14 Top nonfiction books like The World According to Joan Didion by Evelyn McDonnell

Cover of The World According to Joan Didion by Evelyn McDonnell

The World According to Joan Didion

By: Evelyn McDonnell

3.65

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

An intimate exploration of the life, craft, and legacy of one of the most revered and influential w…

If you liked the nonfiction plot in The World According to Joan Didion by Evelyn McDonnell , here is a list of 14 books like this:

Cover of The White Album by Joan Didion

1. The White Album

By: Joan Didion

4.05

Format: 224 pages, Paperback

First published in 1979, Joan Didion's The White Album records indelibly the upheavals and aftermat… read more

Similar categories in Joan Didion's The White Album book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

  • history
  • nonfiction
  • biography
  • memoir
"Somewhere between the Yolo Causeway and Vallejo it occurred to me that during the course of any given week I met too many people who spoke favorably about bombing power stations."

-Joan Didion, The White Album

"I have trouble maintaining the basic notion that keeping promises matters in a world where everything I was taught seems beside the point. The point itself is increasingly obscure."

-Joan Didion, The White Album

"A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image..."

-Joan Didion, The White Album

"Making judgments on films is in many ways so peculiarly vaporous an occupation that the only question is why, beyond the obvious opportunities for a few lectures fees and a little careerism at a disp…"

-Joan Didion, The White Album

Cover of Where I Was From by Joan Didion

2. Where I Was From

By: Joan Didion

3.87

Format: 240 pages, Paperback

In her moving and insightful new book, Joan Didion reassesses parts of her life, her work, her hist… read more

Similar categories in Joan Didion's Where I Was From book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

  • history
  • biography
  • memoir
  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
"There is no real way to deal with everything we lose."

-Joan Didion, Where I Was From

"The past could be jettisoned . . . but seeds got carried."

-Joan Didion, Where I Was From

"Remember, never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can."

-Joan Didion, Where I Was From

Cover of A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion, None

3. A Book of Common Prayer

By: Joan Didion , None

3.80

Format: 272 pages, Paperback

Writing with the telegraphic swiftness and microscopic sensitivity that have made her one of our mo… read more

Similar categories in Joan Didion's A Book of Common Prayer book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

"I think I have never known anyone who led quite unexamined a life."

-Joan Didion, A Book of Common Prayer

"I am an anthropologist who lost faith in her own method, who stopped believing that observable activity defined anthropos."

-Joan Didion, A Book of Common Prayer

Cover of Democracy by Joan Didion

4. Democracy

By: Joan Didion

3.85

Format: 234 pages, Paperback

Inez Victor knows that the major casualty of the political life is memory. But the people around In… read more

Similar categories in Joan Didion's Democracy book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

"By 'the long view' I believe she meant history. Or more exactly, the particular undertow of having and not having, the convulsions of a world largely unaffected by the individual efforts of anyone in…"

-Joan Didion, Democracy

Cover of Miami by Joan Didion

5. Miami

By: Joan Didion

3.68

Format: 240 pages, Paperback

Miami is not just a portrait of a city, but a masterly study of immigration and exile, passion, hyp… read more

Similar categories in Joan Didion's Miami book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

  • nonfiction
  • history
"Havana vanities come to dust in Miami."

-Joan Didion, Miami

Cover of South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion

6. South and West: From a Notebook

By: Joan Didion

3.69

Format: 160 pages, Hardcover

From the best-selling author of the National Book Award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking two ex… read more

Similar categories in Joan Didion's South and West: From a Notebook book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

  • biography
  • memoir
  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
  • writing
"I've never been any place I wanted to go."

-Joan Didion, South and West: From a Notebook

"It was the kind of Sunday to make one ache for Monday morning."

-Joan Didion, South and West: From a Notebook

"The devastation along the Gulf had an inevitability about it: the coast was reverting to its natural state."

-Joan Didion, South and West: From a Notebook

"The time warp: the Civil War was yesterday, but 1960 is spoken of as if it were about three hundred years ago."

-Joan Didion, South and West: From a Notebook

7. The Last Thing He Wanted

By: Joan Didion

4.72

Format: 64 pages, Paperback

In her first novel in twelve years, the legendary author of Play It As It Laysand Slouching Toward … read more

Similar categories in Joan Didion's The Last Thing He Wanted book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

8. Blue Nights

By: Joan Didion

4.75

Format: 2112 pages, Hardcover

From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly… read more

Similar categories in Joan Didion's Blue Nights book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

9. Salvador

By: Joan Didion

3.78

Format: None pages, Paperback

"Terror is the given of the place." The place is El Salvador in 1982, at the ghastly height of its … read more

Similar categories in Joan Didion's Salvador book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

10. On Directing Film

By: David Mamet

3.18

Format: 159 pages,

According to David Mamet, a film director must, above all things, think visually. Most of this inst… read more

Similar categories in David Mamet's On Directing Film book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

11. L.A. Woman

By: Eve Babitz

4.45

Format: 864 pages, Hardcover

read more

Similar categories in Eve Babitz's L.A. Woman book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

Cover of A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again by Joanna Biggs

12. A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again

By: Joanna Biggs

4.01

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by the New York Times , The Week , Vulture , Elle, and The Mi… read more

Similar categories in Joanna Biggs's A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

  • biography
  • memoir
  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
  • writing
"The wound my unsuspecting heart formerly received is not healed,"

