The highest hurdle that a recreational reader falls upon is describing a piece of work that's as powerful and pivotal as Joan Didion's. Starting with that impactful title, Slouching Towards Bethlehem. A Yeats poem (another thing a recreational reader would struggle with fully understanding). You read it and a vibe draws you in like a Miles Davis or John Coltrane song. You keep reading, perceiving, until you can arrive at your own conclusions and that is --- Joan Didion is one of my favorite writers. Not that it means anything, because I am only, well, nothing. Realistically, not self-pityingly. More so, I will not even be able to write like her. But we keep reading her and peeled layer after layer, discovering truths, embellished with her beautiful writing voice as she tells these stories. Delicious, tasteful details. She puts her skin in the game, so to speak, so it stands even if it's unbelievable. At some point, you concede to altering your previously held perceptions. Having read Joan Didion makes me grateful for being alive.
With compliments to the reading of Diane Keaton, who performed the audiobook. Listening simultaneously while reading breathes more life into the books.
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