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Didion's remarkable, five decades-long career as a journalist, essayist, novelist, and screen writer has earned her a prominent place in the American literary canon, and the twelve early pieces collected here underscore her singularity. Her musings--whether contemplating pretty Nancy Reagan living out her middle-class American woman's daydream circa 1948 or the power of Ernest Hemingway's pen--are all unmistakably Didionesque. There will never be another quite like her. --O Magazine [A] dozen arresting, mind-tuning, previously uncollected essays in this exhilarating and instructive gathering spanning several decades . . . [Writing is] a voyage of discovery for Didion, conducted via meticulous observation and assiduous questioning of what she thinks and how her investigations make her feel. We see this at work in her responses to a reunion of the WWII 101st Airborne Division during the Vietnam War and a photo shoot with Nancy Reagan, and in profiles of Robert Mapplethorpe and Martha Stewart. Didion is both porous and steely, self-deprecating and in command. With a perceptive foreword by Hilton Als, who discerns the uncanny in Didion's exacting work, this an illuminating and inspiring addition to the influential Didion canon. --Donna Seaman, Booklist Unquestionably, Joan Didion has been the voice of a generation . . . But she has also been the voice of those who've followed--you can hear her concision; her taste in the spare, shimmery detail; her lean, muscular sentences; and her dogged questioning of perceived truths . . . Didion is the model and exemplar, but she's also just the best writer there is at melding the personal and the political, and bundling all the lit match-sticks of modern life into journalistic form. --Christopher Bollen, Interview Magazine (Ladies and Gentlemen, the Great Joan Didion) What you notice in Didion's nonfiction is how her clarity becomes even sharper when disquiet rattles the cage of the quotidian . . . What Didion sought was naturalness of expression as controlled by a true understanding of one's craft, the better to describe the ineffable, the uncanny in the everyday. --Hilton Als, from the foreword of Let Me Tell You What I Mean A slender, highly satisfying collection . . . In an appreciative introduction, New Yorker theater critic Hilton Als praises Didion as a carver of words in the granite of the specific. Stylistic precision and the energy and shimmer of her prose are fully evident in this volume of previously uncollected pieces . . . All reveal the author's shrewd, acerbic critical eye . . . Didion's rejection from Stanford elicited an essay about college as consumption, and her skewering of consumption and artifice recur as themes--for example, in her observation of the ways women stage themselves for portrait photographs. Several particularly revealing essays focus on writing. --Kirkus This wide-ranging essay collection from Didion showcases her strengths as a short form writer . . . The pieces trace Didion's development as an essayist and offer glimpses of late-20th-century social history . . . As always, the writing is captivating . . . Didion fans new and old will be delighted. --Publishers Weekly This slim volume of uncollected nonfiction is full of small pleasures: Didion's trademark anti-sentimentality, for one; her rhythmic prose; her ruthlessness (see her assessments of gambling addicts, hippies, Nancy Reagan); her wit. In the charming Telling Stories we also get self-effacement: a piece about why she never made the grade as a young short story writer...complete with rejection notices compiled by her agent. --Taylor Antrim, Vogue [These essays] provide a new view into the essayist's mind at work. Didion ruminates on her most familiar subjects--politics, California and writing itself--in a voice that is refreshing, critical and ahead of its time.--TIME These 12 pieces make an excellent introduction to Didion's gimlet eye on American life. With a foreword by critic Hilton Als, Let Me Tell You What I Mean includes the essay Why I Write, profiles of such disparate figures as Robert Mapplethorpe and Nancy Reagan, and a consideration of Hearst Castle. --Bethanne Patrick, The Washington Post Didion's remarkable, five decades-long career as a journalist, essayist, novelist, and screen writer has earned her a prominent place in the American literary canon, and the twelve early pieces collected here underscore her singularity. Her musings--whether contemplating pretty Nancy Reagan living out her middle-class American woman's daydream circa 1948 or the power of Ernest Hemingway's pen--are all unmistakably Didionesque. There will never be another quite like her. --O Magazine In her new collection of essays, acclaimed author and National Book Award-winner Joan Didion explores the little corners of life as a young writer. Taken mostly from her early work, these pieces, which have never been collected before, are the delightful little nuggets of illumination Didion's fans have come to expect from the beloved writer. --Bustle Prepare yourselves for 12 previously uncollected essays by Joan Didion. Drawn mostly from the earlier years of her more than five-decades-long career, these essays include interludes at a Gamblers Anonymous meeting and a reunion of World War II veterans in Las Vegas, as well as thoughts about meetings with the likes of Nancy Reagan, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Martha Stewart. --Fortune You don't need to tell us to read Joan Didion twice ... [This collection] is just what you need to start the year off right. --HelloGiggles Never miss an opportunity to read this author of novels and nonfiction, who has the eye of a detective, the heart of a romantic and the soul of a skeptical truth-teller. --The Detroit Free Press

