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Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Essays
By Joan Didion
Series: FSG Classics
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Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Slouching Towards Bethlehem is Joan Didion's first nonfiction collection, capturing the spirit of 1960s America with incisive essays. It explores diverse subjects from Hollywood icons like John Wayne and Howard Hughes to the counterculture epicentre of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. Didion's distinctive prose delves into cultural and social observations, painting a vivid portrait of a transformative era.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$4900

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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book will appeal to readers interested in American culture, social history, and masterful literary journalism. Fans of sharp, reflective essays and those curious about the 1960s counterculture and California’s unique role in it will find this essential.

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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Celebrated, iconic, and indispensable, Joan Didion's 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 "best prose written in this country."

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 Didion's focus. It explores subjects such as John Wayne and Howard Hughes, growing up in California, the nature of good and evil in a Death Valley motel room, and, especially, the essence of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, the heart of the counterculture.

As Joyce Carol Oates remarked: "[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."

Series: FSG Classics

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780374531386

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 28 October 2008

Country: United States

Imprint: Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 20.0mm

Width: 141.0mm

Height: 209.0mm

Weight: 227g

Pages: 256

Collections

Arts & Culture Biography & Memoir Joan Didion Non-Fiction Series: FSG Classics

About the Author

Joan Didion (1934-2021) was the National Book Award-winning author of many works of fiction and nonfiction. After earning a Bachelor's degree in English at the University of California, Berkeley, she started her literary career writing articles and essays for Vogue, Mademoiselle, Life, The Saturday Evening Post, and National Review, establishing herself as a prominent member of the New Journalism movement. Her books include The White Album, Play It As It Lays, and Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

Shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, Didion's revelatory memoir The Year of Magical Thinking was adapted as a one-woman stage show starring Vanessa Redgrave on Broadway. She also wrote several screenplays with her husband John Gregory Dunne, including Panic in Needle Park with Al Pacino, the second remake of A Star is Born with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, and an adaptation of her own Play It As It Lays with Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins.

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