Sunday, February 7, 2010

IDOL IDYLL #2: JOAN DIDION


Joan Didion is our perfect writer. Brash, brave, reckless, an itinerant intellectual who took her writing seriously enough to call it a "craft". No drinks during the drafting but a tall scotch before revision. Forget Tom Wolfe, Didion was the greatest American essayist of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Here is a short video of JD accepting the NBF's lifetime achievement award in 2007.

Absolutely essential reading:
SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM
THE WHITE ALBUM
PLAY IT AS IT LAYS
A BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER
POLITICAL FICTIONS
WHERE I WAS FROM
THE LAS THING HE WANTED
or save yourself some dollars by buying WE TELL OURSELVES STORIES IN ORDER TO LIVE, seven volumes of JD's nonfiction as collected by the Everyman's Library

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