New Releases by Joan Didion

"En noviembre de 1999, Joan Didion empezó a visitar a un psiquiatra porque, como escribió a un amigo, su familia había estado pasando “unos años difíciles”. Durante meses, registró sus encuentros con meticuloso detalle en un diario destinado a su marido, John Gregory Dunne. Los primeros encuentros se centraron en el alcoholismo, la adopción, la depresión, la ansiedad, la culpa y las desgarradoras complejidades de la relación con su hija Quintana. Estos asuntos mutaron hasta abarcar su trabajo, que le resultaba difícil mantener durante períodos prolongados. Hubo discusiones sobre su propia infancia - malentendidos y falta de comunicación con su madre y su padre, así como la temprana tendencia de la joven Joan a anticipar catástrofes - y la cuestión del legado, o, como ella lo expresaba, “lo que ha valido”. La terapia continuaría durante más de una década. El diario de Didion fue elaborado con la precisión, la lucidez y la elegancia que caracterizan a la autora. Sin embargo, aquí aparece también una Joan Didion que nunca habíamos visto: ''Apuntes para John'' es el registro extraordinariamente íntimo de un viaje doloroso y valiente en la vida de una de las más grandes escritoras de nuestro tiempo"--Back cover.

A previously unpublished work from one of America''s most iconic writers, Joan Didion. In November 1999, Joan Didion began seeing a psychiatrist because, as she wrote to a friend, her family had had ''a rough few years.'' She described the sessions in a journal she created for her husband, John Gregory Dunne. For several months, Didion recorded conversations with the psychiatrist in meticulous detail. The initial sessions focused on alcoholism, adoption, depression, anxiety, guilt, and the heartbreaking complexities of her relationship with her daughter, Quintana. The subjects evolved to include her work, which she was finding difficult to maintain for sustained periods. There were discussions about her own childhood--misunderstandings and lack of communication with her mother and father, her early tendency to anticipate catastrophe--and the question of legacy, or, as she put it, ''what it''s been worth.'' The analysis would continue for more than a decade. Didion''s journal was crafted with the singular intelligence, precision, and elegance that characterize all of her writing. It is an unprecedently intimate account that reveals sides of her that were unknown, but the voice is unmistakably hers--questioning, courageous, and clear in the face of a wrenchingly painful journey.

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.”

Da mente de uma das escritoras mais marcantes das últimas décadas, esta coleção de textos oferece um vislumbre iluminado das ideias, pensamentos e talentos da icónica Joan Didion. As abordagens da autora viajam das notícias dos jornais americanos até sessões com viciados em jogo; de ser rejeitada pela Universidade de Stanford até uma visita a Nancy Reagan; de ser mulher do governador da Califórnia — e de, por isso, ter uma equipa de televisão a filmar tudo o que fazia em casa —até um encontro com veteranos da Segunda Guerra Mundial em Las Vegas. A coleção de textos inclui ainda um célebre artigo de 1976 publicado pelo New York Times, intitulado Porque Escrevo, e peças sobre Hemingway e Martha Stewart escritas em 1998 e 2000. Cada texto é Didion no seu melhor: incisiva, surpreendentemente perspicaz. Eterna.

« Je me fais l’effet d’une somnambule, sensible uniquement à l’étoffe dont sont faits les mauvais rêves, aux fous, aux rôdeurs tapis dans l’ombre, aux enfants perdus, à toutes les armées de l’ignorance qui s’agitent dans la nuit. Je ne suis pas un microcosme de la société. Je suis une femme de 34 ans qui a de longs cheveux raides, un vieux bikini et une crise de nerfs, assise sur une île au milieu du Pacifique à attendre une lame de fond qui ne vient pas. » – Joan Didion, 1969 Redécouverte en 2007 grâce à L’Année de la pensée magique, Joan Didion fut d’abord et avant tout l’une des plus fines chroniqueuses de l’Amérique désaxée des années 60 et 70. Les onze textes ici réunis (restés à ce jour inédits en France et parés d’une aura quasi mythique aux Etats-Unis) nous entraînent dans une plongée en immersion au cœur du quartier hippie de San Francisco en 1967 ; à la rencontre de John Wayne, des Doors ou des Black Panthers ; dans les collines de Los Angeles terrorisées par la « famille » Manson ; à New York en proie à l’hystérie collective au lendemain d’un meurtre à Central Park ; sur la plage hawaïenne de Tant qu’il y aura des hommes ; ou encore dans les méandres des fêlures mentales de Joan Didion elle-même, qui par la force ensorcelante de son écriture ne cesse de surprendre, de déranger, et d’émouvoir.

