Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Essays

By: Joan Didion

Narrated by: Maya Hawke

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, Hawke’s unflashy approach allows the words to reveal their magic."—The Orange County Register

"Didion’s timeless essays shine with Hawke at the helm. This audiobook will bring new listeners to this classic and is highly recommended for libraries everywhere.”—Library Journal (Starred Review)

“Maya 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.”—AudioFile (Earphones Award Winner)

Celebrated, iconic, and indispensable, Joan Didion’s 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 “best prose written in this country.”

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 Didion’s 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 Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, the heart of the counterculture. As Joyce Carol Oates remarked: “[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.”

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Critic reviews

“Hawke finds the exact blend of unflappability, dry humor, and sensitivity that does justice to Didion’s observations.”—Kirkus

“In her portraits of people, Didion is not out to expose but to understand, and she shows us actors and millionaires, doomed brides and naive acid-trippers, left wing ideologues and snobs of the Hawaiian aristocracy in a way that makes them neither villainous nor glamorous, but alive and botched and often mournfully beautiful.... A rich display of some of the best prose written today in this country.” —Dan Wakefield, The New York Times Book Review

"These literary gems are the perfect stocking-stuffer size for the serious reader on your list; you’ll look smart wrapping up one or all of them." --USA Today

"A slant vision that is arresting and unique...Didion might be an observer from another planet--one so edgy and alert that she ends up knowing more about our own world than we know ourselves." —Anne Tyler

"The story between the lines of Slouching Towards Bethlehem is surely not so much 'California' as it is [Didion's] ability to make us share her passionate sense of it." —Alfred Kazin

“Give one of these adorable mini-editions of classic nonfiction books by women—only slightly larger than a mobile phone—to a bookish friend, and they’ll get lit, literally.”—BUST


“Gorgeous . . . among the season’s sexiest little literary gifts . . . Close-up portraits of the grand dames by illustrator Celia Carlstedt grace the textured, curve-cornered jackets of these pocket-sized volumes (it’s as if they’ve already been gift wrapped).” —Passport Magazine

The GOAT

Listening to Didion book makes me feel like a plagiarist because so many her thoughts are thoughts I’ve had myself - of course this is what makes her so great, her ability to voice the whispers of ideas that nag at the edge of your own consciousness.

Stories of Her Time

Didion was a prolific and thoughtful writer. This book includes articles and essays that directly reflect the decades in which she lived. Hawke is an excellent reader.

Mesmerizing

Narration by Maya Hawke excellent and soothing. Hope hear more from her. Non fiction snapshot of the 60s with a literary delivery.

No, Maya, No

Poor kid mispronounced way too many words to have this gig. Garden of Ahh-la?

All enjoyable..

Short stories from 1960's CA, raw, real, and often gritty. The readers voice is particularly lovely.