Bücher von Joan Didion

From one of America's iconic writers, 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. A stunning book of electric honesty and passion.Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill. At first they thought it was flu, then pneumonia, then complete sceptic 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 suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of 40 years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LA airport, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Centre 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'. The result is an exploration of an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage, and a life, in good times and bad.

Joan Didion's hugely influential collection of essays which defines, for many, the America which rose from the ashes of the Sixties.

A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, from the author of The Last Thing He Wanted and A Book of Common Prayer.Somewhere out beyond Hollywood, resting actress Maria Wyeth drifts along the freeway in perpetual motion, anaesthetized to pain and pleasure, seemingly untainted by her personal history. She finds herself, in her early thirties, radically divorced from husband, lovers, friends, her own past and her own future.Play It As It Lays is set in a place beyond good and evil, literally in Los Angeles and Las Vegas and the barren wastes of the Mojave, but figuratively in the landscape of the arid soul. Capturing the mood of an entire generation, Didion chose Hollywood to serve as her microcosm of contemporary society and exposed a culture characterized by emptiness and ennui.Two decades after its original publication, it remains a profoundly disturbing novel, an immaculately wrought portrait of a world (California on the cusp of the 70s) where too much freedom made a lot of people ill.

From one of America's greatest and most iconic writers: an honest and courageous portrait of age and motherhood.Several days before Christmas 2003, Joan Didion's only daughter, Quintana, fell seriously ill. In 2010, Didion marked the sixth anniversary of her daughter's death. 'Blue Nights' is a shatteringly honest examination of Joan Didion's life as a mother, a woman and a writer.Recently widowed, and becoming increasingly frail, 'Blue Nights' is Didion's attempt to understand our deepest fears, our inadequate adjustments to ageing and to put a name to what we refuse to see and as a consequence fail to face up to, 'this refusal even to engage in such contemplation, this failure to confront the certainties of ageing, illness and death. This fear.' This fear is tied to what we cherish most and fight to conserve, protect, and refuse to let go, for, 'when we are talking about mortality we are talking about our children.' To face death is to let go of memory, to be bereft once more, 'I know what it is I am now experiencing. I know what the frailty is, I know what the fear is.'The fear is not for what is lost.The fear is for what is still to be lost.You may see nothing still to be lost.Yet there is no day in her life on which I do not see her.A profound, poetic and powerful book about motherhood and the fierce way in which we continue to exalt and nurture our children, even if they only live on in memory.'Blue Nights' is an intensely personal, and yet, strangely universal account of how we love. It is both groundbreaking and a culmination of a stunning career.

Celebrated, iconic, and indispensable, Joan DidionΓÇÖs 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 ΓÇ£best prose written in this country.ΓÇ¥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 DidionΓÇÖs 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 FranciscoΓÇÖs Haight-Ashbury, the heart of the counterculture. As Joyce Carol Oates remarked: ΓÇ£[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.ΓÇ¥

The Year of Magical Thinking, written by the acclaimed author Joan Didion, is a captivating exploration of grief and loss. Published by Random House LCC US in 2007, this poignant work delves into the year following the death of Didion's husband, painting a raw and honest portrait of mourning. This book, which falls under the genre of autobiographical narrative, chronicles Didion's personal journey of coming to terms with her loss, filled with reflections, memories, and the so-called 'magical thinking' that often accompanies grief. Didion's masterful storytelling and profound insights make this a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of human emotion. The Year of Magical Thinking is a testament to Didion's skill as a writer and her courage as a human being.

'Eine Erzählstimme, so elegant und präzise, so traurig und tief zugleich, dass man ihr überallhin folgen will.'Antonia Baum'Alles hier verändert sich, und nichts hat den Anschein, es würde sich ändern. Es gibt keine wahrnehmbare Drehung der Sterne in ihrem Lauf, keine Veränderung der Jahreszeiten, die sich anhand der Tageslänge oder der Lufttemperatur, der Temperatur der Erde oder des Wassers bemerkbar machen würde, es gibt nur die amniotische Stille, in der die Transformation eine Konstante ist.'

'DIE MITTE HIELT NICHT LÄNGER. Es war ein Land der Bankrotterklärungen und Zwangsversteigerungen, der täglichen Berichte über Gelegenheitsmorde und abhanden gekommene Kinder (...). Halbwüchsige trieben von einer zerrissenen Stadt in die nächste und warfen ihre Vergangenheit und ihre Zukunft ab wie Schlangen ihre Haut; Kinder, denen die Spiele, die die Gesellschaft zusammengehalten hatten, nicht beigebracht worden waren und die sie jetzt nicht mehr lernen würden. (...) Es war kein Land in offener Revolte. Es war kein Land im Belagerungszustand. Es handelte sich um die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika im kalten Spätfrühling des Jahres 1967.'

