A Rare Recording of Joan Didion Reading Her Novel, A Book of Common Prayer: Part 1
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A Rare Recording of Joan Didion Reading Her Novel, A Book of Common Prayer: Part 1
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Narrated by:
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Joan Didion
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By:
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Joan Didion
About this listen
Joan Didion (December 5, 1934-December 23, 2021), born in Sacramento, California, was an American author, screenwriter, and journalist. Her writing during the 1960s through the late 1970s engaged audiences in the realities of the counterculture of the 1960s, the Hollywood lifestyle, and the history and culture of California. She is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism, along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe. In the following audio recording, Didion reads from her novel, A Book of Common Prayer.
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- By: Joan Didion
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 1
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Performance3 out of 5 stars 1
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-
5 out of 5 stars
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- Narrated by: Julianne Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 9
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 9
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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 months, Didion recorded conversations with the psychiatrist in meticulous detail. The initial sessions focused on alcoholism, adoption, depression, anxiety, guilt, and the heartbreaking complexities of her relationship with her daughter, Quintana. The subjects evolved to include her work, which she was finding difficult to maintain for sustained periods.
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4 out of 5 stars
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This autobiography discusses notes from therapy regarding Joan’s daughter’s addiction. Very insightful!
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Where I Was From
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- Narrated by: Gabrielle De Cuir
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 173
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 148
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 145
In her moving and insightful new book, Joan Didion reassesses parts of her life, her work, her history and ours. A native Californian, Didion applies her scalpel-like intelligence to the state’s ethic of ruthless self-sufficiency in order to examine that ethic’s often tenuous relationship to reality. Combining history and reportage, memoir and literary criticism, Where I Was From explores California’s romances with land and water; its unacknowledged debts to railroads, aerospace, and big government; the disjunction between its code of individualism and its fetish for prisons.
-
4 out of 5 stars
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California belongs to Joan Didion.
- By Darwin8u on 11-04-15
By: Joan Didion
-
Say Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Ione Skye
- Narrated by: Ione Skye
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 312
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 306
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 306
Gen X icon Ione Skye bares all in an achingly vulnerable coming-of-age memoir about chasing fame, desire, and true love in the shadow of her famous, absent father.
-
3 out of 5 stars
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Meh.
- By Julie Wright on 03-26-25
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Slouching Towards Bethlehem
- Picador Modern Classics
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Maya Hawke
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The vivid imagery.
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- By: Elena Ferrante
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 9,052
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,968
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Story4 out of 5 stars 7,963
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