oss lindring, oavsett hur stora eller små sorger vi själva bär... Hon har sagt att hon var tvungen att skriva rått, genomskinligt, att hon inte ville att stilen skulle rymma sikten ... Ändå, eller just därför, är boken det bästa hon skrivit." Expresssen "Ett år av magiskt tänkande" är på många sätt en ljus bok, fast skriven i det största mörker. En saga om lycka, skriven efter lyckans slut. Didion är en skönhet och en stjärna bakom mörka solglasögon. Hennes romaner och reportage har gjort henne till en av de största inom amerikansk samtidslitteratur... Didion har sagt att hon ville skriva en rå bok, men hennes stilistiska fingertoppskänsla, häpnadsväckande väl överförd till svenska av Ulla Danielsson, gör texten till en skönhetsupplevelse. Den coola, exakta prosan ger en sorts behärskad elegans åt sorgen." Aftonbladet "En oändligt rörande bok, mycket välskriven. Betyg: en fyra." Gomorron Sverige ”Jag kan inte komma på en bok vi behöver mer än hennes … Jag kan inte föreställa mig att dö utan den.” – New York Review of Books ”Slutligen, och överraskande för en bok om sjukdom och död, är Ett år av magiskt tänkande en enastående livsbejakande bok.” – Observer "Her tough, beautiful, surgically precise prose is like nothing else I’ve ever read." Donna Tartt "This a beautiful and devastating book by one of the finest writers we have. Didion has always been aprecise, humane and meticulously truthful writer, but on the subject of death she becomes essential." Zadie Smith

In this dramatic adaptation of her award-winning, bestselling memoir, Joan Didion transforms the story of the sudden and unexpected loss of her husband and their only daughter into a stunning and powerful one-woman play. "This happened on December 30, 2003. That may seem a while ago but it won't when it happens to you...." Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times called the memoir that was the basis for the play, "an indelible portrait of loss and grief ... a haunting portrait of a four-decade-long marriage." The first theatrical production of The Year of Magical Thinking opened at the Booth Theatre on March 29, 2007, starring Vanessa Redgrave and directed by David Hare.

A definitive compilation of essays and nonfiction writings spanning more than forty years includes the author's reflections on politics, lifestyle, place, and cultural figures, including her studies of Haight-Ashbury, the Manson family, the Black Panthers, California earthquakes, Bill Clinton and Kenneth Starr, and much more.

From one of America's iconic writers, a portrait of a marriage and a life â?? in good times and bad â?? that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. A stunning book of electric honesty and passion.

I slutet av 1700-talet lämnade Joan Didions mors mormors mormors mormor den amerikanska östkusten för att skapa sig ett bättre liv i det förlovade landet - Kalifornien. Joan Didion växer upp med familjens historier om äventyren, modet och rättrådigheten, och hur de byggde Kalifornien. Berättelser som alla betonar den unika kaliforniska sjävlvständighetslängtan, överlevnadsförmågan och oberoendet. Hur man byggde världens bästa samhälle helt på egen hand. Kalifornien - min historia är en personlig uppgörelse - kärleksfull men knivskarp - med myterna kring familjens och Kaliforniens självbild. Hon finner en avgrund mellan det stoff drömmarna vävts av och verkligheten. Joan Didion har kallats den amerikanska journalistikens "first lady", berömd för sina skarpa och personliga reportage. Hon blev - tillsammans med bland andra Hunter S. Thompson och Tom Wolfe - en av förgrundsfigurerna inom New journalism. 2005 belönades hon med USA:s finaste litterära utmärkelse, National Book Award för sin senaste bok, Ett år av magiskt tänkande (som utkommer på Atlas redan i höst). Org. titel: Where I was from "Den mest skärskådade, distanserade och briljanta analysen ... Som samtidigt är läsvärd enbart för sin rena stil. Det borde vara omöjligt, men Didion gör det." Borås Tidning "Hon är skarpsynt, personlig och rolig" Sydsvenskan "Häpnadsväckande och inponerande... Översätt alla hennes böcker till svenska" Sara Stridsberg, Expressen

A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Joan Didion's Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader. Set in a place beyond good and evil---literally in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the barren wastes of the Mojave Desert, but figuratively in the landscape of an arid soul---it remains more than three decades after its original publication a profoundly disturbing novel, riveting in its exploration of a woman and a society in crisis and stunning in the still-startling intensity of its prose.

Winner of the National Book Award 2005 for nonfiction From one of America’s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage - and a life, in good times and bad - that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later - the night before New Year’s Eve - the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma. This powerful book is Didion’s attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself." 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.

This comprehensive edition brings together for the first time three seminal collections by legendary essayist and journalist Joan Didion: Slouching toward Bethlehem, White Album and Sentimental Journeys. Prefaced with a new introduction by Joan Didion. Live and Learn comprises three of the personal essay collections that established Joan Didion as a major figure in the modern canon – arranged in chronological order so that readers can appreciate not only the qualities of the essays per se, but also their evolution over time. It also includes a new introduction by Joan Didion herself. The stylistic masterpiece Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) has become a modern classic, capturing the mood of 1960s America and especially the center of its counterculture, California. The cornerstone essay, an extraordinary report on San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, sets the agenda for the rest of this book – depicting and America where, in some way or another, things are falling apart and “the center cannot hold”. The White Album (1979) is a syncopated, swirling mosaic of the 60s and 70s, covering people and artifacts from the Black Panthers and the Manson family to John Paul Getty’s museum. Sentimental Journeys (1992) shifts its perspective slightly to take in Vietnamese refugee camps in Hong Kong, the Reagan campaign trail, and the inequities of Los Angeles real estate. An important collection, Live and Learn is the perfect one-stop primer on Joan Didion, and an essential reference for readers old and new. It confirms the power of this uniquely unbiased, moving writer, and showcases her artful yet simple prose.

A memoir of land, family and perseverance from one of the most influential writers in America.

From the bestselling, award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking In this "arresting amalgam of memoir and historical timeline" (The Baltimore Sun), Didion--a native Californian--reassesses parts of her life, her work, her history, and ours. Didion applies her scalpel-like intelligence to California's ethic of ruthless self-sufficiency in order to examine that ethic's often tenuous relationship to reality. Combining history and reportage, memoir and literary criticism, Where I Was From explores California's romances with land and water; its unacknowledged debts to railroads, aerospace, and big government; the disjunction between its code of individualism and its fetish for prisons. Whether she is writing about her pioneer ancestors or privileged sexual predators, robber barons or writers (not excluding herself), Didion is an unparalleled observer, and this book is at once intellectually provocative and deeply personal.

An incisive compilation of political essays, originally written for The New York Review of Books from 1988 to 2000, explores the nature of American politics and political figures and the role of the media in transforming the American political landscape. Reprint. 35,000 first printing.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - "Didion at her finest" --USA Today - An intricate, fast-paced novel about trying to create a context for democracy and getting hands a little dirty in the process, complete with conspiracies, arms dealing, and assassinations. From the author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Let Me Tell You What I Mean The narrator introduces Elena McMahon, estranged from a life of celebrity fundraisers and from her powerful West Coast husband, Wynn Janklow, whom she has left, taking Catherine, her daughter, to become a reporter for The Washington Post. She finds herself boarding a plane for Florida to see her father. She becomes embroiled in her his business even though "she had trained herself since childhood not to have any interest in what he was doing." It is from this moment that she is caught up in something much larger than she could have imagined. Didion makes connections among Dallas, Iran-Contra, and Castro, and points out how "spectral companies with high-concept names tended to interlock." As this book builds to its terrifying finish, we see the underpinnings of a dark historical underbelly.