Pre-order
1
of
1
Notes to John
Brief Description
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER‘Utterly fascinating’ NEW YORK TIMES‘An act of intimate storytelling’ VOGUE‘A profound, rich document’ NEW STATESMANA deeply moving, newly discovered journal from one of America’s most iconic writers, Joan Didion, the author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights. A...
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2999
Unit price
/
Unavailable
Pre-order
Releases
13th
October 2026
(Approx. Date)
Pre-order "Notes to John" now to secure your copy from our first shipment
Found a better price? Request a price match
Notes to John
$2999
Unit price
/
Unavailable
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
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
‘Utterly fascinating’ NEW YORK TIMES
‘An act of intimate storytelling’ VOGUE
‘A profound, rich document’ NEW STATESMAN
A deeply moving, newly discovered journal from one of America’s most iconic writers, Joan Didion, the author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights.
A pile of neatly typed pages was found in Joan Didion’s office after her death. She had meticulously recorded her weekly sessions with a psychiatrist. As far as anyone knows, the pages had been read by only one other person: Didion’s husband, John Gregory Dunne.
The sessions began as a method of dealing with the heartbreaking alcoholism of their adult daughter, Quintana. Discussions broadened into revelations about Didion's own childhood, marriage, work and ‘what’s been worth’.
Writing was the way Didion dealt with life. Notes to John presents a riveting account of the therapeutic process, crafted with the singular intelligence, precision and elegance that characterise all of her work.
‘Compulsive … what an experience it is, watching Didion beat back tragedy with her brilliant mind’ TELEGRAPH
‘So moving … a record of trying to save a life, and understand her own’ NEW YORK TIMES
‘An incredibly intimate insight’ GUARDIAN
‘A chance to meet Didion's gaze head-on, eye to eye, with only a waft of cigarette smoke breaking the silence’ ANOTHER
‘An intimate chronicle … offers readers a key to Didion's persona and her work’ NPR
‘A tour de force from one of the best’ PEOPLE
'Notes to John' was a New York Times bestseller w/c 2025-04-28.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780008767280
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 23 April 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Fourth Estate Ltd
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 18.0mm
Width: 129.0mm
Height: 198.0mm
Weight: 160g
Pages: 224
Collections
About the Author
Joan Didion is one of America's most respected writers, her work constituting some of the greatest portraits of modern-day American culture. Over the four decades of her career, she has produced widely-acclaimed journalistic essays, personal essays, novels, non-fiction, memoir and screenplays. Her memoir The Year of Magical Thinking won the National Book Award in 2005.
Also by Joan Didion
View all-
The Year of Magical Thinking
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion is a profoundly moving and unflinchingly honest memoir that delves deep into the heart of grief and mourning. This poignant narrative recounts Didion's life-altering year following the sudden death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and the severe illness of their only daughter, Quintana Roo. In the days leading up to Christmas...Paperback$2600Elsewhere:$2799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The Year of Magical Thinking
Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience – classics which will endure for generations to come. A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty. John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their daughter fall ill. At first,...Paperback$2600Elsewhere:$2799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Play It As It Lays
Play It As It Lays is a striking exploration of American life in the late 1960s, penned by the acclaimed author Joan Didion, also known for her works The White Album and The Year of Magical Thinking. Set against the arid backdrop of the Nevada desert and the insidious glitter of Hollywood, this novel revolves around Maria Wyeth, a once-promising...Paperback$2200Elsewhere:$2499Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion is a seminal collection of essays that offers an incisive look into the 1960s America. Published in 1968, this work captures the tumultuous spirit of the era, delving into the cultural and political upheavals that defined the decade. With an unparalleled reportorial voice, Didion chronicles her experiences and observations, shedding light on the rapid...Paperback$2600Elsewhere:$2799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Notes to John
An extraordinary, previously unpublished work from the author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights, Joan Didion. In November 1999, Joan Didion began seeing a psychiatrist because, as she wrote to a friend, her family had had 'a rough few years.' She described the sessions in a journal she created for her husband, John Gregory Dunne. For several...Paperback$2999Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The White Album
Joan Didion’s hugely influential collection of essays which defines, for many, the America which rose from the ashes of the Sixties. We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children into the sea. In this now legendary journey into the hinterland of the American psyche,...Paperback$2199Elsewhere:$2799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Salvador
El Salvador, 1982, is at the height of a ghastly civil war. Joan Didion travels from battlefields to body dumps, interviews a puppet president, considers the distinctly Salvadorean meaning of the verb 'to disappear' and trains a merciless eye not only on the terror there but also on the depredations and evasions of US foreign policy. Salvador is a restless...Paperback$2499Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Play It As It Lays
A ruthless and unflinching examination of American life in the late 1960s, from the author of The Year of Magical Thinking. One thing in my defence, not that it matters: I know what ‘nothing’ means, and keep on playing Somewhere out beyond Hollywood, hollowed-out actress Maria Wyeth’s life plays out in a numbing routine of perpetual freeway driving. In her...Paperback$2600Elsewhere:$2799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Blue Nights
From one of our most powerful writers, a classic work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old. Blue Nights opens...Paperback$2100Elsewhere:$2299Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
I Write to Find Out What I am Thinking
