He meant doing things not because we were expected to do them or had always done them or should do them but because we wanted to do them. He meant wanting. He meant living.
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The Year of Magical Thinking | 
He meant doing things not because we were expected to do them or had always done them or should do them but because we wanted to do them. He meant wanting. He meant living.
so-soI wasn‘t a fan of Blue Nights, but when this showed up on The NY Times “Best books of the 21st Century so far” I thought I should give her another chance. I don‘t like to be negative about a memoir, especially not a memoir about grief. But Didion is not for me. #unpopularOpinion
#SpringSkies
Joan Didion wrote this book in the wake of #Tragedy in her life; the serious illness of her daughter & her subsequent death & the sudden shocking death of her husband in the midst of it. It helped me understand my own grief over losses in my life.💔
“Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.”
So, I don‘t know. Half-way in and I don‘t really know what this is about. There are a lot of tangents and a lot of quotes from other people.
pickI liked her honesty and truth. Few books deal so rawly with grief. At times I found her a bit snobby however
pan#Wardens2023 #JubilantJuly #WeekendReading #WeekendReads
This one, I gotta say, puts me right in line with the #UpopularOpinion side of the table. My first ‘Didion‘ book & thus, so far not enamoured at all or even interested in other reads. I‘ll re-visit that at a later time.
#EdgeOfSeventeen is about the first major sudden losses that Stevie Nicks had to grieve, and the tagged book is about a slower type of grief later in life, but it was the first connection that came to mind. This photo is from the back jacket cover of the book. #VolumesAndVocals @Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
...The death of a parent, he wrote, "despite our preparation, indeed, despite our age, dislodges things deep in us, sets off reactions that surprise us and that may cut free memories and feelings that we had thought gone to ground long ago. We might, in that indeterminate period they call mourning, be in a submarine, silent on the ocean's bed, aware of the depth charges, now near and now far, buffeting us with recollections."
pick1-3 Feb 22 (audiobook)
A very raw account of the death of Didion‘s husband at a time when her daughter is battling unexplained and critical illness. Quite heartbreaking for one woman to experience such devastating loss. It does almost seem as though Didion herself is starting to unravel. The mind games she plays with herself recall my mindset in the wake of my mother‘s death - when you would do anything just to see them alive again.
pickIncredibly heartbreaking. An autobiographical work after the abrupt deaths of Didion‘s husband and daughter, it reflects on grief and loss and the negotiations we make through magical thinking - thinking if I do this then this won‘t/ hasn‘t happened. Devastatingly beautiful
so-soFor some reason before I read this I thought it would be a self-help book. It is not. Anyways, I was not a super big fan of this. I think the writing style was tough because it made it hard for me to concentrate. I also think I‘m definitely too young for this book bc it didn‘t resonate with me. I recognize that it sounds like my mom could have written it, but I just didn‘t connect with it
pickThere is a piece of paper in this book that tells me this book came into this house in 2006. Neither of us have read it until now. It has been sitting on my TBR shelf for some of those years. This week was the right time, the perfect time for me to read it. Magical thinking, I‘ve been doing a bit lately.
“Life changes fast.”
“Life changes in the instant “
So much grief in this book.
So much magical thinking.
Powerful.
pickFinished this morning. A memoir about grief. My first Joan Didion. Should I read more? And if so, which one JD fans? 🤗🙏
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🥹Achingly beautiful a masterpiece and a tribute to an extraordinary marriage.
August book club pick for #feedyourmind Instagram book club.
so-soA personal account from author Joan Didion following the year after her husband‘s sudden death.
Grief ✨ Stream of Consciousness ✨ Retrospective
I understand that Didion is like a huge deal. This is my first read by her and I just want to know why I‘m disliking her so much. I‘m only 70 pages in but it‘s truly screaming rich white lady to me 😩 I‘m sorry I had to say it. Maybe my mind will change.
pickA friend came to the Library Book Sale to find this book. Alas,no copy to be had. I said,”I have a copy that I can lend you”. Since it was #TBR on my shelves, I decided to read it first. I am glad that I did. The writing pulled me in, and did not let go. My plan had been to read a book by her to honor her recent death. My friend‘s request made it happen. #weremember #2005 #192025
I haven‘t posted for a long time. My life has been quite a journey for the past few years. In 2018, my husband of 27 years died. It took me a while to find myself after that. In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, I started dating and met the man who would save me. In 2021, I learned my son was ill. In November of 2021, I was married on a Saturday and my son would pass five days later. This beautiful life is not for the weak.
so-soI did the audio version of this book. I found it to be very sad. Basically, this book tells the true story of a woman who unexpectedly lost her husband. It outlines how she‘s dealt with that loss over the course of a year. Her daughter also spends most of the story in the hospital, very I‘ll. It wasn‘t a bad book, just very depressing.