I julen 2003 blev Joan Didion og hendes mand, John Gregory Dunnes datter alvorligt syg. Nogle dage senere, netop hjemvendt fra et besøg hos hende på hospitalet, sætter de sig til at spise aftensmad, da John falder død om, ramt af et hjerteslag. Et år med magisk tænkning er Didions smukke, ærlige og usentimentale forsøg på at forstå "de uger og siden måneder, som ændrede enhver fast forestilling, jeg havde haft om død, om sygdom, om held og uheld, om medgang og modgang, om ægteskab og børn og erindring, om sorg". Dybest set håber hun på, at han vender tilbage, og det er denne irrationelle tankegang, der er magisk tænkning.

Após terem visitado sua única filha, Quintana, internada depois de sofrer de pneumonia seguida por um choque séptico, Joan Didion e seu marido, o escritor e diretor John Gregory Dunne, sentam-se para jantar. A noite é interrompida quando John sofre um ataque cardíaco fulminante, colocando fim na parceria de quarenta anos com Didion. Dois meses depois, Quintana se recupera ― apenas para sofrer um colapso no aeroporto de Los Angeles e passar por seis horas de cirurgia para remover um hematoma cerebral. Em O ano do pensamento mágico, Joan Didion explora uma experiência pessoal e, ainda assim, universal: o retrato de uma vida em comum que termina abruptamente, os bons e os maus momentos de um casamento e da maternidade,uma reflexão sobre perda e luto capaz de emocionar qualquer pessoa que já amou um cônjuge ou uma criança.

Examinando grandes eventos, personalidades e tendências de uma era — como as jornadas obscuras da família Manson, o surgimento dos shoppings e a fundação dos Panteras Negras — através das lentes de sua própria ebulição cultural, Joan Didion reflete sobre o absurdo e a paranoia que marcaram os anos 1960 e 1970, que nos apresentaram a cultura de massa como a conhecemos hoje. Escrito com uma voz única, O álbum branco é um mosaico jornalístico e ensaístico do cotidiano americano de uma época fundamental para os Estados Unidos e o mundo. Um dos maiores clássicos do gênero, seu poder de surpreender e informar o leitor se mantém igual mesmo após décadas de sua publicação original.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From one of our most iconic and influential writers, the award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking: a timeless collection of mostly early pieces that reveal what would become Joan Didion''s subjects, including the press, politics, California robber barons, women, and her own self-doubt. With a forward by Hilton Als, these twelve pieces from 1968 to 2000, never before gathered together, offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary figure. They showcase Joan Didion''s incisive reporting, her empathetic gaze, and her role as "an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time" (The New York Times Book Review). Here, Didion touches on topics ranging from newspapers ("the problem is not so much whether one trusts the news as to whether one finds it"), to the fantasy of San Simeon, to not getting into Stanford. In "Why I Write," Didion ponders the act of writing: "I write entirely to find out what I''m thinking, what I''m looking at, what I see and what it means." From her admiration for Hemingway''s sentences to her acknowledgment that Martha Stewart''s story is one "that has historically encouraged women in this country, even as it has threatened men," these essays are acutely and brilliantly observed. Each piece is classic Didion: incisive, bemused, and stunningly prescient.

