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Joan Didion
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Blue Nights Hardcover – 1 Nov. 2011

by Joan Didion (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 2,574 ratings
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    192 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Fourth Estate
  4. Publication date
    1 Nov. 2011
  5. Dimensions
    14.1 x 2.2 x 22.2 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    0007432895
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0007432899
  8. See all details
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Product description

Review

‘With Blue Nights, named for the intense and portentous beauty of the dying light, Ms Didion has translated the sad hum of her thoughts onto a profound mediation on mortality. The result aches with wisdom’ Economist

‘Searingly honest about the extended nightmare of losing a child’ Financial Times

‘Memory is the subject of her latest book, Blue Nights; its power and its pain and, in Didion’s recollection of her now lost motherhood and marriage, its shimmering, unreachable beauty… she shows us, without hope but finally unafraid, that all days must end’ The Times

‘One of the supreme observers of American life’ Daily Express

‘The relentless questions betray a palpable strain, Didion is aware of this- it’s part of the book’s point. It’s searing mainly for what this venerated US writer hasn’t been able to put into words’ Metro

‘like nothing else Didon has written… Yet how else could she write such a book, in such a moment?… Lays bare an anguish that that infects her every waking moment’ New Statesman

‘This is an honest and sympathetic study of bereavement, bereft of self pity, a genuine search for an answer to an imponderable question’ Jeffery Taylor, Sunday Express

‘a searing poignancy…there is something epic about the scale of Joan Didion’s misfortune…[Blue Nights] has an indomitable quality: a steely willingness to recollect past happiness in present adversity – the deepest of all sorrows, according to Dante – which it is impossible not to admire.’ Jane Shilling, Daily Telegraph

About the Author

Joan Didion is the author of five novels and seven previous books of nonfiction: among them the great portraits of a decade in essays, ‘Sentimental Journeys’, ‘The White Album’, and ‘Slouching Towards Bethlehem’. Her previous book, ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’ was an international bestseller.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Fourth Estate; First Edition (1 Nov. 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0007432895
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0007432899
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.1 x 2.2 x 22.2 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 2,574 ratings

About the author

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Joan Didion

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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.

For more information, visit www.joandidion.org

Photo credit: Brigitte Lacombe

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iggypoots
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for anyone who feels alone in their grief
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 August 2023
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Kristrun Gunnarsdottir
5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping tale of loss
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 January 2023
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Keith
5.0 out of 5 stars AMAZING !!!!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 May 2021
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Karen Turner
5.0 out of 5 stars The warmth of Blue Nights
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 March 2020
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Lucy
5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening and inspirational
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 February 2019
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Anne Caldwell
5.0 out of 5 stars Great purchase
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 May 2020
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JULIANNE
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 July 2016
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Hermione Johnsen
5.0 out of 5 stars This memoir is so wonderfully written and candid
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 November 2014
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