Tag Archives: Joan Didion

“The ability to think for one’s self depends upon one’s mastery of the language.” — Joan Didion

Posted on December 5, 2025 by sheila

It’s her birthday today. Someone said that Didion’s (seemingly) simple sentences are like a perfect puzzle. If you remove one line from a paragraph, everything falls apart. Her writing is that well-constructed. She was a notoriously painstaking self-editor. She would … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, On This Day, writers | Tagged After Henry, essays, fiction, Joan Didion, nonfiction, Play It As It Lays, Political Fictions, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album, Year of Magical Thinking | Leave a comment

“He who has never felt, momentarily, what madness is has but a mouthful of brains.” — Herman Melville

Posted on August 1, 2025 by sheila

“Old nineteenth-century New England must have been fearful–in what other country would Thoreau, Melville, Whitman and Dickinson have been so overlooked?” — Robert Lowell, letter to Elizabeth Bishop, December 12, 1958 Herman Melville was born on this day in 1819. … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, On This Day, writers | Tagged Camille Paglia, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster, fiction, Harold Bloom, Hart Crane, Herman Melville, Joan Didion, John Huston, Michael Schmidt, Moby Dick, Nathaniel Hawthorne, poetry, William Faulkner | 12 Comments

“I am interested in the goddam sad science of war.” — Ernest Hemingway

Posted on July 21, 2025 by sheila

Paris Review interview, 2007: Interviewer: Is it possible [Hemingway] showed a generation how to get emotion into a sentence without mentioning emotion? Norman Mailer: Yes, and he did it more than anyone ever had before or after. But he’s a … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, On This Day, writers | Tagged Elizabeth Bishop, Ernest Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh, fiction, Joan Didion, Truman Capote | 11 Comments

For International Women’s Day: Ladies I Love

Posted on March 8, 2025 by sheila

I post edited versions of this every year. I add names. I take names off if I feel like it. I enjoy compiling it. It’s not just about enjoyment. As women’s rights are up for grabs more than ever, like … Continue reading →

Posted in Actors, Art/Photography, Directors, Personal, writers | Tagged A.S. Byatt, Abigail Adams, Agnes Varda, Aline MacMahon, Amy Heckerling, Ann Savage, Anna Karina, Anne Frank, Anne V. Coates, Annie Proulx, art, Aubrey Plaza, Australia, Austria, Barbara Bel Geddes, Barbara Stanwyck, Barbra Streisand, Bette Davis, Bibi Andersson, Brazil, Britney Spears, Busby Berkeley, Camille Paglia, Canada, Carole Lombard, Cate Blanchett, Charlotte Bronte, Charlotte Rampling, China, Croatia, Diane Keaton, Dolly Parton, Drew Barrymore, Dubravka Ugrešić, Edie Sedgwick, Ellen von Unwerth, England, Etta James, Eve Babitz, France, Frances Farmer, Gena Rowlands, George Eliot, Georgia, Germany, Gloria Grahame, Golshifteh Farahani, Greta Garbo, Greta Gerwig, Harriet Andersson, Hediyeh Tehrani, Hong Kong, Ida Lupino, Ingrid Thulin, Iran, Ireland, Isabelle Adjani, Isabelle Huppert, Italy, Janet Malcolm, Japan, Jean Arthur, Jeanette Winterson, Jill Clayburgh, Joan Crawford, Joan Didion, Joan Jett, Joanna Hogg, Josephine Decker, Judy Garland, Julie Christie, Kate Lyn Sheil, Kay Francis, Keri Hulme, Kristen Stewart, Kristen Wiig, L.M. Montgomery, Laura Dern, Laurette Taylor, Leila Hatami, Lily Tomlin, Liv Ullmann, Louise Glück, Madeleine L'Engle, Madeline Kahn, Maggie Cheung, Maggie Smith, Marianne Moore, Marilyn Monroe, Martha Graham, Mary Oliver, Maud Gonne, Mélanie Laurent, Mia Hansen-Løve, Nancy Savoca, Natalie Portman, Nina Hoss, Nina Simone, Olivia Laing, Olympia Dukakis, Patricia Highsmith, Pauline Kael, photography, Poland, Rebecca West, Romania, Rosalind Russell, Russia, Sandrine Bonnaire, Shabnam Toloui, Shirley Jackson, Sophia Takal, South Korea, Spain, Supernatural, Sweden, Tana French, Taraneh Alidoosti, The Netherlands, Tiffany Haddish, Tina Turner, Tuesday Weld, Wanda Jackson, women directors | 106 Comments

