Order of Joan Didion Books

Joan Didion is an American author who has written a variety of fiction and non-fiction works throughout her career. She got her start in the 1960s writing about the counterculture and the Hollywood lifestyle. She has also written extensively about politics. She is best known as the author of Play It As It Lays and The Year of Magical Thinking.

Didion has received numerous accolades throughout her career. The Year of Magical Thinking was awarded the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2005 and she was also the recipient of the National Book Foundation’s annual Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. She was also presented the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama.

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

If You Like Joan Didion Books, You’ll Love…

• Sally Rooney
• Ottessa Moshfegh
• Toni Morrison

Play It As It Lays is Didion’s classic novel that works as a ruthles dissection of American life in the late 1960s. The story follows a woman named Maria Wyeth. She is a former model and actress whose life is in shambles. Her marriage is damaged beyond repair and her daughter was born with brain issues. She finds little solace in her friendships or love affairs, and decides to make a run for it by hitting the road and driving until the gas runs out.

Later in life, Didion would write The Year of Magical Thinking. The book is an intensely personal memoir about the death of her husband and her daughter getting very sick in the hospital around the same time. The book is Didion’s attempt to make sense of this awful experience while confronting her own feelings about death and her family. The book was later turned into a one-woman stage play and has been optioned for film. She would follow this book up with Blue Nights in 2011 that delved deeper into her relationship with her daughter.