Joan Didion
American writer and journalistWikipedia
170
MENTIONS
106
EPISODES
100
PODCASTS
Search complete. 170 mentions across 106 episodes found for "Joan Didion".
Sep 13, 2026
Mattea RoachHOST
Yeah.
Marc BendavidGUEST
And, and Joan Didion does that also.
Marc BendavidGUEST
It's just like taut, taut, taut, taut, taut writing.
Marc BendavidGUEST
And you know, I resolved, like I wanted to write a book that could be read quickly.
Terry GrossHOST
And for people who don't know Charles Manson, why don't you describe Manson?
Claire Vaye WatkinsGUEST
Most people would probably describe him as the leader of a cult, a cult of young hippies who were, as Joan Didion says, participating in the paranoia of their times.
Claire Vaye WatkinsGUEST
And eventually, spectacularly so, it culminated in, um, these murders in Los Angeles in 1969.
Claire Vaye WatkinsGUEST
And my dad was a teenager.
Claire Vaye WatkinsGUEST
So it was a really exploitative scene it sounds like.
Claire Vaye WatkinsGUEST
What I would say to people if they're not familiar with him, he became this, like, boogeyman.
Claire Vaye WatkinsGUEST
Joan Didion described it, uh, the day of the Manson murders as the day the '60s ended.
Claire Vaye WatkinsGUEST
And it became this fable, this allegory about how, like, the countercultural impulse was dangerous and could only lead to, you know, murder and mayhem.
CathyHOST
And his feature debut is Addicted to Love.
CathyHOST
He also made The Accidental Husband and he directed the acclaimed Joan Didion documentary, The Centre Will Not Hold.
CathyHOST
She was his aunt.
CathyHOST
So
Laura RackyHOST
So like these are two of the books I read last week.
Laura RackyHOST
Joan Didion.
Laura RackyHOST
I've read some of her essays, but I've never read like a book.
Christian CunninghamHOST
Okay.
Sari BottonGUEST
Almost all my friends up here are expats, up here being Kingston, the Kingston, New York area.
Sari BottonGUEST
And also when I would start to meet people and we would have lunch, the Joan Didion essay, Goodbye to All That, would come up again and again.
Sari BottonGUEST
And it occurred to me, like, what if I collected essays on this theme? Then I started asking people, you know, I had different agents for ghostwriting.
Sari BottonGUEST
I, you know, I met editors and everybody kept saying to me, well, it's a great idea, but you can't do it.
Azam AhmedGUEST
Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison.
Azam AhmedGUEST
On the nonfiction side, Joan Didion, but then also the greats, the Dostoevskys, the-
Andrew SullivanHOST
Mm
Azam AhmedGUEST
... you know, the Robert Penn Warrens.
John FardyHOST
I really need to start writing stuff down.
Brian LloydPANELIST
I mean, you know, John Gregory Doan, Joan Didion, he was in that kind of neck of the woods.
Brian LloydPANELIST
But yeah, so this is the long-awaited sequel to Practical Magic.
Brian LloydPANELIST
Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman return as the Owen sisters.
Chris BlackHOST
Did you see the picture going viral of the...
Chris BlackHOST
I think it's AI, but it's, like, a guy sitting on the train, and it's, like, facing out, and it's got the Joan Didion book, book.
Chris BlackHOST
[laughs]
Jason StewartHOST
Oh, yeah.
Emily JashinskyHOST
I can remember reading Lolita for the first time and thinking, 'How is it possible for anyone to write so beautifully?'" Yeah, it's a good question, Matt.
Emily JashinskyHOST
Uh, for me, the answer I always go with is Joan Didion, which is a very millennial female response to that question.
Emily JashinskyHOST
But I love the cleanliness and the precision in Joan Didion's writing, but it's also not at the same time totally...
Emily JashinskyHOST
What's the best word for it? Um, totally antiseptic, totally, uh, hmm, that might not even be the, the right word.
Emily JashinskyHOST
Totally-- It's, it's clean and precise, but it still has so much style and humanity.
Grace O'NeillHOST
But I think what I'm finding interesting and what you're finding interesting is like the news outlets that are now doing it, where I'm just like, you, this is, there's nothing, you're not saying anything right now.
Grace O'NeillHOST
So why are you bothering sending a journalist to like do this random report or yet do that weird link between Dolly and Gloria? Like that literally sounds like they've, they've tried to do like that Joan Didion and Eve Babbitt's book.
Grace O'NeillHOST
The same thing where it's
Isabelle TrumanHOST
like, they're just, it's a nice, it's like honestly the AI-ification of culture.
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