The perfect book for all the new readers brought to Didion through her bestselling The Year of Magical Thinking. This hardcover omnibus edition of Didion's collected nonfiction contains her final four books: Blue Nights, South and West, Let Me Tell You What I Mean, and her bestselling and most famous work, The Year of Magical Thinking. In her essay Why...Hardback$4500Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Let Me Tell You What I Mean
Twelve early pieces never before collected that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of Joan Didion. Mostly drawn from the earliest part of her astonishing five-decade career, the wide-ranging pieces in this collection include Didion writing about a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, a visit to San Simeon, and a reunion of WWII veterans in Las Vegas, and about...Paperback$2100Elsewhere:$2299Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Play It as It Lays
A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Joan Didion's Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader. Set in a place beyond good and evil—literally in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the barren wastes of the Mojave Desert, but...Paperback$3799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks
More from Biography & Memoir
View all-
This Angry Pen of Mine
This Angry Pen of Mine by Layne Staley invites you to dive into the untold creative world of Layne Staley, the legendary voice behind Alice in Chains. This extraordinary collection showcases his handwritten lyrics, deeply personal poetry, stunning original artwork, rare photos, fan tributes, and so much more. Step into the world of Layne Staley like never before. For the...Hardback$7299Elsewhere:$8999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseFamesick
Chronicling the tumultuous decade between the premiere of Girls to her 2021 shotgun wedding (minus the baby, because she has no uterus), Lena Dunham takes us through her journey with her trademark mix of humor, unsparing honesty, and keen eye for detail. We peek behind the scenes - of her work, her family, her relationships, and her battle to reclaim her body...Paperback$3299Elsewhere:$3500Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseDogs, Boys and Other Things I've Cried About
From the social media superstar behind @SimonSits, Isabel Klee--known for her heartwarming tales of dog rescue--comes an utterly winning memoir about a twentysomething woman's search for true love in New York City and the dogs who helped her find it. A Jersey girl by birth, Isabel Klee had always wanted to live in New York City. At age 20, she...Paperback$3299Elsewhere:$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Stakes
Read our interview with author Noelle McCarthy! A darkly funny, sparkling follow-up to the author’s bestselling memoir Grand. You have to invite him in. You have to want the vampire’s badness in the house with you. Growing up in Catholic Ireland, Noelle McCarthy is captivated by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The vampire is a risk-free fantasy, a suave alternative to the fraught realities...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$4000Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseBuilt for This
Raised among strong women, butcher's benches, and hard ideas about what men are meant to be, Brad Poulter grows up knowing he's different long before he has the words for it. But in late '90s small-town New Zealand, 'different' isn't discussed, it's managed. Joining the Royal New Zealand Navy offers escape, certainty, and belonging. The rules are clear, the uniform...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Even the Good Girls Will Cry
Thanks to a thrown beer bottle and a fan letter to a P.O. box, Melissa Auf der Maur's first band scored an opening slot for the Smashing Pumpkins in her bohemian home town, Montreal. Sensing Melissa's talent, Billy Corgan recommended her to Courtney Love. Whisked from her local scene, Melissa joined Hole just after the deaths of Kurt Cobain and...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseAn Ocean and a Day
An utterly riveting, moving and poignant memoir of grief and loss that will speak to anyone who's ever lost someone they love. An Ocean and a Day is Hannah Richell's personal account of losing her husband, Matt, in a surfing accident on Tamarama beach in 2014. It is the story of the grief journey she travelled over the first two...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseA Place to Stand
A Place to Stand by Clare Ward is a profound memoir that delves into the life of a country doctor living and working in the Hokianga Harbour area in the far north of Aotearoa New Zealand. This region is sparsely populated and poses numerous health challenges. This thoughtful account details Clare’s thirty-year career, highlighting the people she works with and...Hardback$3199Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New Release
Rule of Lies
Written with all the pace and energy of a John Grisham novel … An incredible true story and a great read! BILL BROWDER, author of Red Notice and Freezing Order An American lawyer’s brilliant, propulsive story of witnessing and playing a part in the transformation of Russia under Yeltsin and Putin. A true tale of fascinating personalities, criminal intrigue, harrowing...Paperback$2999Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseRory
The New York Times bestseller The #1 Irish Times bestseller The definitive biography of Rory McIlroy, the most important, popular and confounding player of the post-Tiger era. Rory McIlroy contains multitudes. The child of a working-class family from a small town in a war-torn homeland now commutes to work in his own private jet and counts billionaires as confidants. He can overwhelm a golf...Paperback$3699Elsewhere:$4199Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseTe Kaikaukau | The Swimmer
Novelist, memoirist and playwright Witi Ihimaera – author of Pounamu, Pounamu and The Whale Rider – decided, at the age of eighty, to dive back into the water and spend a year full-time at Te Wānanga Takiura, immersing himself in his own language, in te reo Māori. This book tells the story of this kaikaukau, this swimmer, and his year...Paperback$3500Elsewhere:$4500Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
New ReleaseThis Is Me: A Reckoning
This is a searingly honest and moving memoir from double Golden Globe-nominatedactress Hayden Panettiere. Hayden Panettiere has been in front of the camera since before she could talk. She roseto stardom typecasted as Hollywood's blonde girl next door. As a young celebrity,naysayers were certain she would crash and burn. Not one to disappoint, she did.Hayden Panettiere's irreverent memoir satisfies our...Paperback$3200Elsewhere:$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today
Why buy from us?
Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!
Service & Delivery
Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.
Auckland Bookstore
We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.
Our Gifting Service
Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.
