An autobiographical portrait of marriage and motherhood by the acclaimed author details her struggle to come to terms with life and death, illness, sanity, personal upheaval, and grief.

From one of our most iconic and influential writers: twelve pieces that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary figure. These essays from 1968 to 2000, which have not been gathered together until now, showcase Joan Didion's incisive reporting, her empathetic gaze, and her insights on writing. They touch on subjects ranging from newspapers ("the problem is not so much whether one trusts the news as whether one finds it"),...

Two excerpts from never-before-seen notebooks offer insights into the author's literary mind and process and includes notes on her Sacramento upbringing, her life in the Gulf states, her views on prominent locals and her experiences during a formative "Rolling Stone" assignment. Joan Didion has always kept notebooks of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays, and copies of articles. "Notes on the South" traces a road trip she...

A "scathing novel" of one woman's path of self-destruction in 1960s Hollywood—by the New York Times–bestselling author of The White Album (The Washington Post Book World).
Spare, elegant, and terrifying, Play It as It Lays is the unforgettable story of a woman and a society come undone.

Raised in the ghost town of Silver Wells, Nevada, Maria Wyeth is an ex-model and the star of two...

A Book of Common Prayer is the story of two American women in the derelict Central American nation of Boca Grande. Grace Strasser-Mendana controls much of the country's wealth and knows virtually all of its secrets; Charlotte Douglas knows far too little. "Immaculate of history, innocent of politics," she has come to Boca Grande vaguely and vainly hoping to be reunited with her fugitive daughter. As imagined by Didion, her fate is at once utterly...

A woman journalist quits her job on a Washington paper to look after her father, living on a Caribbean island where he smuggles guns to rebels in Central America. When he falls sick, she takes over.

Incisive essays on Patty Hearst and Reagan, the Central Park jogger and the Santa Ana winds, from the New York Times–bestselling author of South and West.
In these eleven essays covering the national scene from Washington, DC; California; and New York, the acclaimed author of Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album "capture[s] the mood of America" and confirms her reputation as one of our sharpest...

The inside scoop on the world's most famous chronicler in the age of celebrity. Join Dominick Dunne, Vanity Fair's most notorious celebrity journalist, and a parade of Hollywood and literary notables as they attempt to make sense of his shocking and tumultuous life. Set during his coverage of the Phil Spector murder trial.