From the kitchen of Joan Didion how awesome! Can't wait to try it! Thank you Thank you @TheBookHippie for the recipe and the fantastic book 🥰. Apologies again for the late post ! #RecipeSwap @BennettBookworm
My first Didion book, about the passing of her husband John Dunne. I had just lost my own husband. It was an impressive book, so I read several more of her books
#WeRemember #JoanDidion @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
#WeRemember Day 14: #JoanDidion‘s book is one of the few I hand-carried with me when my family and I moved from Singapore here to the UAE nearly 3 years ago. Here are the other titles I hand-carried with me along with photos of the 20-foot container holding all our belongings: https://wp.me/pDlzr-kTV
pickSad and beautiful. A few parts were too literary for me with obscure references. But, I don‘t think people talk about the reality of death and grief enough. This book explores it deeply and superficially. Feelings and day to day life. Recommend, 4⭐️
pickReally glad I read this through the #Literati book club. A sobering work that addresses how we define a good life, and how we process a sudden death. Despite fame, success, and access to resources most don‘t have, nothing can prepare someone for tragedy at the dinner table. I‘m sure I‘ll come back to this one to help me through grief at some point. 4⭐️s
“Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it.” 😔
It‘s been a busy weekend so I‘m just now able to join in on the #FabulousFebruary #readathon. Starting this one today for one of the #Literati book clubs. I love the relatable way Didion wrote. Over the past few years, especially the past 2, I‘ve heard and experienced so many of these life-changing moments, making this a particularly relevant read.
Each time we did it I was afraid of missing the swell, hanging back, timing it wrong. John never was. You had to feel the swell change. You had to go with the change. He told me that. No eye is on the sparrow but he did tell me that.
I waver between being envious & impatient with people who mourn. It feels like an indulgence not available to me. What Didion captured in this book that does resonate with me is how absurd it seems to attend to the mundane when a loved one lies dead in the dining room.
pickDeep sadness and grief are familiar to everyone, the feelings that everyone has experienced, but yet these are the same emotions that isolate us from others. Sad, intimate story about loss and isolation …
#nonfiction2022 #unplanned
#19822022 #2005
#booked2022 #writtenByJournalist
What a woman. What a writer. What a loss.
#wishesandblessings #magic
“A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty.”-Joan Didion
While trying to process illness & death in her own family, she wrote a powerful book that has lessons for us all on this topic.I love Didions writing , a tough but worthwhile read.
pickEnded up loving this! It was totally not what I thought it was going to be about.
pickStill writing at 87, and as eloquent as always. Magical Thinking has a #mournful tone but in a different way than you‘ve ever imagined. So elegant. Written after her husband‘s death in 2003, but before her only child-her daughter-died a year later #springsentiments
pickDiving into 2021 with a bulky January total of 23 books. Ready to see where this year is going to take me. The tagged book was one of my Jan reads and I highly recommend. Fingers crossed I have time to mini review the books I go through for February!
pickThis book felt meditative to read and cathartic to finish... (Mason rec)
An eloquent portrait of a life with, and the loss of — a #spouse 😔
#thankfulthoughts @Eggs
pickA great expression and explanation of mourning that describes how we make things make sense after losing loved ones. “Time is the school in which we learn” how to come to terms with what‘s left in life after death of family and loved ones. An instantly meaningful read for anyone alive.
🌿 Always! We must use our Constitutional voices-we have control over so little else...
🙏🏻 the health and physical ability to travel so I can be with my daughters, sons in laws, and grands 💗
#thankfulthursday @Cosmos_Moon
Kshakal, Enchantedbibliophile, Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks, kezzlou85, emmaturi, Mollyanna, Klou, TheAromaofBooks
so-soJoan Didion makes me want to smoke & drink a glass of expensive whiskey. She is a mood.
I enjoyed the mixture of biography, medical explanations, & thoughts on grief. But something about this just didn't work for me. Normally I don't mind name dropping or disconnectedness from wealthy people (we lost $50k because we bought a house before knowing we could sale one if our other houses so we ran away to Hawaii to regroup?) I found it annoying here.
