The White Album

Esquire's 80 Books Every Person Should Read (80 books items)

""We tell ourselves stories in order to live," begins this 1979 collection of Joan Didion essays. Though less-celebrated than 1968's Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album harnesses Didion's skill at capturing the tensions and obsessions of mid-to-late 20th century California and amps up the existential ennui another notch as she tries to make sense of the chaos of everything from politics to contemporary consumer culture. "The center cannot hold," Didion wrote, quoting Yeats, in "Bethlehem"