Library Manager
Manage your library—your way. Keep a running list or organize archived books into little stacks. i.e. Beach Reads, Cozy Covers, True Crime, etc.
South and West
A work of Non-fiction by Joan Didion
Subgenres:
- Essay Collection,
- American South,
- California
This book is for you if you're into...
- Notebook-style reflections on 1970s Southern and Western American culture
- Road trip observations layered with sharp commentary on race and class
- Behind-the-scenes glimpses into a writer's creative process
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
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.
Follow This Author
Sign up & we'll email you when a new title is available for pre-order or hits the bookshelf
Get Free & Discounted eBooks
Curated reads, irresistible prices—subscribe now