The Year of Magical Thinking

By: Joan Didion

Narrated by: Barbara Caruso

Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

National Book Award, Nonfiction, 2005

"Life changes fast....You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends." These were among the first words Joan Didion wrote in January 2004. Her daughter was lying unconscious in an intensive care unit, a victim of pneumonia and septic shock. Her husband, John Gregory Dunne, was dead. The night before New Year's Eve, while they were sitting down to dinner, he suffered a massive and fatal coronary. The two had lived and worked side by side for nearly 40 years.

The weeks and months that followed "cut loose any fixed idea I had about death, about illness, about probability and luck...about marriage and children and memory...about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."

In The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion explores with electric honesty and passion a private yet universal experience. Her portrait of a marriage, and a life, in good times and bad, will speak directly to anyone who has ever loved a husband, a wife, or a child.

Listen to Joan Didion's full-hour interview with Charlie Rose.

©2005 Joan Didion (P)2005 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

• 2005 Audie Award Nominee, Biography/Memoir
• National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee, Autobiography, 2005

"Many will greet this taut, clear-eyed memoir of grief as a long-awaited return to the terrain of Didion's venerated, increasingly rare personal essays....This is an indispensable addition to Didion's body of work and a lyrical, disciplined entry in the annals of mourning literature." (Publishers Weekly)
"The Year of Magical Thinking is not a downer. On the contrary. Though the material is literally terrible, the writing is exhilarating and what unfolds resembles an adventure narrative." (The New York Times)

Heartfelt and superbly written

Ms Didion let her emotional journey take the reader through life and death and her grief

Sloooooower, please

I've heard interviews with Didion before and she speaks at a slower speed - more thoughtful or careful with her words, perhaps. This reader read so quickly that, at times, I felt I couldn't connect to what was being discussed. It took away from my enjoyment of Didion's craft. Other than the performance by the reader, this work is exceptional.

Stands one

There is no other book that approaches grief from this angle, she observes without laying out prescriptions, like a testimony.

Phenomenal Book Wonderful Narration

One of the best audiobooks I have listened to. A rare amalgam of performance and content so effortlessly transporting. Nourishing. I highly recommend it.

Loved this book

A harrowing and beautiful story. Well performed and the right length. I recommend this book.

The Year of Magical Thinking

Decided to take a small break from making my way through the Outlander series and dog literature and picked up this piece of non fiction. This is my first read by Joan Didion and now I think I’m in love. I highly recommend despite it being sad. The main theme is grief and the notion of sudden death. It’s extremely raw and humanistic.

Seriously wonderful

I loved this book. The performance from the woman reading it was spectacular too, I could not say enough nice things. I think the content is deeply meaningful if you've lost someone close to you, and I would highly recommend.

A Stunning Memoir on Grief

This is a hard book, but so beautifully done that I feel I grow as a human being every time I read it or listen to it. I love the audio version. Joan Didion reflects so well on the little things that make up this big thing called life. Thank you for this brave memoir.

Overrated

In places it seems well-written but as the book progresses, it loses steam because it is a rather cold memoir, lacking an emotional pull and punctuation. There is also a lot of rambling and I found myself not caring about her stream of consciousness. This is a case of the hype exaggerating the content.

Unbelievable

I think it’s the best book I’ve ever read. Immediately starting on to everything else she’s written.