Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays
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This program is read by actor and singer-songwriter Maya Hawke, star of Netflix's Stranger Things.
"Narrating in a voice as clear and sustaining as a cool glass of water, Hawkeâs unflashy approach allows the words to reveal their magic."âThe Orange County Register
"Didionâs timeless essays shine with Hawke at the helm. This audiobook will bring new listeners to this classic and is highly recommended for libraries everywhere.ââLibrary Journal (Starred Review)
âMaya Hawke performs this classic collection superbly...Hawke gets Didion's measured pace and thoughtful tone just right as she conveys the much admired author's idiosyncratic, elegant language.ââAudioFile (Earphones Award Winner)
Celebrated, iconic, and indispensable, Joan Didionâs first work of nonfiction, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, is considered a watershed moment in American writing. First published in 1968, the collection was critically praised as one of the âbest prose written in this country.â
More than perhaps any other book, this collection by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era captures the unique time and place of Joan Didionâs focus, exploring subjects such as John Wayne and Howard Hughes, growing up in California and the nature of good and evil in a Death Valley motel room, and, especially, the essence of San Franciscoâs Haight-Ashbury, the heart of the counterculture. As Joyce Carol Oates remarked: â[Didion] has been an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time, a memorable voice, partly eulogistic, partly despairing; always in control.â
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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Joan Didion (1934-2021) was the National Book Award-winning author of many works of fiction and nonfiction. After earning a Bachelorâs degree in English at the University of California, Berkeley, she started her literary career writing articles and essays for Vogue, Mademoiselle, Life, The Saturday Evening Post, and National Review, establishing herself as a prominent member of the New Journalism movement. Her books include The White Album, Play It As It Lays, and Slouching Towards Bethlehem.
Shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, Didionâs revelatory memoir The Year of Magical Thinking was adapted as a one-woman stage show starring Vanessa Redgrave on Broadway. She also wrote several screenplays with her husband John Gregory Dunne, including Panic in Needle Park with Al Pacino, the second remake of A Star is Born with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, and an adaptation of her own Play It As It Lays with Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins.