Un oscuro y enigmático thriller sobre los complots y conspiraciones de la Guerra Fría de la mano de Joan Didion, una de las narradoras más lúcidas de las letras norteamericanas. Elena McMahon abandona su trabajo como reportera en The Washington Post y su lujosa vida en California para adentrarse en otra: la de su padre, una existencia repleta de tratos oscuros. Sin apenas darse cuenta, acabará sustituyéndole como traficante de armas para Estados Unidos en algún punto de América Central. ¿Cómo ha podido llegar hasta ese punto? ¿Qué la ha llevado a cambiar una vida acomodada por el mundo criminal? En este thriller moral, hipnótico y provocativo, Elena se enfrentará a las consecuencias de los errores de su padre hasta verse implicada en una conspiración gubernamental que pondrá en jaque su vida y sus principios. Ambientada en los ochenta y escrita como si se tratara de una investigación sobre lo que ocurrió durante esos años de sombras políticas, complots e intentos de asesinato, Joan Didion nos presenta una novela trepidante y enigmática donde vamos descifrando poco a poco la figura de Elena hasta conseguir entender su papel en ese gran tablero que constituían los últimos años de la Guerra Fría. La crítica ha dicho... «Lúcida e irreal al mismo tiempo... el resultado es fascinante.» The New Yorker «La leí dos veces por puro placer.» The Guardian «Veloz, inteligente, original [...]. Su último deseo es un thriller compuesto con todos los recursos de alguien dotado para la mejor literatura.» The New York Review of Books «Excepcional. Didion ha creado un mundo amenazante donde el lector se convierte en su rehén.» Los Angeles Times «Una novela impresionante, rápida, dura, astuta.» Daily Mail «Conmovedora. Didion en su mejor momento.» USA Today «Lo que permanece constante en todas las novelas de Didion es la maravillosa notación del desafecto y de la desesperación, que recuerda a sus trabajos ensayísticos y periodísticos, donde los detalles oscuros, la contención y la inteligencia funcionan maravillosamente bien.» The New York Times Book Review «Las protagonistas de las novelas de Didion abandonan su vida para terminar dándose cuenta de que no tienen otro lugar al que ir.» The New York Times «Una gran obra de una de las observadoras más inteligentes de la vida política y cultural estadounidense.» Publishers Weekly

Una crònica commovedora sobre la malaltia i la mort a través de l''experiència personal de la periodista i escriptora Joan Didion. El Nadal del 2003, la Joan Didion va haver d''afrontar la sobtada mort del seu marit, el també escriptor John Gregory Dunne, i la llarga malaltia de la seva filla. L''autora va narrar amb una fascinant distància emocional la seva reacció a la tragèdia a L''any del pensament màgic, un llibre breu i intens, d''una honestedat desbordant, que s''ha convertit en un clàssic del dol. Aquesta crònica de supervivència ha captivat milions de lectors a tot el món i va guanyar, l''any 2005, el prestigiós National Book Award. Crítiques: «Plena de detalls i d''una enlluernadora honestedat [...], un retrat indeleble de la pèrdua i del dol.» Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times «El llibre és un intent de transcendir l''estupor i el sense sentit en què ens deixa sumits el dolor quan experimentem la mort d''algú molt proper.» Eduardo Lago, Babelia «Un llibre per al consol. En comparació amb els textos d''autoajuda i els repertoris tècnics de superació de l''insuperable, el llibre de la Joan Didion ens col·loca a la sala d''espera del dolor, ens en presenta el públic i els pacients.» Alejandro Gándara, El Mundo «Una escriptura directa, sense concessions sentimentals, que recorre al flashback per mantenir el lector sempre en suspens.» Bernabé Sarabia, El Cultural «No puc pensar en un llibre que necessitem més que el seu. [...] No em puc imaginar morir sense aquest llibre.» John Leonard, The New York Review of Books «Un acte consumat de valentia literària, una escriptora reconeguda per la seva claredat que ens permet entrar dins la seva ment mentre aquesta s''ennuvola pel dol.» Lev Grossman, Time

»Unwiderstehlich... Ein Liebeslied über den Ort, an dem ihre Familie seit Generationen lebt, aber ein Liebeslied voller Fragen und Zweifel.« Michiko Kakutani, New York Times Joan Didion wurde in Sacramento geboren und verbrachte die meiste Zeit ihres Lebens in Kalifornien. In Woher ich kam spürt sie der Geschichte und den Mythen dieses Landstrichs nach, und denen ihrer Familie, die seit vielen Generationen an der Westküste beheimatet ist. Sie beschreibt vornehmlich die weibliche Ahnenreihe, aus der sie stammt, von der Ur-ur-ur-ur-ur-Großmutter Elisabeth Scott, geboren 1766 in Virginia, bis zu ihrer Mutter Eduene Jerrett Didion, die 2001 starb und in Joan Didions Augen viele der »Verwirrungen und Widersprüche kalifornischen Lebens« verkörpert hatte. Sie schreibt über die Pioniersfrau und die Rodney-King-Unruhen im Los Angeles der 90er Jahre, über den Bau der ersten Eisenbahn und die kalifornische Besessenheit mit Gefängnissen, und immer wieder über die eigene, höchst wechselvolle Beziehung zu ihrer Heimat.

