I first read Joan Didion in college, when a boyfriend handed me "Goodbye to All That" and said, "It's only worth it to be young if you can write about it like this." Years later, I can't remember what drew me to someone who made such dire pronouncements, but I still remember the thrill of reading Didion's prose for the first time. She has a voice unlike any other –openly reflective, almost conversational, but with such a cool remove you can't help being flattered that she's bothering to speak to you. She remains one of my favorite non-fiction writers.
That's why I'm particularly excited to let you know that our friends at Zola Books are offering two of Joan Didion's most admired essays free to DailyLit users. They're sharing the love to celebrate the release of Didion's legendary collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem for the first time in digital format. (You can read the original 1968 New York Times review of Slouching Towards Bethlehem here.) You can find the two essays – "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" and "Goodbye to All That" – in our recently restored non-fiction library.
"Slouching Towards Bethlehem", the book's title essay, helped define the New Journalism of the 1960s with its vivid documentation of the acid-tripping counterculture of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury. The more personal "Goodbye to All That" is about Didion's eight years being "very young" in New York, and her eventual departure for LA. If you start a subscription, let us know what you think. We love to hear from you.
And if you don't yet know about Zola Books, you might want to check them out, too. They take ev erything readers do in the real world – browse bookstores, read reviews, visit blogs, follow authors, share reviews and recommendations, and buy books – and put it all in one place. In addition to offering the full e-book of Slouching Towards Bethlehem, they're the exclusive digital retailers of four other Didion titles, as well as over 100,000 other e-books. They're a great company and great friends to DailyLit.
Happy reading,
Yael
Editorial Director, DailyLit
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