South and West: From a Notebook, Joan Didion
  • $6.99
    • Facebook Share
    • Twitter Share
    • Pinterest Share

Details

South and West: From a Notebook

Author: Joan Didion

Narrator: Kimberly Farr, Nathaniel Rich

Unabridged: 2 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook

Publisher: Random House Audio

Published: 03/07/2017

Genre: Literary Collections - Essays

Synopsis

From the best-selling author of the National Book Award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking: two extended excerpts from her never-before-seen notebooks--writings that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary writer.

Joan Didion has always kept notebooks: of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles--and here is one such draft that traces a road trip she took with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, in June 1970, through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. She interviews prominent local figures, describes motels, diners, a deserted reptile farm, a visit with Walker Percy, a ladies' brunch at the Mississippi Broadcasters' Convention. She writes about the stifling heat, the almost viscous pace of life, the sulfurous light, and the preoccupation with race, class, and heritage she finds in the small towns they pass through. And from a different notebook: the "California Notes" that began as an assignment from Rolling Stone on the Patty Hearst trial of 1976. Though Didion never wrote the piece, watching the trial and being in San Francisco triggered thoughts about the city, its social hierarchy, the Hearsts, and her own upbringing in Sacramento. Here, too, is the beginning of her thinking about the West, its landscape, the western women who were heroic for her, and her own lineage, all of which would appear later in her acclaimed 2003 book, Where I Was From.

 
One of TIME’s most anticipated books of 2017
 
One of The New York Times Book Review's “What You’ll Be Reading in 2017”

Incldued among the Best Books of March 2017 by both LitHub and Signature
 
 

Recommended

Tell Me How It Ends An Essay in 40 Questions
Tell Me How It Ends
by Valeria Luiselli

A damning confrontation between the American dream and the reality of undocumented children seeking a new life in the US.Structured around the forty questions Luiselli translates and asks undocumented Latin American children facing deportation, Tell...

Narrator: Laurence Bouvard
Published: 03/06/2018

Unleashing the Power of Creativity A "This I Believe" Essay
Unleashing the Power of Creativity
by Bill Gates

Unleashing the Power of Creativity: A "This I Believe" Essay by Bill GatesBased on the NPR series of the same name, This I Believe features 80 Americans--from the famous to the unknown--completing the thought that begins with the book's title. The p...

Narrator: Bill Gates
Published: 10/03/2006

See You on the Radio
See You on the Radio
by Charles Osgood

See You on the Radio gathers together over one hundred essays on everything from potholes, perfumes, felons and "freeloaders" ("Credit card customers paying on time! Taking bread from the tables of the moneylenders!"); to psychopaths and politicians...

Narrator: Charles Osgood
Published: 04/08/2008

The Givenness of Things Essays
The Givenness of Things
by Marilynne Robinson

A Finalist for the 2016 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the EssayOne of TIME magazine's Best Nonfiction Books of the YearThe spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in ...

Narrator: Coleen Marlo
Published: 10/27/2015

Dances with Destiny: Unforgettable Pas de Deux
Dances with Destiny: Unforgettable Pas de Deux
by Claire Markette

This collection of eleven sensitively written vignettes highlighting experiences and relationships is a wistful look back at life and love, their joys and disappointments, and the lessons we learn from our past and from the "dancers" in our lives. T...

Narrator: Brittany Goodwin
Published: 04/15/2020

Courage Is Contagious And Other Reasons to Be Grateful for Michelle Obama
Courage Is Contagious
by Nick Haramis

A collection of essays celebrating the influential former first lady, by an array of acclaimed contributors and with a foreword by Lena Dunham Michelle Obama’s legacy transcends categorization. Mrs. Obama was not only our first black firs...

Narrator: Lena Dunham
Published: 10/24/2017

When I Was a Child: A When I Was a Child I Read Books Essay
When I Was a Child: A "When I Was a Child I Read Books" Essay
by Marilynne Robinson

When I Was a Child: A "When I Was a Child I read Books" Essat by Marilynne RobinsonMarilynne Robinson has built a sterling reputation as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, not only as a major American novelist, but also as a rigorous thinker an...

Narrator: Marilynne Robinson
Published: 12/22/2015

Mark Twains Letters from Hawaii
Mark Twains Letters from Hawaii
by Mark Twain

The Huck Finn of foreign correspondents provides a colorful account of old Honolulu, the island nobility, the City of Refuge on the Kona coast, and the active volcano of Kilauea. These selections of Mark Twain's newspaper dispatches are both charmin...

Narrator: McAvoy Layne
Published: 11/15/2004

Intimations Six Essays
Intimations
by Zadie Smith

Deeply personal and powerfully moving, a short and timely series of essays on the experience of lock down, by one of the most clear-sighted and essential writers of our time"There will be many books written about the year 2020: historical, analytic,...

Narrator: Zadie Smith
Published: 07/28/2020
{"id":"1588734","ean":"9780525494195","abr":"Unabridged","title":"South and West: From a Notebook","subtitle":"From a Notebook","author":"Joan Didion","rating_average":"4","narrator":"Kimberly Farr","ubr_id":"1588734","abr_id":"0","ubr_price":"10.00","abr_price":"0.00","ubr_memprice":"6.50","abr_memprice":"0.00","ubr_narrator":"Kimberly Farr","abr_narrator":"","ubr_length":"Unabridged: 2 hr 51 min","abr_length":"Abridged: "}