Em 2005, dois meses após a publicação de O ano do pensamento mágico, Joan Didion perdeu a filha, Quintana. Cinco anos mais tarde, a data que marcava o que deveria ser o aniversário de sete anos de casamento de Quintana desperta memórias vívidas sobre a criação dela, as perdas de pessoas queridas e o doloroso processo de envelhecimento, que preenchem as páginas deste livro de memórias. Em Noites azuis, best-seller do New York Times e um dos relatos mais brutais e honestos de Didion, ela expõe uma tentativa em compreender seus medos mais profundos, seus ajustes inadequados frente ao envelhecimento e a busca por dar nome àquilo que evitamos ver e às consequências que nos recusamos a enfrentar. Intensa, poética e poderosa, esta obra tece um relato sobre a maternidade, a memória e o luto em uma narrativa ao mesmo tempo pessoal e coletiva. "(...) Esta [obra] é mais profunda e mais provocativa em outro nível; o nível em que a autora precisa tomar ciência e encarar de frente o desolador fato de que, contra as piores investidas da vida, nada pode ser útil, nem mesmo a arte; sobretudo a arte." — New York Times "A prosa de Joan, rara, polida e quase quebradiça, revela uma angústia que é universal. Ela irá falar com, e talvez até confortar, qualquer pessoa que tenha perdido para sempre alguém que amava." — Daily Mail

"De la autora de El año del pensamiento mágico, una novela perturbadora sobre la realidad de ser mujer. Un clásico de la literatura norteamericana."--Casadellibro.

Incisive essays on Patty Hearst and Reagan, the Central Park jogger and the Santa Ana winds, from the New York Times–bestselling author of South and West. In these eleven essays covering the national scene from Washington, DC; California; and New York, the acclaimed author of Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album "capture[s] the mood of America" and confirms her reputation as one of our sharpest and most trustworthy cultural observers ( The New York Times). Whether dissecting the 1988 presidential campaign, exploring the commercialization of a Hollywood murder, or reporting on the "sideshows" of foreign wars, Joan Didion proves that she is one of the premier essayists of the twentieth century, "an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time" (Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review) . Highlights include "In the Realm of the Fisher King," a portrait of the White House under the stewardship of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, two "actors on location;" and "Girl of the Golden West," a meditation on the Patty Hearst case that draws an unexpected and insightful parallel between the kidnapped heiress and the emigrants who settled California. "Sentimental Journeys" is a deeply felt study of New York media coverage of the brutal rape of a white investment banker in Central Park, a notorious crime that exposed the city''s racial and class fault lines. Dedicated to Henry Robbins, Didion''s friend and editor from 1966 until his death in 1979, After Henry is an indispensable collection of "superior reporting and criticism" from a writer on whom we have relied for more than fifty years "to get the story straight" ( Los Angeles Times).

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “One of contemporary literature’s most revered essayists revives her raw records from a 1970s road trip across the American southwest ... her acute observations of the country’s culture and history feel particularly resonant today.” —Harper’s Bazaar Joan Didion, the bestselling, award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Let Me Tell You What I Mean, has always kept notebooks—of overheard dialogue, interviews, drafts of essays, copies of articles. Here are two extended excerpts from notebooks she kept in the 1970s; read together, they form a piercing view of the American political and cultural landscape. “Notes on the South” traces a road trip that she and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, took through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Her acute observations about the small towns they pass through, her interviews with local figures, and their preoccupation with race, class, and heritage suggest a South largely unchanged today. “California Notes” began as an assignment from Rolling Stone on the Patty Hearst trial. Though Didion never wrote the piece, the time she spent watching the trial in San Francisco triggered thoughts about the West and her own upbringing in Sacramento. Here we not only see Didion’s signature irony and imagination in play, we’re also granted an illuminating glimpse into her mind and process.

