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The White Album (FSG Classics) [Paperback]

Joan Didion (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £9.85
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Book Description

Publication Date: 10 Nov 2009 | Series: FSG Classics

WE TELL OURSELVES STORIES IN ORDER TO LIVE

Looking for plausible stories as the Sixties are about to implode, Joan Didion sets out, notebook in hand, on a now-legendary journey into the hinterland of the American psyche: she kills time waiting for Jim Morrison to show up, parties with Janis Joplin, visits the Black Panthers in prison, watches a campus combust, dines with Tate and Polanski, buys dresses with Charlie Manson's girls, and gravitates towards biker movies 'because there on screen was some news I was not getting from the New York Times'. She and her reader emerge, cauterized, from this devastating tour of the myths and realities of that age of self-discovery into the harsh light of the morning after…

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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The White Album (FSG Classics) + Slouching Towards Bethlehem (FSG Classics)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 222 pages
  • Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux (10 Nov 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0374532079
  • ISBN-13: 978-0374532079
  • Product Dimensions: 21 x 15.6 x 1.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 123,700 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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More About the Author

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Joan Didion
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Product Description

Review

'All the essays manifest not only her intelligence but an instinct for details that continue to emit pulsations in the reader's memory, and a style that is spare, subtly musical in its phrasing, and exact. Add to this her highly vulnerable sense of herself, and the result is a voice like no other in contemporary journalism.'
NEW YORK TIMES

'Demonstrates an uncanny ability to capture the insidious and pervasive infections of mind and spirit that have led to both the corruption of government and business, and the withering of the individual.'
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

'Everything Didion writes has a land's end edginess to it – a hyperattentive eye on the dramas found at the outskirts of the human condition. She writes as someone who has come through great shudders of the earth with a fundamental understanding that everything is subject to instantaneous and complete revision.'
VILLAGE VOICE

'She is the best chronicler California has'
VOGUE

'Simply an original and unexpected writer who is never banal'
NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Back Cover

'All the essays manifest not only her intelligence but an instinct for details that continue to emit pulsations in the reader's memory, and a style that is spare, subtly musical in its phrasing, and exact. Add to this her highly vulnerable sense of herself, and the result is a voice like no other in contemporary journalism.'
NEW YORK TIMES

'Demonstrates an uncanny ability to capture the insidious and pervasive infections of mind and spirit that have led to both the corruption of government and business, and the withering of the individual.'
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

'Everything Didion writes has a land's end edginess to it – a hyperattentive eye on the dramas found at the outskirts of the human condition. She writes as someone who has come through great shudders of the earth with a fundamental understanding that everything is subject to instantaneous and complete revision.'
VILLAGE VOICE

'She is the best chronicler California has'
VOGUE

'Simply an original and unexpected writer who is never banal'
NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Product Description

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars California, late 60's, early 70's - 5 Dec 2002
By maldoror
Format:Paperback
Hotbed of movies, political activism, rock and roll, drugs, and paranoia. A time both fascinating and bewildering, with anything liable to happen on any given day, just down the road - from cult murder to earthquakes. It takes a cool, detached prose style to capture all of this and keep it fresh for the reader visiting that strange time some thirty years later, but Didion's careful essays succeed. Compared to the freneticism of other writers documenting this era (Wolfe, Kesey, etc) she retains a measure of calm and the ability to catch the reader unawares with the unexpected detail which brings the scene to life. It paints a picture of a society stretching to reach its edge, finding freedoms it has been on the retreat from ever since.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Didion's elegance and poise is a model for the modern essay 22 Oct 1998
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
So neglected and misleadingly categorised as a 'hip' writer of 60s issues, Didion deserves re-establishment in the forefront of contemporary writing. These essays are so exactly constructed, so tight and precise, that they undermine, simply in terms of form and structure, the cultural sloppiness that is so often her target. Quite simply, beautiful writing.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic if you know about the sixties 13 Oct 2007
By Mrs. K. A. Wheatley TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
Didion is lauded as one of the great chroniclers of the 1960's in America and her journalism is undoubtedly brilliant. She writes coherently with a clear and personal style which is both attractive, intimate and inclusive. She talks to you as if you were a friend. This is great if you know some of the background to the things she is talking about, but wouldn't necessarily help you if you approached this with no prior knowledge of the events and history of the time. It's a great personal and cultural record of the time and a must read for anyone interested in the period.
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