Blue Nights

By Joan Didion,

Book cover of Blue Nights

Book description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter, from the bestselling, award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Let Me Tell You What I Mean

Richly textured with memories from her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne,…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Blue Nights as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This book is an elegy to the author's daughter, who died in 2005 at age 39. What compelled me was how Didion pieced together fragments of memory, little snapshots of vivid detail that evoked powerful feelings.

I found the writing raw, unpolished, ragged, and endlessly revealing; one might say heartbreaking. She created a kind of lyricism that struck a deep part of me more than any narrative and has stayed with me. 

Joan Didion captures the struggles of living and the harshness of losing a child in a powerful way. I found she taught me that while having a family member die we can learn much from the tragedy and change our own life, our own path by turning the loss into a way to make a difference and a positive impact on others. I lost my brother when I was in hs, and it changed my life. I focused on making a difference, saving lives, living life to the fullest (change appreciating to making a difference every day), and recognizing the…

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