No one could deny that she is a crisp stylist, or.

As the great chronicler of US cultural, societal and political movements, Didion's prose illuminates understanding of what connects and divides a nation. I have always struggled to articulate why Joan Didion, patron saint of female essayists, leaves me cold. 'One of the most celebrated, influential and pioneering writers of the past 60 years. A sentence by Didion, whether it sticks to 39 characters or articulates possibilities in multiple dependent clauses, is always a marvel of magical thinking' Observer 'The slighter these pieces are, the more remarkable they seem: they're so deft and enigmatic. This is an essential read that reminds us of her magic' i Paper 'Didion's dogged pursuit of the truth in her writing is more vital than ever in our era of fake news, echo chambers and political turmoil.

Perhaps those iconic sunglasses were really X-ray specs' Independent Reading her now, she does seem prophetic, as manifested, for instance, in her concerns in 1968 about the weaknesses of the 'traditional press', whose unspoken attitudes and 'quite factitious 'objectivity'' come 'between the page and the reader like so much marsh gas'. Let Me Tell You What I Mean, a collection of essays spanning essentially the last third of the twentieth century, is a tiny jewel box of a book, and you could read it for the prose aloneno one places a so like Joan Didionbut the real magic is that she pulls it off: she tells you what she means, and every injury is on purpose. 'The clarity of Didion's vision and the precision with which she sets it down do indeed feel uncanny. 'The peripheral, the specific, the tangible - or, as the writer Hilton Als notes in his foreword, 'the Didion gaze', the penetrating prose of a reporter who writes with a scalpel - is by far the most compelling theme in Didion's latest collection of essays' Vogue

Let me tell you what i mean joan didion