'Ein Schreiben am Nullpunkt, das vor kühler Erschütterung fast zu bersten droht.'Daniel Schreiber, Die Zeit'Ich schreibe ausschließlich, um herauszufinden, was ich denke, was ich anschaue, was ich sehe und was das bedeutet.' Mit 'Was ich meine' lässt uns Joan Didion, die brillante Chronistin ihrer Zeit, ein letztes Mal an ihrer Gegenwart teilhaben. In zwölf essenziellen und zeitlosen Essays, am Ende ihres Lebens von ihr zusammengestellt, lernen wir ihr Amerika kennen, und die Frau, die auf dem Weg ist, eine Ikone der amerikanischen Literatur zu werden.'Ein Satz von Didion ist immer ein Wunderwerk magischen Denkens.' The Guardian'Mit Didion ist Selbstbetrug unmöglich.' Antje Rávik Strubel

'Der Selbstrettungs-versuch einer Überlebenden in die Sprache.' Neue Zürcher Zeitung Vierzig Jahre waren Joan Didion und John Gregory Dunne verheiratet, als Dunne eines Abends am Esstisch einen Herzinfarkt erleidet und stirbt. In Das Jahr magischen Denkens versucht Joan Didion dem Geschehen einen Sinn abzugewinnen, es einzuordnen in Zusammenhänge von Ursache und Wirkung, von Ordnung und Zweck. Ihr Buch ist ein Aufbegehren des Verstandes gegen die existentielle Unvernunft des Todes und eine brillante und bewegende Studie der Trauer. 'Ein großes, kraftvolles Buch. Eines, das schmerzt.' stern Ausgezeichnet mit dem National Book Award

'Zugleich luzide und surreal...hinreißend.' The New Yorker 'Ein moralischer Thriller vom Niveau eines Graham Greenes.' Los Angeles Times 'Sie hatte die Falle zuschnappen lassen, und ihr Vater war tot, und jetzt war sie dafür vorgesehen, das zu tun, was auch immer ihr Vater hätte tun sollen. Jemand hatte sie platziert, jemand hatte sie ins Scheinwerferlicht gestellt. Hatte sie im Visier. Hatte sie im Fadenkreuz. Sie wusste nur nicht, wer das war.'

'Unwiderstehlich... Ein Liebeslied über den Ort, an dem ihre Familie seit Generationen lebt, aber ein Liebeslied voller Fragen und Zweifel.' New York Times 'Ich wurde in Sacramento geboren und habe die meiste Zeit meines Lebens in Kalifornien gelebt. Schwimmen lernte ich im Sacramento River und im American River, bevor es Staudämme gab. Und doch ist Kalifornien für mich, wie für viele von uns, die von dort kommen, auf gewisse Weise unzugänglich geblieben, ein aufreibendes Mysterium. Wir basteln daran herum, verbessern und bearbeiten es, versuchen, unsere Beziehung zu Kalifornien und Kaliforniens Beziehung zum Rest des Landes zu definieren und scheitern daran.'

'Sie werden aus diesen vierzig Jahre alten Notizen mehr über Amerikas Zukunft erfahren als aus der Zeitung von morgen.' Esquire Im Sommer 1970 unternahm Joan Didion gemeinsam mit ihrem Mann John Gregory Dunne eine Reise in die amerikanischen Südstaaten, mit der vagen Idee, darüber zu schreiben. Das Stück ist nie erschienen, aber ihre Notizen blieben erhalten und werden nun erstmals veröffentlicht. Ein feinsinniges Porträt amerikanischer Landschaften, in dem sich bereits die Bruchlinien andeuten, an denen entlang sich das heutige Amerika spaltet. 'Zu den Schönheiten dieses Buches gehört, dass poetische Passagen, (...) nun, in der schönen Übersetzung von Antje Rávic Strubel, zur Geltung kommen.' Die Zeit

'Die beste Feder der amerikanischen Intellektuellen.' Der Spiegel 'Jeder ihrer Sätze ist kostbar.' Die Welt Joan Didion gilt seit Langem als eine der brillantesten Autorinnen der USA. Die in diesem Band versammelten Essays und Reportagen aus den Jahren 1982 bis 1992 belegen dies eindrucksvoll. Ob Joan Didion vom Parteitag der Demokraten unter Bill Clinton berichtet oder von einem spektakulären Prozess in New York City, ob sie sich mit der Politik, den Medien oder dem Showbusiness befasst, immer zeichnen ihre Texte ein präzises Bild des geistigen und kulturellen Klimas Amerikas, das noch heute gültig ist.

National BestsellerIn these coolly observant essays, Joan Didion looks at the American political process and at "that handful of insiders who invent, year in and year out, the narrative of public life." Through the deconstruction of the sound bites and photo ops of three presidential campaigns, one presidential impeachment, and an unforgettable sex scandal, Didion reveals the mechanics of American politics. She tells us the uncomfortable truth about the way we vote, the candidates we vote for, and the people who tell us to vote for them. These pieces build, one on the other, into a disturbing portrait of the American political landscape, providing essential reading on our democracy."One of our most cherished and insightful explicators of American culture...brings her perspective to the ultimate insider world." --San Francisco Chronicle Winner of the George Polk Book Award

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.

This intricate, fast-paced story, whose many scenes and details fit together like so many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, is Didion's incisive and chilling look at a modern world where things are not working as they should and where the oblique and official language is as sinister as the events it is covering up. The narrator introduces Elena McMahon, estranged from a life of celebrity fundraisers and from her powerful West Coast husband, Wynn Janklow, whom she has left, taking Catherine, her daughter, to become a reporter for The Washington Post . Suddenly walking off the 1984 campaign, she finds herself boarding a plane for Florida to see her father, Dick McMahon. She becomes embroiled in her Dick's business though she had trained herself since childhood not to have any interest in what he was doing . It is from this moment that she is caught up in something much larger than she could have imagined, something that includes Ambassador-at-Large Treat Austin Morrison and Alexander Brokaw, the ambassador to an unnamed Caribbean island. Into this startling vision of conspiracies, arms dealing, and assassinations, Didion makes connections among Dallas, Iran-Contra, and Castro, and points up how spectral companies with high-concept names tended to interlock . As this book builds to its terrifying finish, we see the underpinnings of a dark historical underbelly. This is our system, the one trying to create a context for democracy and getting [its] hands a little dirty in the process.