Rating: 
Summary: "Goodbye to All That"
Review: "Goodbye to All That," the closer in this collection of essays, is a commanding and haunting piece of prose. When she was 20, Didion moved from Sacramento to Manhattan, and this piece captures her initial enchantment with her new life and new city and, eventually, her growing disillusionment. But this is not just another coming of age tale, for the prose--in its sparseness, clarity, cadence, its sense of *purpose*--is first rate. Didion recalls in these pages a tumultuous time in her life, and although she comes across as a shy girl of fragile mind and weak constitution, her words are fearless. Worth the price of the book alone.
Rating:
Summary: You'll treasure this collection!
Review: "Goodbye to All That" is the most electrifying essay I have ever read and I read quite a lot. I am not at all surprised to see that the AP (read: high school) student did not see the value in this collection: the central theme seems to be disillusionment which is less common among teenagers. The cost of this book is literally nothing if it brings you even 1% of the magic and connection that it has brought me over the nearly 7 years that I have owned a copy. Didion is my hero! Now stop reading this review and go read the essay! :)
Rating:
Summary: "Goodbye to All That"
Review: "Goodbye to All That," the closer in this collection of essays, is a commanding and haunting piece of prose. When she was 20, Didion moved from Sacramento to Manhattan, and this piece captures her initial enchantment with her new life and new city and, eventually, her growing disillusionment. But this is not just another coming of age tale, for the prose--in its sparseness, clarity, cadence, its sense of *purpose*--is first rate. Didion recalls in these pages a tumultuous time in her life, and although she comes across as a shy girl of fragile mind and weak constitution, her words are fearless. Worth the price of the book alone.
Rating:
Summary: A classic, like any Didion's books
Review: A classic. Goodbye to all that is a killer. Anything this woman writes is smart yet not dry, touching yet not overly sentimental. Nothing else to say. Check also one called Vintage, a collection of essays, including a great one on American politics after Sept.11.
O.
Rating: 
Summary: A period piece, but some of it is classic
Review: Decades after the fact, this collection of essays is a bit of a period piece, but some of it holds up quite well. The subject of the famous title story -- which first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1967 -- is about the Haight Street scene and, more to the point, the breakdown of human connection that Didion believed that scene represented. She is similarly gloomy about New York in "Goodbye to All That," and about California in "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream." Though she was in her late 20s and early 30s when she wrote this material, she clearly saw much of what was going on in the 1960s as the activities of a different generation from her own. In any case it's these pieces, along with one about John Wayne, that stand out here, and remain, after all these years, pretty close to extraordinary. Some of the other material (a piece about Joan Baez, etc.) is less memorable. I bought this in the hardback Modern Library edition with a useless introductory essay by Elizabeth Hardwick (but a great photo of Didion on the front cover). Should've gone with paper.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: Didion's fascinating examination of America's social and cultural disingration during the late 1960's still reverbrates and haunts her readers. Brilliantly written, Didon's essays manage to splice together vivid imagery that both indicts and explains society's struggle to hold on to belief in itself.While it is a must-read for those interested in the cultural struggle of the late 60's, Didion's collection of essays are so beautifully crafted that they offer endless literary satisfaction. I read and re-read this collection more frequently than anything else I own.
Rating: 
Summary: Essays written with great personality... and detachment
Review: Ever since Nathanael West's "Day of the Locust" back in the 1930s (or was it 20s?), it has been hip for well-educated left-leaning types to mock California. There are now untold numbers of grad students and professors writing theoretical pieces about California as the place where American capitalist culture reaches its nastiest extremes. There's something to this viewpoint, I guess, but the risk is that you forget that you're talking about actual people whose lives may or may not be exploited by the trends of "mass culture" that are mocked so heavily. These essays by Joan Didion are in this tradition of hip detachment. She treats Caifornia as a big testing ground for American culture, and has a bit of a knee-jerk tendency to make fun of normal middle-class people. All the same, it could be worse, and her insights are very, very interesting (although her criticisms of hippie life are a bit obvious, aren't they? even for when she wrote them?)...
Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: For anyone who, like me, is an outsider, but is fascinated by Los Angeles and California, this is a must-read. I read it before a recent California trip, and felt my journey was enriched for it.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: I had to read this collection for a college course over 6 years ago...I've held this book close to my heart ever since. Didion's writing style is pure and uncluttered, cutting directly to the bone. All the essays are wonderful, but "Goodbye to All That," about the author's young adulthood in New York, is worth the price of the entire collection on its own.
Rating:
Summary: America's finest essayist, at her finest
Review: I have owned several copies of this book, and have given away more copies than I can count. It's a book I come back to, at least once a year since 1980, when I first read it. It seems to me to be better and better each time. The times it's about may be long gone, but the issues at the heart of these essays haven't changed much at all. Much has been made of Didion's take on California, and this book is laden with essays about the place, and the people, and a particular time that - as other reviewers here have noted - has a different resonance in popular culture than the one she presents here. Didion herself recently professed some alarm at the idea that she is an expert on the place (in 'Where I Was From'), but there's no doubt that she's provided more food for thought about contemporary culture than almost anyone else. But the real strength of her writing is in her prose style, in which not a single sentence is sloppy, or ill-considered. Her style is distinctive, but it's not just for show. There are other fine essayists working today, but few are as disciplined and considered as Didion in the way they write. It's probably a toss-up as to whether this book or 'The White Album' is a better place to start with Didion's work. I think 'The White Album' is a more cohesive collection, but there are better individual essays in 'Slouching', including the sublime essays in the 'Personals' section. And chances are that once you've read one, you'll read the other, and in that case it makes sense to start with the earlier collection, which is this one.
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