La vita cambia in un istante. Passa dalla normalità alla catastrofe. John Gregory Dunne, sposato da quarant''anni con Joan Didion, muore all''improvviso la sera del 30 dicembre 2003. Ed è così che per Joan inizia l''anno del pensiero magico. Un anno in cui tutto viene rimesso in discussione, riconsiderato, riformulato. Le idee sulla morte, sulla malattia, sul calcolo delle probabilità, sulla fortuna e sulla sfortuna, sul matrimonio e sui figli e sulla memoria, sul dolore, sui modi in cui la gente affronta o non affronta il fatto che la vita finisce, sulla fragilità dell''equilibrio mentale, sulla vita stessa. Una scrittrice ironica e graffiante, un''icona dell''America contemporanea racconta se stessa con sincerità, con crudezza, e racconta una storia d''amore. Le sue parole colpiscono nel profondo chiunque sappia che cosa significa amare qualcuno e perderlo. Pagine che scandiscono un rito di passaggio, che si affollano di riflessioni, letture, stralci di conversazioni, di stratagemmi per sopravvivere. Come quel pensiero magico che induce a credere di poter modificare ciò che è già accaduto, di poter tornare indietro, perché lui possa tornare indietro. Fino a che, dopo un anno e un giorno, Joan si rende conto, quasi suo malgrado, che qualcosa sta cambiando. Che guardando al tempo trascorso incontra ricordi in cui John non è più presente. Che è necessario, e giusto, lasciare andare i morti. Per poter sopravvivere. Per poter continuare a vivere.

Unas memorias conmovedoras sobre la enfermedad y la muerte a través de la experiencia personal de la periodista y escritora Joan Didion. Este libro memorable ha cautivado a millones de lectores en todo el mundo. En él, la escritora Joan Didion, una de las autoras norteamericanas más reputadas de finales del siglo XX, narra con una fascinante distancia emocional la muerte repentina de su marido, el también escritor John Gregory Dunne. Este libro tan breve como intenso es, por consiguiente, una reflexión sobre el duelo y la crónica de una supervivencia. El año del pensamiento mágico obtuvo el National Book Award en 2005. Reseñas: «Llena de detalles y de una deslumbrante honestidad [...], un retrato indeleble de la pérdida y el luto.» Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times «Un acto consumado de valentía literaria, una escritora reconocida por su claridad que nos permite entrar en su mente mientras esta se nubla por el luto.» Lev Grossman, Time «Un libro que, repitiendo el tópico, se lee "como una novela" y cuya tensión sale de las entrañas de un ser herido pero dotado con una excepcional capacidad analítica y expresiva.» El Cultural «En una cultura donde la elaboración de los sentimientos [...] ha sido rescindida por una prohibición directa a través de la vergüenza o por el "deber ético del goce" [...], el libro de Didion duplica el valor del testimonio y de la invitación que lanza a un mundo de bobos emocionales técnicamente competentes.» El Mundo «El libro es un intento de trascender el estupor y sinsentido en que nos deja sumidos el dolor cuando experimentamos la muerte de alguien muy cercano.» Eduardo Lago, Babelia, El País

Après avoir érigé un inoubliable tombeau littéraire à l''homme de sa vie (L''Année de la pensée magique), Joan Didion adresse, dans Le Bleu de la nuit, un vibrant hommage à leur fille, décédée quelques semaines à peine avant la parution de la Pensée magique aux Etats-Unis. Mais qu''on ne se méprenne pas : loin d''en être une "suite", ce récit serait plutôt son image en miroir, une variation inversée. On y retrouve, intactes, la puissance et la singularité de l''écriture de Didion : sèche, précise, lumineuse face à la nuit. Dans un puzzle de réminiscences et de réflexions (sur la mort, bien sûr, mais aussi sur les mystères de l''enfance, de la maternité, de la vieillesse et de la création), l''auteur mène un combat acharné contre les fantômes de la mélancolie, des doutes et des regrets. Poignante sans jamais verser dans le pathétique, d''une impitoyable honnêteté envers elle-même sans céder aux sirènes de la complaisance ou de l''impudeur, Joan Didion incarne la foi dans les forces de l''esprit et de la littérature.

