Celebrating Joan Didion

Author Joan Didion was revered for her acerbic, skeptical and penetrating first-person essays and reportage, and we have gathered critics to elucidate her charms, and interview excerpts with Didion herself.

Author Joan Didion was revered for her acerbic, skeptical and penetrating first-person ... more

Curated byMatthew Horovitz, Hark Contributor

9 CLIPS34 MINS

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Joan Didion Spoke Across Generations

Writer Emma Cline reads from Didion’s essay “Why I Write.”

The New Yorker Radio Hour

3 MINS

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Didion’s Literary High Wire Act

Slate culture critics Julia Turner and Stephen Metcalf discuss Didion’s ability to pull off high-risk literary maneuvers, and Metcalf reads an excerpt from Didion’s classic essay ‘The White Album.’

Culture Gabfest

3 MINS

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Joan Didion Didn't Offer Us Answers

Novelist Lynn Steger Strong writes an appreciation of Didion’s lacerating prose that benefited from never trying to make sense of everything.

Inside TIME

3 MINS

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The Potato Masher That Created California

How a humble potato masher made its way across country with Joan Didion's ancestors, how it was made to symbolize the founding of California and Westward Expansion, and how Didion mocked these myths.

The Potato Masher That Created California

Good Food

4 MINS

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Joan Didion, Conservative

Few people know that Joan Didion started out writing for National Review for six years and claimed late in her life that she would’ve voted for Barry Goldwater in every single election.

Know Your Enemy

6 MINS

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What Makes Didion Unique and Revered Today?

Joan Didion's outsized influence on today's writers lies in her combination of empathy, detachment and acknowledgment of her own subjectivity within her writing.

What Makes Didion Unique and Revered Today?

Big Table

3 MINS

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“I Am So Temperamentally Unobtrusive”

Terry Gross of Fresh Air interviews Joan Didion in1987 about her imaginary fictional playmates and how writing non-fiction forces Didion out into the world.

Fresh Air

4 MINS

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Joan Didion Reads from her Memoir "The Year of Magical Thinking"

Joan Didion reads from her memoir "The Year of Magical Thinking" about the night her husband died, and then answers questions from Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

Fresh Air

3 MINS

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Joan Didion was Hilarious

Writer Hilton Als recalls what Didion was like in real life, and her fantastic grading scale.

The New Yorker Radio Hour

1 MIN

Curated byMatthew Horovitz

9 CLIPS34 MINS

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Celebrating Joan Didion

Joan Didion Spoke Across Generations

The New Yorker Radio Hour

Didion’s Literary High Wire Act

Culture Gabfest

Joan Didion Didn't Offer Us Answers

Inside TIME

The Potato Masher That Created California

Good Food

Joan Didion, Conservative

Know Your Enemy

What Makes Didion Unique and Revered Today?

Big Table

“I Am So Temperamentally Unobtrusive”

Fresh Air

Joan Didion Reads from her Memoir "The Year of Magical Thinking"

Fresh Air

Joan Didion was Hilarious

The New Yorker Radio Hour

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