Joan Didion eBooks

Joan Didion is an American author who was born in 1934 in Sacramento, California. She began writing as a child, and was an avid reader from a young age. Her family moved frequently through her childhood, something she would discuss in her memoir, 2003’s Where I Was From.

After graduating from University of California, Berkeley, she won a job at Vogue magazine. During her two years at the magazine, she wrote her first novel, Run, River, which would be published in 1963. Five years later, having returned to California, she published a collection of non-fiction magazine pieces as Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

She continued to write fiction, with Play It As It Lays published in 1970 and A Book of Common Prayer published in 1977. Another collection of non-fiction, The White Album, was published in 1979. Additional non-fiction books included After Henry, published in 1992, and Miami, published in 1987.

After her husband’s death, she began work on The Year of Magical Thinking, which would be published in 2006. She has since adapted the book for the stage. The book also earned a National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Didion has received additional awards, including the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and the Evelyn F. Burkey Award from the Writers Guild of America.

Didion continues to write, with her most recent book being Blue Nights, a memoir published in 2011 that deals with the subject of aging.