A slender, highly satisfying collection . . . In an appreciative introduction, New Yorker theater critic Hilton Als praises Didion as a carver of words in the granite of the specific. Stylistic precision and the energy and shimmer of her prose are fully evident in this volume of previously uncollected pieces . . . All reveal the author's shrewd, acerbic critical eye . . . Didion's rejection from Stanford elicited an essay about college as consumption, and her skewering of consumption and artifice recur as themes--for example, in her observation of the ways women stage themselves for portrait photographs. Several particularly revealing essays focus on writing. --Kirkus This wide-ranging essay collection from Didion showcases her strengths as a short form writer . . . The pieces trace Didion's development as an essayist and offer glimpses of late-20th-century social history . . . As always, the writing is captivating . . . Didion fans new and old will be delighted. --Publishers Weekly [A] dozen arresting, mind-tuning, previously uncollected essays in this exhilarating and instructive gathering spanning several decades . . . [Writing is] a voyage of discovery for Didion, conducted via meticulous observation and assiduous questioning of what she thinks and how her investigations make her feel. We see this at work in her responses to a reunion of the WWII 101st Airborne Division during the Vietnam War and a photo shoot with Nancy Reagan, and in profiles of Robert Mapplethorpe and Martha Stewart. Didion is both porous and steely, self-deprecating and in command. With a perceptive foreword by Hilton Als, who discerns the uncanny in Didion's exacting work, this an illuminating and inspiring addition to the influential Didion canon. --Donna Seaman, Booklist Unquestionably, Joan Didion has been the voice of a generation . . . But she has also been the voice of those who've followed--you can hear her concision; her taste in the spare, shimmery detail; her lean, muscular sentences; and her dogged questioning of perceived truths in every writer who has been heralded, in the intervening years, the voice of their generation. Didion is the model and exemplar, but she's also just the best writer there is at melding the personal and the political, and bundling all the lit match-sticks of modern life into journalistic form . . . The 12 pieces that make up Let Me Tell You What I Mean run a range of incursions on the cultural landscape--a visit to a Gambler's Anonymous meeting, gardening with Nancy Reagan, the portraiture of Robert Mapplethorpe, a transformative undergraduate writing workshop at UC Berkeley, the genius of Martha Stewart, and respecting the wishes of Ernest Hemingway. In Didion's phenomenal 1976 essay, Why I Write, also included in this book, she candidly explains why she spends her days shuffling words around on a sheet of paper. --Christopher Bollen, Interview Magazine (Ladies and Gentlemen, the Great Joan Didion)

A slender, highly satisfying collection . . . In an appreciative introduction, New Yorker theater critic Hilton Als praises Didion as a carver of words in the granite of the specific. Stylistic precision and the energy and shimmer of her prose are fully evident in this volume of previously uncollected pieces . . . All reveal the author's shrewd, acerbic critical eye . . . Didion's rejection from Stanford elicited an essay about college as consumption, and her skewering of consumption and artifice recur as themes--for example, in her observation of the ways women stage themselves for portrait photographs. Several particularly revealing essays focus on writing. --Kirkus This wide-ranging essay collection from Didion showcases her strengths as a short form writer . . . The pieces trace Didion's development as an essayist and offer glimpses of late-20th-century social history . . . As always, the writing is captivating . . . Didion fans new and old will be delighted. --Publishers Weekly [A] dozen arresting, mind-tuning, previously uncollected essays in this exhilarating and instructive gathering spanning several decades . . . [Writing is] a voyage of discovery for Didion, conducted via meticulous observation and assiduous questioning of what she thinks and how her investigations make her feel. We see this at work in her responses to a reunion of the WWII 101st Airborne Division during the Vietnam War and a photo shoot with Nancy Reagan, and in profiles of Robert Mapplethorpe and Martha Stewart. Didion is both porous and steely, self-deprecating and in command. With a perceptive foreword by Hilton Als, who discerns the uncanny in Didion's exacting work, this an illuminating and inspiring addition to the influential Didion canon. --Donna Seaman, Booklist

Author Information

JOAN DIDION was born in Sacramento in 1934 and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1956. After graduation, Didion moved to New York and began working for Vogue, which led to her career as a journalist and writer. Didion published her first novel, Run River, in 1963. Didion’s other novels include A Book of Common Prayer (1977), Democracy (1984), and The Last Thing He Wanted (1996).   Didion’s first volume of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, was published in 1968, and her second, The White Album, was published in 1979. Her nonfiction works include Salvador (1983), Miami (1987), After Henry (1992), Political Fictions (2001), Where I Was From (2003), We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live (2006), Blue Nights (2011), South and West (2017) and Let Me Tell You What I Mean (2021). Her memoir The Year of Magical Thinking won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2005.   In 2005, Didion was awarded the American Academy of Arts & Letters Gold Medal in Criticism and Belles Letters. In 2007, she was awarded the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. A portion of National Book Foundation citation read: ""An incisive observer of American politics and culture for more than forty-five years, Didion’s distinctive blend of spare, elegant prose and fierce intelligence has earned her books a place in the canon of American literature as well as the admiration of generations of writers and journalists.” In 2013, she was awarded a National Medal of Arts and Humanities by President Barack Obama, and the PEN Center USA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Didion said of her writing: ""I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.” She died in December 2021.

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