Let Me Tell You What I Mean
Joan Didion Knopf

Let Me Tell You What I Mean

Pages

192

Format

Paperback

Release date

January 2021

Publisher

Knopf

Weight

9.1 oz

Size

4.81 x 0.9 x 7.5 "

Paperback edition.

Here, Didion touches on topics ranging from newspapers ("the problem is not so much whether one trusts the news as to whether one finds it"), to the fantasy of San Simeon, to not getting into Stanford. In "Why I Write," Didion ponders the act of writing: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means." From her admiration for Hemingway's sentences to her acknowledgment that Martha Stewart's story is one "that has historically encouraged women in this country, even as it has threatened men," these essays are acutely and brilliantly observed. Each piece is classic Didion: incisive, bemused, and stunningly prescient.