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Eight essays selected from the 'Let Me Tell You What I Mean' essay collection that offer a glimpse into the mind and process of the iconic and influential writer: Joan Didion.

Mostly drawn from the earliest part of her five-decade career, the wide-ranging pieces in our selection include Didion writing about a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, a visit to San Simeon, and a reunion of WWII veterans in Las Vegas, and about topics ranging from Nancy Reagan to Robert Mapplethorpe. Here are subjects Didion has long written about – the press, politics, California, women, the act of writing, and her own self-doubt.

Joan Didion began her career in the 1950s after she won an essay contest sponsored by Vogue magazine. She came to prominence with a series of feature articles in Life magazine and The Saturday Evening Post that explored postwar America followed by celebrated novels 'Play It as It Lays' and 'A Book of Common Prayer'. Focusing on California and the chaos of the 1960’s, Didion successfully established herself as an advocate of New Journalism. Didion passed away in December 2021, aged 87. It was this same year that this essay collection was published.

In this final part Joan Didion pays tribute to one of her writing influences: Ernest Hemingway, challenging the idea of posthumous publication.

Last Words, 1998
Read by Laurel Lefkow
Abridged by Richard Hamilton
Produced by Lorna Newman