The White Album

This one is hit-or-miss for me, but whew, when it hits, it really hits.

I think Didion gives ungenerous takes on some things–feminism, for instance–but I still enjoy reading her biting take on things even when I disagree with her. Her style works better for me when she's talking about (or incorporating) personal stuff. If you live/grew up in California in the 70's, there are some nice time capsules here (I can't believe I loved an essay about CalTrans?).

There's also a really fun, if also really unfair, critique of author Doris Lessing here, which is worth the price of the book for me.

I mean, it's Joan Didion.

need to reread. I did not realize the sheer magnitude of the post-pandemic joan didion personal essay industrial complex until I saw her prose and realized every medium and substack user is in some way derivative of her........