Free Downloads Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays (FSG Classics)
The first nonfiction work by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era, Slouching Towards Bethlehem remains, forty years after its first publication, the essential portrait of America― particularly California―in the sixties. It focuses on such subjects as John Wayne and Howard Hughes, growing up a girl in California, ruminating on the nature of good and evil in a Death Valley motel room, and, especially, the essence of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, the heart of the counterculture.
Series: FSG Classics
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Reissue edition (October 28, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0374531382
ISBN-13: 978-0374531386
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (121 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #7,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #24 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Anthropology > Cultural #32 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Essays & Correspondence > Essays #52 in Books > History > Historical Study & Educational Resources
Slouching Towards Bethlehem is the best book of essays I have ever, by the grace of God, been fortunate enough to own and read. In essay after essay, I found myself saying,"Go on, Joan. You said it, Joan. We are the same, you and I, Joan, etc." That is the type of book Slouching Towards Bethlehem is. Reading it, slowly, meticulously, I felt such a close kinship, a bond, not with the writer but with her words -- so carefully chosen and wonderfully articulated. These essays are not meant, honestly, for teenagers, although, if given a chance, the totality of the book would be most beneficial for their pliable and socially indoctrinated minds. The purport of this book is something that I can so easily identify with: the disappearance of the past for the establishment of a fragmented, roughly organized new society with newfangled, unaccustomed societal perceptions as well as an aggressive casting off of the traditional value system of those who were born and raised a long time before the emergence of the radical, cataclysmic sixties. These essays explore, through author Joan Didion's own feelings and experiences and the feelings and experiences of those she encountered, the disharmononized emotions of the hippy generation vs the elders of the more reactionary periods, periods where: Free Love, Acid Trips, Groovy, Crystal Snorting Gurus and Muumuu Dressed Followers seemed a complex and social oddity in the hierarchy of those who were deemed, "Not with it, man." What is so nice about these essays is that they are not condescending; there were and are thousands upon thousands of citizens and non-citizens alike who had and have no clue whatsoever as to what the counter-culture represented (me, honestly, being one in that vast catagory).
Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays (FSG Classics) Slouching Towards Bethlehem The White Album: Essays (FSG Classics) The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures (FSG Classics) The Sabbath (FSG Classics) Christopher and His Kind: A Memoir, 1929-1939 (FSG Classics) Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties (FSG Classics) On the Musically Beautiful: a Contribution Towards the Revision of the Aesthetics of Music (Hackett Classics) Because of Bethlehem Christmas Coloring Book: Love is born. Hope is here. (Coloring Faith) The Star of Bethlehem Journey to Bethlehem Advent Calendar Because of Bethlehem: Love Is Born, Hope Is Here Walking the Road to Bethlehem: Your Journey to Christmas Not a Silent Night: Mary Looks Back to Bethlehem (Not a Silent Night Advent series) Finding Bethlehem in the Midst of Bedlam: An Advent Study The White Horse (Sally (Bethlehem Books)) Kneeling in Bethlehem Jesus Birth! A Christmas Story Book For Kids About The First Christmas In Bethlehem (Childrens Christmas Books 1) Consider the Lobster and Other Essays (Selected Essays) Why Tango: Essays on learning, dancing and living tango argentino (Tango Essays Book 1)
