The Uptown Local by Cory Leadbeater review – exploding the Joan Didion myth
June 2024
Observer book of the week
The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne review – a Hollywood insider with an outsider’s eye
Book of the day
The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne review – Hollywood tales
April 2024
Fashion Statement newsletter
Princess Anne, Larry David and the rise of the accidental style icon
From the Curb star’s smart-casual look to the royal’s trademark wraparound sunglasses, the concept comes up time and again – but is it a patronising assumption that their style is accidental?
October 2023
The World According to Joan Didion by Evelyn McDonnell review – bits and pieces of a literary pioneer
A ‘fangirl’’s fragmented study of the great US author has a disparate and magpie approach that never coheres into a satisfying whole
April 2023
What we're reading
What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in April
Authors, critics and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments
January 2023
Joan Didion to David Hockney: facing up to the art stars – in pictures
A new exhibition features bracing, intimate portraits of compelling cultural figures by Brigitte Lacombe, Catherine Opie and Tacita Dean
November 2022
$26k for Joan Didion’s old books? Why are the rich obsessed with dead authors’ stuff?
Rachel Connolly
She was no stranger to self-mythologising. But the prices fetched at her estate sale were more about glamour seeking substance, says writer Rachel Connolly
Want to buy Joan Didion’s sunglasses? That’ll be $27,000. Her broken clock? $35,000
Auction of the late writer’s estate sees prices soar thousands of dollars over estimates – but it is all going to a good cause
‘I found a few vintage coats which I grabbed, and ran’: inside the weird world of estate sales
Digested week
Digested week: Murdoch’s dumping will give Trump the hump
Emma Brockes
‘Pull back the shroud of mystery’: Joan Didion’s revealing estate sale
August 2022
Top 10s
Top 10 books about starting afresh
Liz Truss is a Gen-Xer like me. We shouldn’t be the ones in power right now
Rafael Behr
July 2022
Janet Malcolm: The Last Interview; Joan Didion: The Last Interview review – crafty to the end
In these revealing late-life chats, the two doyennes of US journalism display all the acuity and intellectual toughness that made them household names
January 2022
Vanessa Redgrave on Joan Didion: ‘I worshipped her as a writer’
Vanessa Redgrave writes: We became friends and colleagues when David Hare and the producer Scott Rudin invited me to take the solo part of Joan herself
December 2021
Remembering Joan Didion: ‘Her ability to operate outside of herself was unparalleled’
The American author was not only brilliant but also generous and kind to younger writers, writes Emma Brockes
Open thread: what did Joan Didion mean to you?
The literary legend cast a cool eye on topics from death to dresses, inspiring, enlightening and comforting millions. Tell us in the comments what her writing means to you
Joan Didion obituary
Detached observer of American society and political life through her collections of journalism, novels and screenwriting