-Joanna Biggs, A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again

Cover of The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing

13. The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise

By: Olivia Laing

4.07

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

In 2020, Olivia Laing began to restore a walled garden in Suffolk, an overgrown Eden of unusual pla… read more

Similar categories in Olivia Laing's The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

  • nonfiction
  • history
  • memoir
"One of the operations by which capitalism perpetuates itself is displacement, the determined and absolute separation of the product from the site of production, so that when we buy petrol or peat fro…"

-Olivia Laing, The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise

Cover of Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion

14. Let Me Tell You What I Mean

By: Joan Didion

3.84

Format: 149 pages, Hardcover

From one of our most iconic and influential writers: a timeless collection of mostly early pieces t… read more

Similar categories in Joan Didion's Let Me Tell You What I Mean book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

  • nonfiction
  • biography
  • memoir
  • writing
"Superstition prevails, fear that the fragile unfinished something will shatter, vanish, revert to the nothing from which it was made."

-Joan Didion, Let Me Tell You What I Mean

"In short I had no past, and, every Monday-Wednesday-Friday at noon in Dwinelle Hall, it seemed increasingly clear to me that I had no future."

-Joan Didion, Let Me Tell You What I Mean

"I began to make notes. I began to write down everything I saw and heard and remembered and imagined. I began to write, or so I thought, another story."

-Joan Didion, Let Me Tell You What I Mean

"Well, there it was. I got out fast then, before anyone could say "serenity" again, for it is a word I associate with death, and for several days after that meeting I wanted only to be in places where…"

-Joan Didion, Let Me Tell You What I Mean

Cover of Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley

15. Grief Is for People

By: Sloane Crosley

3.91

Format: 208 pages, Hardcover

Following the death of her closest friend, Sloane Crosley explores multiple kinds of loss in this d… read more

Similar categories in Sloane Crosley's Grief Is for People book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
  • biography
  • memoir
"Grief is for people, not things."

-Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People

"Suicide is a tax on human consciousness."

-Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People

"How will he know you loved him," she asks, "unless you try to destroy yourself?"

-Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People

"Pictures should be of what you see, not of what the world sees when it sees you."

-Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People

Cover of Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti

16. Alphabetical Diaries

By: Sheila Heti

4.02

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

A thrilling confessional from the award-winning, beloved author of Pure Colour. Sheila Heti kept a… read more

Similar categories in Sheila Heti's Alphabetical Diaries book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

  • biography
  • memoir
  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
  • writing
Cover of The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir by Griffin Dunne

17. The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

By: Griffin Dunne

4.19

Format: 400 pages, Hardcover

At nine, Sean Connery saved him from drowning. At thirteen, desperate to hook up with Janis Joplin,… read more

Similar categories in Griffin Dunne's The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

  • history
  • biography
  • memoir
  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
"At the moment when Mrs. Griffin had been notified of her husband’s death, she was in bed with her lover at the Hotel del Coronado in California, and took the news that she was a widow rather well. Sh…"

-Griffin Dunne, The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

Cover of The World According to Joan Didion by Evelyn McDonnell

18. The World According to Joan Didion

By: Evelyn McDonnell

3.65

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

An intimate exploration of the life, craft, and legacy of one of the most revered and influential w… read more

Similar categories in Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

  • history
  • biography
  • memoir
  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
  • writing
Cover of Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton by Gail Crowther

19. Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton

By: Gail Crowther

3.80

Format: 280 pages, Hardcover

A vividly rendered and empathetic exploration of how two of the greatest poets of the 20th century—… read more

Similar categories in Gail Crowther's Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

  • history
  • biography
  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
  • writing
"Perhaps the sadness here is that Plath and Sexton somehow could not quite gather the strength to truly believe in their self-worth, and in the end neither gave themselves time to."

-Gail Crowther, Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton

Cover of The Uptown Local: Joy, Death, and Joan Didion: A Memoir by Cory Leadbeater

20. The Uptown Local: Joy, Death, and Joan Didion: A Memoir

By: Cory Leadbeater

3.70

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

A brilliant debut memoir about a young writer—struggling with depression, family issues, and addict… read more

Similar categories in Cory Leadbeater's The Uptown Local: Joy, Death, and Joan Didion: A Memoir book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
  • biography
  • memoir
Cover of How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly from the Accidental Icon by Lyn Slater

21. How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly from the Accidental Icon

By: Lyn Slater

3.44

Format: None pages, Hardcover

A personal memoir in which Lyn Slater, known on Instagram as “Accidental Icon,” brings her characte… read more

Similar categories in Lyn Slater's How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly from the Accidental Icon book and Evelyn McDonnell's The World According to Joan Didion

  • biography memoir
  • nonfiction
  • biography
  • memoir

7 must-read history books like The World According to Joan Didion by Evelyn McDonnell

Transform Your Habits

The White Album

Joan Didion

4.05

Transform Your Habits

Where I Was From

Joan Didion

3.87

Transform Your Habits

Miami

Joan Didion

3.68

Transform Your Habits

The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise

Olivia Laing

4.07

View all the books

7 best-selling fiction books like The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion

Transform Your Habits

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (VALIS Trilogy, #3)

Philip K. Dick

4.08

Black Swans

Eve Babitz

3.66

The Last Thing He Wanted

Joan Didion

4.72

Transform Your Habits

Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.

Eve Babitz

4.10

View all the books

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