Name: Let Me Tell You What I Mean
Rating: 3.848484848484849 (66 reviews)
ISBN: 9780593318485

Joan Didion

Twelve early pieces never before collected offer an illuminating glimpse intothe mind and process of the bestselling author.

Let Me Tell You What I Mean

Helen 

The dreams and the fears into which Martha Stewart taps are not of "feminine" domes- ticity but of female power, of the woman who sits down at the table with the men and, still in her apron, walks away with the chips.

Elijah Roderos

I admire objectivity very much indeed, but I fail to see how it can be achieved if the reader does not understand the writer's particular bias. For the writer to pretend that he has none lends the venture a mendacity that has never infected The Wall Street Journal and does not yet infect the underground press. When a writer for an under- ground paper approves or disapproves of something, he says so, quite often in lieu of who, what, where, when, how.

MIRACLES STILL HAPPEN, the cake read. "It hasn't been easy," Frank L. said, surrounded by his wife, his children, and his wife's parents. "But in the last three, four weeks we ve gotten a. . .a serenity at home." Well, there it was. I got out fast then, before anyone could say "serenity" again, for it is a word I associate with death, and for several days after that meeting I wanted only to be in places where the lights were bright and no one counted days.

All writing is generated by a certain minimum of ego: you must assume a position of authority in saying that the way I'm writing it is the only way it happened. Writer's block, for example, is simply a failure of ego.

a collection of writings from didion through out her life.

Squid

annalyse! 

my first didion! 

favourite chapter was “on being unchosen” 💌

Twelve early pieces never before collected that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of Joan Didion.

Marcy Pursell 

I'm not sure how I even came across this audiobook, but I added it to my hold list, and listened to in two days. It's not something I would normally read, as it was short stories the author previously published. I wasn't a fan, and didn't enjoy it.

Ann Gabrielle

3.5 or 4 (?) cos I just didn’t care or know about American icons like Martha Stewart, but the more personal essays are really good. Most of her more well known essays can be quite chilly but this gives you a glimpse into her life a bit more.

i look forward to reading more of her work! my tentative favorites are Getting Serenity, Why I Write, Telling Stories, and Last Words.

Morgan Thomas

I enjoyed and found interesting some of these essays, especially the ones on Hemingway and getting rejected from the college of your choice. The Hemingway one brought up some interesting ideas about what we should publish in regards to an authors unfinished works, especially if he may be unhappy with what he would consider the unfinished quality. 
The other, on getting rejected from the college of your choice mentions ideas that we seem to think of as new, the pressures of getting into good schools at a young age which then determines your future. This was written in the late sixties!
Ultimately Didion writes about some interesting subjects but nothing to inspire the emotion of her best books.

Joana da Silva

First experience with Joan Didion and a great one. Her writing made me feel like I was in the same room where the story was taking place and, as a nosy queen, I loved that.

Abigail Auvray

why i write made me cry? sometimes i feel like she’s managed to see into my brain Joan Didion you were magic

From the universally acclaimed, best-selling author of the National Book Award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking ten pieces never before collected that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary writer Here are six pieces written in 1968 from the "Points West" Saturday Evening Post column Joan Didion shared from 1964 to 1969 with her husband, John Gregory Dunne about: American newspapers; a session with Gamblers Anonymous; a visit to San Simeon; being rejected by Stanford; dropping in on Nancy Reagan, wife of the then-governor of California, while a TV crew filmed her at home; and an evening at the annual reunion of WWII veterans from the 101st Airborne Association at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas. Here too is a 1976 piece from the New York Times magazine on "Why I Write"; a piece about short stories from New West in 1978; and from The New Yorker, a piece on Hemingway from 1998, and on Martha Stewart from 2000. Each one is classic Didion: incisive, bemused, and stunningly prescient.

Jales

couldn't put it down, not even for a sec. this was great. so true, so honest, so intimate. love how she talks about her process on writing, the way she was vulnerable brings you closer to her, living with her, learning with her.

my fave was the 'why i write'. and also, the way she praises hemingway like a fangirl makes me pick up something by him. 

truly amazing. second book i read by her, second win. she did no wrong in this one, in my opinion of course.

Gareth Kay

The collection lacks a theme beyond Joan Didion. But that is all you need for a collection of wonderful essays. The ones on Hemingway and Martha Stewart are fantastic

Janice Adamo

aahir

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * From one of our most iconic and influential writers: a timeless collection of mostly early pieces that reveal what would become Joan Didion's subjects, including the press, politics, California robber barons, women, and her own self-doubt. A Most Anticipated Book of 2021 from Vogue, TIME, Bustle, The New York Times and many more. 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.

Let Me Tell You What I Mean

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