Joan Didion’s packing list and the illusion of preparedness

It’s the holiday season. You’re packing for your trip. There is no better time to revisit this: two skirts. Two jerseys. A bottle of bourbon. This is the famous packing list from The White Album. It is as precise as it is strange. It reads like a ritual, a personal inventory, a whisper of both glamour and dread.

It’s not really about the clothes. It’s about control. About readiness. About who she became when the suitcase clicked shut.

Grief, grammar, and the Didion sentence: Rereading The Year of Magical Thinking

For me, few books confront grief with the unflinching clarity of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. It is one of my favourite of Didion books and I reread it recently. 

Didion wrote it in the aftermath of her husband’s sudden death; it isn’t a memoir of healing so much as a dissection of loss, precise, restrained, devastating. 

Packing lists and California cool: How Joan Didion made the personal iconic

Before minimalism was a hashtag or lifestyle trend, Joan Didion was living it with elegance and intent. Her now-famous packing list, tucked into The White Album, has become a cultural artefact in its own right—a snapshot of a writer whose personal style was as deliberate as her prose.

From Sylvia Plath to The Smiths: The ultimate bookish playlist

If you're like me, and you love books and music, you probably get the same unique thrill in hearing a favourite book or author woven into a song lyric. It's like a secret handshake between readers and musicians. Whether it’s a simple name-drop or a full-on homage, these songs remind us that the worlds of music and literature are always in conversation. 

Here are twenty-two songs that celebrate books and writers, featuring artists such as Kate Bush, Vampire Weekend, Nirvana, Radiohead, the Smiths, and Black Star.

Why you should read Joan Didion and the best books to start with

Joan Didion didn’t just write essays and novels, she rewired what prose could do. Her work is surgically precise and emotionally raw, offering a style that has inspired generations of writers and captivated readers for over half a century. 

She helped shape the New Journalism movement in the 1960s, bringing a personal, literary sensibility to reportage. She created some of the most arresting portraits of American life in the second half of the twentieth century.

Joan Didion and the art of emotional precision: What writers can learn from her style

Joan Didion never wasted a word. Her prose was as spare as it was surgical. It was a style that she forged as a journalist and later honed in her essays and fiction that cut to the heart of American life. For writers and readers alike, there's so much to learn from her technique, especially in a cultural moment saturated with overstatement and noise. If there was one takeaway from Didion’s writing, it’s that less is more.

A guide to reading Joan Didion

I’m a big fan of Joan Didion. I’ve read most of her published works, with her novel Play It As It Lays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, and The Year of Magical Thinking among my favourites. What I’ve always appreciated about her writing is the precision and emotional depth she brings to her words. Few others come close. She possessed an unmatched ability to distil complex emotions and cultural shifts into sentences that feel both effortless and weighty.

Joan Didion's writing is a masterclass in precision and insight. Her distinctive style, marked by pared-down, rigorous prose, captured the nuances of American life and personal introspection. As a leading figure in the New Journalism movement of the 1960s, Didion's work blended literary flair with journalistic integrity, offering readers a profound lens through which to view the world.

Whatever happened to Donna Tartt?

I found a box of books in the attic yesterday, and a signed copy of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch was buried there. I added it to the bookshelf alongside a signed copy of The Little Friend.

I’m a massive fan of Donna Tartt, particularly (like many people) The Secret History, which I wrote about recently. It got me thinking—whatever happened to Donna Tartt?

It has been more than a decade since Tartt published her last novel, The Goldfinch (2013), which won the Pulitzer Prize and cemented her status as one of the most celebrated literary figures of our time. But since then? Silence.

Tartt has never been a prolific writer. She famously takes a decade (or more) between books, crafting intricate, deeply atmospheric novels that become instant modern classics. The Secret History (1992) and The Little Friend (2002) were each published with long gaps in between, setting a pattern of meticulous, slow-burn literary output. But now, more than ten years have passed since The Goldfinch, and there’s no official word on what comes next.

So, where is Donna Tartt? And why is the wait for her next novel taking even longer this time?

Publication of Joan Didion’s journal creates an ethical literary dilemma

Joan Didion has been a monumental influence on countless writers, including myself. Her works, from Slouching Towards Bethlehem to The Year of Magical Thinking, have profoundly shaped modern literature.

Anything new by her is a major literary event. So, the recent announcement of the posthumous publication of her personal journal, Notes to John, has ignited a significant ethical debate within the literary world.

Yes, it is exciting to see Didion's unpublished work, but is it right to publish her personal journals? Especially those detailing conversations with her psychiatrist?

Dialogue that does double duty: How to advance plot and reveal character

Dialogue isn’t just there to make characters sound like they’re speaking. It’s one of the most powerful

tools in a novelist’s kit. The right line of dialogue can move the story forward, deepen a character’s personality, and sometimes even hint at future conflicts. 

When your dialogue serves multiple purposes, it pulls more weight, making your prose more efficient and engaging. Here are four well-known literary examples of how you can achieve this.

Notes to John by Joan Didion

I am a huge fan of Joan Didion so this is an unexpected book treat. A new book from the much missed Joan Didion.