2022 Books Read

Posted on January 6, 2023 by sheila

Some re-reads this year, but a lot of new-to-me authors as well. New novels written by faves. Been a year of upheaval and transitions. I’ve managed to keep up my regular reading schedule. I just don’t feel right if I’m … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged A.S. Byatt, Alfred Hitchcock, Anne Fadiman, art, Australia, Biography, books read, Canada, Christopher Hitchens, Edmund Burke, Elinor Lipman, England, entertainment biography, essays, Eve Babitz, friends, Germany, Greece, Hitler, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Janet Malcolm, Joan Didion, Joseph Cornell, Lorrie Moore, Machiavelli, Master and Margarita, Memoirs, Michael Curtiz, Mikhail Bulgakov, Mitford sisters, nonfiction, Paul Zindel, politics, Quentin Tarantino, Robert De Niro, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Shakespeare, The Beatles, Tom Wolfe, true crime, Victor Klemperer, Victor Serge, war, William Hazlitt, William Wordsworth, WWII, YA fiction | 10 Comments

“All creative art must rise out of a specific soil and flicker with the spirit of place.” — D.H. Lawrence

Posted on September 11, 2022 by sheila

“Whoever reads me will be in the thick of the scrimmage, and if he doesn’t like it – if he wants a safe seat in the audience – let him read somebody else.” — D.H. Lawrence, 1925 D.H. Lawrence was … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, On This Day, writers | Tagged Camille Paglia, D.H. Lawrence, England, H.D., Harold Bloom, Joan Didion, Michael Schmidt, poetry, Rebecca West, Robert Graves, Tennessee Williams, Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden | 3 Comments

April 2022 Viewing Diary

Posted on May 7, 2022 by sheila

When I first got the Raging Bull gig, I began a re-watch of all the Scorsese-De Niro movies – at least the ones clustered around that period. I grew up on these films. These movies were huge to me as … Continue reading →

Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television | Tagged Anjelica Huston, biopic, Brian De Palma, Canada, Christopher Walken, comedy, Dana Andrews, documentary, drama, Elia Kazan, F. Scott Fitzgerald, France, historical drama, Italy, Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, Joan Didion, John Cazale, Liza Minnelli, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Mickey Rourke, musicals, Ray Milland, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Robert Mitchum, romantic drama, Russia, sci-fi, Tuesday Weld, Ukraine, Vietnam, women directors, WWII | 12 Comments

R.I.P. Joan Didion

Posted on December 24, 2021 by sheila

I can’t believe it. Sometimes it’s hard for me to find the words. It’s amazing that the two chronicler-poets of California – very different writers with very different points of view about their home state would die the same week. … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, RIP, writers | Tagged Joan Didion | 3 Comments

Excerpt from Slouching Towards Bethlehem: ‘John Wayne: A Love Story’, by Joan Didion

Posted on May 26, 2020 by sheila

For John Wayne’s Birthday A second excerpt from the essay collection: Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays (FSG Classics), by Joan Didion This is one of the best things written about John Wayne. It’s not just an essay about who he was … Continue reading →

Posted in Actors, Books, On This Day | Tagged Elvis Presley, essays, Joan Didion, John Wayne, Slouching Towards Bethlehem | 46 Comments

Tag Archives: Joan Didion

“The ability to think for one’s self depends upon one’s mastery of the language.” — Joan Didion

“He who has never felt, momentarily, what madness is has but a mouthful of brains.” — Herman Melville

“I am interested in the goddam sad science of war.” — Ernest Hemingway

For International Women’s Day: Ladies I Love

2022 Books Read

“All creative art must rise out of a specific soil and flicker with the spirit of place.” — D.H. Lawrence

April 2022 Viewing Diary

R.I.P. Joan Didion

Excerpt from Slouching Towards Bethlehem: ‘John Wayne: A Love Story’, by Joan Didion

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