This is a collection of short non-fiction pieces on various topics, sometimes working into a larger work and other times, standing alone. The subject matter is fascinating to me since most of it takes place in the 60s and early 70s when I was barely a twinkle in my father’s pants. This is the first time I’ve knowingly read Didion. I say knowingly because she seems somehow familiar to me, like an old friend. She’s neurotic in a way that I am not, but I still like her. She has a very conversational style about her as if she’s talking only to you. She’s a smart, interesting lady and I could definitely spend some more time with her.

I probably shouldn't rate this as I haven't read every essay in the book. But I read at least half. Some I found more interesting than others and that is due primarily to what I personally care about. Some are dated of course and some are timeless.

I like Joan Didion though. She is an excellent, intelligent writer.

This now twelve-year-old volume from the Everyman's Library is a kind of summa of Joan Didion's nonfiction writing, gathering eight of her prior collections including Slouching Toward Bethlehem, The White Album, and After Henry and covering such topics as Ronald Reagan's then-new mansion, the "aqueous suspension of personality" obtainable in covered shopping malls, and the exploits of politicians as disparate as Jesse Jackson and Newt Gingrich. At over eleven hundred pages, hardbound, it's a real "chest-crusher" as one of my GR friends calls it, but it's indispensable and comes at a good price. If you are interested in 20th Century writing, particularly American writing, this is a must-have.

This book was a wonderful book to start 2022 with. Joan Didion is a sense of place, a raised eyebrow, a matter of fact. There are seven books here in one. Not all books or essays of hers are created equal but her essays on California, on politics, on herself and her family are all a delight.

I giggled at her wry humor, I cried at her gutting use of metaphor, I Google'd madly -- trying to gain updated information about her absurdly well-researched points on topics ranging from Central American politics to California land use to urban planning to 1980s politics to shopping mall design to the pull of the prison guard unions.

I'm so grateful to have this collection to revisit her and her California.

Joan Didions Essays sind originell, sie sind involviert-distanziert, subjektiv-objektiv, poetisch-deskriptiv. Und wegen dieser literarischen Widersprüche schillern ihre Berichte aus den USA der 60er/70er auf besondere Weise. Manchmal waren mir ihre Ansichten zu konservativ, aber das vielleicht auch nur, weil ich mit der Erwartung von Zeitlosigkeit an ihren Text herangegangen bin - und natürlich kann er das nicht leisten. Weil es gerade sein Verhaftetsein in der Zeit, über die sie schreibt, ist, das diesen Sammelband so „wahrhaftig“ macht (um mal ein Adjektiv zu bemühen, das oft im Zusammenhang mit Didion benutzt wird).
Für mich ihr erster Band, aber definitiv nicht mein letzter. Ich hänge am Haken dieser besonderen Erzählerin.

“Einem Fremden, der in einem klimatisierten Auto über die 99 fährt, müssen die Städte so flach, so verarmt erscheinen, dass die Phantasie vertrocknet.“

„[…] Visconti, andererseits, fehl mehr als jeden anderen zeitgenössischen Regisseur der Sinn für Form. Anstelle seines ‚Der Leopard‘ hätte man sich auch gut eine Serie von ungeordneten Standfotos ansehen können.
Federico Fellini und Ingmar Bergman besitzen beide eine überwältigende visuelle Intelligenz und eine betäubend banale Sicht auf die menschliche Erfahrung.“

„Wir standen in einem Meer von Orchideen, einem extravaganten Meer, und er hatte mir einen Arm voll Blüten seiner eigenen Cattleyas für mein Kind geschenkt […]. Es schien mir, als hätte ich nie so direkt und ohne Peinlichkeit mit jemandem über das geredet, was er liebte, wie an diesem Tag.“

„Während einer Hitzephase schrieb ich in Großbuchstaben über zwei Seiten eines Notizbuchs, dass Unschuld endet, wenn man von dem Irrglauben befreit wurde, sich selbst zu mögen. Obwohl ich mich jetzt, einige Jahre später, darüber wundere, dass sich ein Denken, das mit sich selbst hadert, dennoch akribisch über jede seiner Erschütterungen Rechenschaft gibt, erinnere ich mich mit peinlicher Genauigkeit an dem Geschmack dieser Asche. Hier ging es um verlorene Selbstachtung.“

Great writing makes great reading. Thanks, Joan. So candid, raw, real. Didion rises from every page, challenging your assumptions—hers, too. Leonard’s introduction is spectacular writing, not to be missed.

My only gripe with the book, the actual book, is the lack of dates & original publication notes for each piece, which would have been immensely helpful in placing each work in context. Conversely, the timeline at the front of the book was very helpful. This is a beautiful edition to grace any library.

I have been working on this read for two and a half months, in between other lighter - literal and figurative - reading. I struggled with Miami and Political Fictions; the pair of them needing more familiarity with the politics around them than I have, I think. And Political Fictions was, perhaps, too recent to be interesting to me.

I enjoyed with varying degrees the other books in the anthology, most notably Slouching Toward Bethlehem. Didion's turn of phrase is astoundingly engaging, and even the three essays that dealt with freeways, State waterworks, and suburban shopping malls, construction and terminology of, were interesting and readable. I could wish that she examined some of her subjects with a more feminist lens.

The descriptions of Los Angeles will stay with me the most, I think. She paints such excellent pictures with her words.

Essayists are meant to be consumed slowly.

The worst thing about the book is the clunky title, which seems to mean less and less the longer one thinks about it. For me the essays I was most interested in were the ones about politics and culture like Miami and Political Fictions, less so the personal ones such as Goodbye to All That and Where I was From. She's an amazing writer who doesn't bother with a lot of backstory--gives the reader the credit for knowing already what it is a reader ought to know.

Brilliance

Joan Didion earns respect as one of the important writers of our time. I hadn't read a lot of her work, more fiction than nonfiction, as it turned out, and so I dived into We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live because we read artistry in order to read well. This huge book contains all of Didion's nonfiction up to 2003. Her last 3 books appeared after this publication. I had read only Slouching Towards Bethlehem before and am still besotted with it, think it the most impressive of the works reprinted here. Though she always writes well, she wrote best at her beginning. And that 1st book most resembles what I admire particularly, a collection of essays. Maybe it's a truth that she writes best about California. The book's last work is 2003's Where I Was From which is a family memoir heavily reflective on the inherent qualities of California. In between are books on Central America, the Reagans, an extended portrait of Miami, and reportage on the national politics of the 1990s. These middle works didn't always rivet my attention: El Salvador and Miami are probably much-changed since her portraits, the politics of the Clinton years seem like inconsequential history when read against today's ominous headlines. What's always up-to-date with Didion is the fine quality of her writing. She writes with such acute observation and analysis that she'll blow the buttons right off your shirt. I'm impressed enough to feel her last 3 books--The Year of Magical Thinking, Blue Nights, and South and West--are readings I don't want to miss.

some great stories from didion's perspective throughout her life