Blue Nights
- Author Joan Didion
- Narrator Kimberly Farr
- Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
- Publish Date 4 November 2011
- Run Time 4 hours and 19 minutes
- Format x-book®
- Genre Autobiography: arts and entertainment, Autobiography: general, Biography: writers, Coping with ageing, Coping with death and bereavement, Diaries, letters and journals, Memoirs, Relationships and families: advice and issues.
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What to expect
From one of America’s greatest and most iconic writers: an honest and courageous portrait of age and motherhood.
Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old.
Blue Nights opens on July 26, 2010, as Didion thinks back to Quintana’s wedding in New York seven years before. Today would be her wedding anniversary. This fact triggers vivid snapshots of Quintana’s childhood — in Malibu, in Brentwood, at school in Holmby Hills. Reflecting on her daughter but also on her role as a parent, Didion asks the candid questions any parent might about how she feels she failed either because cues were not taken or perhaps displaced. ‘How could I have missed what was clearly there to be seen?’ Finally, perhaps we all remain unknown to each other.
Blue Nights — the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, ‘the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warning’ — like The Year of Magical Thinking before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty.
‘This is a beautiful and devastating book by one of the finest writers we have’ Zadie Smith
‘Searing, informative and affecting. Don’t leave life without it.’ Financial Times
*Notes to John, the remarkable recently discovered journal from Joan Didion is available now*
Critics Review
Reviews for ‘A Year of Magical Thinking’:
‘It is the most awesome performance of both participating in, and watching, an event. Even though Didion does not allow herself to break down, only a terribly controlled reader will resist doing the same.’ John Freeman, Independent
‘Ultimately, and unexpectedly for a book about illness and death, this is a wonderfully life affirming book.’ Lisa O’Kelly, Observer
n‘Searing, informative and affecting. Don’t leave life without it.’ Financial Times
n‘This is a beautiful and devastating book by one of the finest writers we have. Didion has always been a precise, humane and meticulously truthful writer, but on the subject of death she becomes essential.’ Zadie Smith
n‘Taking the reader to places where they would not otherwise go is one of the things a really good book can do. “The Year of Magical Thinking” does just that, and brilliantly. Powerful, moving and true.’ Cressida Connolly, Spectator
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