# Joan Didion: The 1960s & 70s (Loa #325): Run River / Slouching Towards Bethlehem / Play It as It Lays / A Book of Common Prayer / The White Album - Hardcover

by **Joan Didion** (Author), **David L. Ulin** (Editor)

**Library of America launches a definitive collected edition of one of the most original and electric writers of our time with a volume gathering her five iconic books of the 1960s & 70s**

Joan Didion's influence on postwar American letters is undeniable. Whether writing fiction, memoir, or trailblazing journalism, her gifts for narrative and dialogue, and her intimate but detached authorial persona, have won her legions of readers and admirers. Now Library of America launches its multi-volume edition of Didion's collected writings, prepared in consultation with the author, that brings together her fiction and nonfiction for the first time. Collected in this first volume are Didion's five iconic books from the 1960s and 1970s: _Run River_, _Slouching Towards Bethlehem_, _Play It As It Lays_, _A Book of Common Prayer_, and _The White Album_. Whether writing about countercultural San Francisco, the Las Vegas wedding industry, Lucille Miller, Charles Manson, or the shopping mall, Didion achieves a wonderful negative sublimity without condemning her subjects or condescending to her readers. Chiefly about California, these books display Didion's genius for finding exactly the right language and tone to capture America's broken twilight landscape at a moment of headlong conflict and change.

### Author Biography

**Joan Didion** (1934--2021) was one of the most distinct American literary voices of the last half century. She was the author of five novels and ten books of nonfiction, including _Slouching Towards Bethlehem_, _The White Album_, _Play It As It Lays_, and mostly recently the _New York Times_ best sellers _The Year of Magical Thinking_, _Blue Nights_, _South and West_, and _Let Me tell You What I Mean_. She was the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Book Award for Nonfiction and the National Book Foundations' Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

**David L. Ulin** is the author or editor of ten books, including _Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles_; the Library of America's _Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology_, which won a California Book Award; and T_he Lost Art of Reading: Books and Resistance in a Troubled Time_. The former book editor and book critic of the _Los Angeles Times_, he teaches at the University of Southern California.

**Number of Pages:** 980

**Dimensions:** 1.4 x 8 x 5 IN

**Publication Date:** November 12, 2019

## Details

- **Price:** 39.95 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 39.95 USD | In stock |

## Images

- Joan Didion: The 1960s & 70s (Loa #325): Run River / Slouching Towards Bethlehem / Play It as It Lays / A Book of Common Prayer / The White Album - Hardcover

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