''Blå timer'' er en fritstående fortsættelse af ''Et år med magisk tænkning'', og om muligt en endnu stærkere bog. Den handler især om datterens død. Om det frygteligt forkerte i at skulle begrave sin voksne datter kort tid efter hendes bryllup. Om at stå magtesløs tilbage. Og mærke alderdommen snige sig ind på en og forstærke denne magtesløshed, hvordan den rent fysisk nærmest tager over. Samtidig - fordi Joan Didion så modigt og fintfølende evner at registrere og reflektere over, det der sker i dette tilværelsesns og sjælelivets skumringsland - bliver denne tragiske beretning til en intens og livsklog og ja, livsbekræftende bog. Med udgangspunkt i de lykkelige minder netop fra datterens bryllyp - og fra de glimt af barndommen, der dukker op i forberedelserne af dette, opruller Joan Didion deres liv sammen. Mor og datter. Og med et helt særligt klarsyn, skærpet af sorgen og af den tydelige fornemmelse af selv at nærme sig sit livs aften, beskriver hun både de lykkeligste stunder og de smertelige øjeblikke og oplevelser af afstand, utilstrækkelighed og fravær. Joan Didion formår som få at stille skarpt på og beskrive tilværelsens mange facetter. Her skriver hun dybt bevægende og tankevækkende om at se hele sit liv - ikke mindst kærligheden til sit barn og sin egen rolle som forældre - i skumringens og sorgens tvelys.

This enhanced eBook edition of Blue Nights includes three short films directed by Griffin Dunne and starring Joan Didion. Each film blends Didion''s incisive prose with images and mementos from her daughter''s life. From one of our most powerful writers, Blue Nights is 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.

The iconic writer''s electrifying first novel is a story of marriage, murder and betrayal that only she could tell with such nuance, sympathy, and suspense—from the bestselling, award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Let Me Tell You What I Mean. Everett McClellan and his wife, Lily, are the great-grandchildren of pioneers, and what happens to them is a tragic epilogue to the pioneer experience—a haunting portrait of a marriage whose wrong turns and betrayals are at once absolutely idiosyncratic and a razor-sharp commentary on the history of California.

From the bestselling, award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Let Me Tell You What I Mean—a gorgeously written, bitterly funny look at the relationship between politics and personal life. Moving deftly between romance, farce, and tragedy, from 1970s America to Vietnam to Jakarta, Democracy is a tour de force from a writer who can dissect an entire society with a single phrase. Inez Victor knows that the major casualty of the political life is memory. But the people around Inez have made careers out of losing track. Her senator husband wants to forget the failure of his last bid for the presidency. Her husband''s handler would like the press to forget that Inez''s father is a murderer. And, in 1975, America is doing its best to lose track of its one-time client, the lethally hemorrhaging republic of South Vietnam. As conceived by Joan Didion, these personages and events constitute the terminal fallout of democracy, a fallout that also includes fact-finding junkets, senatorial groupies, the international arms market, and the Orwellian newspeak of the political class.

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.

"Terror is the given of the place." The place is El Salvador in 1982, at the ghastly height of its civil war. Didion "brings the country to life" (The New York Times), delivering an anatomy of a particular brand of political terror—its mechanisms, rationales, and intimate relation to United States foreign policy. As ash travels from battlefields to body dumps, Didion interviews a puppet president, and considers the distinctly Salvadoran grammar of the verb "to disappear." Here, the bestselling, award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Let Me Tell You What I Mean gives us a book that is germane to any country in which bloodshed has become a standard tool of politics.

Une soirée ordinaire, fin décembre à New York. Joan Didion s''apprête à dîner avec son mari, l''écrivain John Gregory Dunne - quand ce dernier s’écroule sur la table de la salle à manger, victime d''une crise cardiaque foudroyante. Pendant une année entière, Didion essaiera de se résoudre à la mort du compagnon de toute sa vie, tout en s''occupant de leur fille, plongée dans le coma suite à une grave pneumonie. La souffrance, l''incompréhension, l''incrédulité, la méditation obsessionnelle autour de cet événement si commun et pourtant inconcevable : dans un récit impressionnant de sobriété et d''implacable honnêteté, Didion raconte la folie du deuil et dissèque, entre sécheresse clinique et monologue intérieur, la plus indicible expérience - et sa rédemption par la littérature. « Quintessence du style, son écriture est la fusion du feu et de la glace. Laconique, tenue, sèche, cruelle et lyrique à la fois. (...) Disons que ce serait la version féminine de Samuel Beckett, en lunettes noires, qui siroterait un cocktail au bord d’une piscine californienne. Disons que s’il y avait des “premières dames” de la littérature américaine, Joan Didion serait sa Jackie Kennedy. » (Myriam Anderson, Le Figaro Magazine, 9 septembre 2006)

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • From one of America’s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion that 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. One of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • A Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction Book of the Last 30 Years 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.