Reviewing: Where I Was From

Welcome to book review Tuesday, where each week, we will be reviewing a book from our bookshelves to talk about you, our beautiful listeners, readers and writers. The purpose of this is it promotes books we love and show support for our favourite authors. This blog section is also an offshoot of the podcast's section called the bookshelf. So enjoy this review as we dive into:

Where I Was From by Joan Didion

Summary:

Didion applies her scalpel-like intelligence to California's ethic of ruthless self-sufficiency in order to examine that ethic’s often tenuous relationship to reality. Combining history and reportage, memoir and literary criticism, Where I Was From explores California’s romances with land and water; its unacknowledged debts to railroads, aerospace, and big government; the disjunction between its code of individualism and its fetish for prisons.

Whether she is writing about her pioneer ancestors or privileged sexual predators, robber barons or writers (not excluding herself), Didion is an unparalleled observer, and this book is at once intellectually provocative and deeply personal.

Rating 9 out of 10:

This novel gives a great insight into Didion's life in California. While also exploring a different side of the Golden State than the media shows us.