Let Me Tell You What I Mean

An Essay Collection

By: Joan Didion

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr, Hilton Als

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From one of our most iconic and influential writers, the award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking: a timeless collection of mostly early pieces that reveal what would become Joan Didion's subjects, including the press, politics, California robber barons, women, and her own self-doubt.

With a forward by Hilton Als, these twelve pieces from 1968 to 2000, never before gathered together, offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary figure. They showcase Joan Didion's incisive reporting, her empathetic gaze, and her role as "an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time" (The New York Times Book Review).

Here, Didion touches on topics ranging from newspapers ("the problem is not so much whether one trusts the news as to whether one finds it"), to the fantasy of San Simeon, to not getting into Stanford. In "Why I Write," Didion ponders the act of writing: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means." From her admiration for Hemingway's sentences to her acknowledgment that Martha Stewart's story is one "that has historically encouraged women in this country, even as it has threatened men," these essays are acutely and brilliantly observed. Each piece is classic Didion: incisive, bemused, and stunningly prescient.

SUCH A FUN LISTEN

The author’s words were so much enhanced by the narrator I would love more of both.

An interesting anthology

An interesting anthology of essays about people. I found the one about Hemmingway particularly insightful, especially her take on his posthumously published work. Next I liked her insights on Mapplethorpe. Fair warning, the last chapter is about Martha Stewart, I'm curious how fans and critics of Martha will react.

Joan Didion's writing and her determination to write. Didion wanted to write what and she wanted.

I loved her writing..not only this book
.but many books..not all of her books. Many of her books. I will re read some of books..and read the books I missed.

Didion deserves a better narrator

I adore Joan Didion and have read all of her work. It’s wonderful to have these previously uncollected pieces. But this narrator doesn’t do her justice. She sounds too chirpy and unserious — the opposite of Joan Didion. I’ve listened to other books she’s narrated and will avoid them in the future. Also, I have to wonder why Didion included the last essay, about Martha Stewart, as it predates her downfall for insider trader. It sounds strangely incomplete, and it’s odd to hear Didion defend someone who, in the end, does not deserve it.

Skip The Forward

Kimberly Farr as the main narrator, did an excellent job. However, Hilton Al’s forward does an injustice.
His more-bored-than-thou molasses intonation is as dull as Didion’s writing is perceptive. So, do yourself a favor and skip it.

After being saturated with the stories of Ernest Hemingway in high school by male teachers who offered the writings of suicidal women as fair barter for the neurological real estate in our young, impressionable minds, I took great pains to avoid it thereafter.

What we received for every completed Hemingway novel were a few poems by Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath which hardly comprises any kind of reciprocity or even sound judgment.

Didion has done the remarkable in one very personal regard: she has made me curious about Hemingway, specifically, “Hills Like White Elephants.”

Isn’t that indicative of her true generosity; the fact that she makes her reader more curious?