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fbroom's review against another edition
4.0
If you want to get an idea of what the culture was like or what people have talked about in the sixties and seventies then read Joan Didion. Just like Slouching Toward Bethlehem. Joan’s writing is pleasure. It is joy. I just enjoy reading her even though sometimes I find myself getting lost because I don’t know the main character or the main event she is discussing. There is this magic about the way she writes.
The first chapter California Republic takes us on a tour of the late 1960s and 1970s. Stories of her time living in Hollywood and later Malibu. Stories of events such as the Manson murder, visiting Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panther Party, student strikes at San Francisco State university and visiting a recording session by the Doors. Essays about James Albert Pike, Water in California, The expensive and ridiculous California Governor mansion built by Reagan and The Getty.
The second chapter is about the women movement. The third chapter, Sojourns, contains essays about her time in Hawaii, movie making in Hollywood, building Malls, Bogota in Columbia and the Hoover Dam. The forth chapter is essays about her time living in Malibu.
The first chapter California Republic takes us on a tour of the late 1960s and 1970s. Stories of her time living in Hollywood and later Malibu. Stories of events such as the Manson murder, visiting Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panther Party, student strikes at San Francisco State university and visiting a recording session by the Doors. Essays about James Albert Pike, Water in California, The expensive and ridiculous California Governor mansion built by Reagan and The Getty.
The second chapter is about the women movement. The third chapter, Sojourns, contains essays about her time in Hawaii, movie making in Hollywood, building Malls, Bogota in Columbia and the Hoover Dam. The forth chapter is essays about her time living in Malibu.
rileylovesbooks's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
joylessromantique's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
maddyreads89's review against another edition
reflective
tense
slow-paced
3.5
Lots of great stuff (Didion’s exploration of setting, the clarity and specificity of her prose, the exploration of narrative), but also a lot of frustrating bits, notably the explicitly political essays (looking at you “The Women’s Movement”). Overall, I love the style of Didion’s writing, but I don’t know enough about the 60s and 70s to be sure that she isn’t talking out of her a** like 50% of the time (*cough* “The Women’s Movement”)