We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction; Introduction by John Leonard - Hardcover

by Joan Didion (Author), John Leonard (Introduction by)

Edward Gibbon's classic timeless work of ancient Roman history in 6 volumes collected into 2 box sets, in beautiful, enduring hardcover editions with elegant cloth sewn bindings, gold stamped covers, and silk ribbon markers.

Easily the most famous historical chronicle in English, Gibbon's account of Roman decline remains a remarkably fresh and vital contribution to the subject more than two centuries after its first publication. A landmark in its time for classical and historiographical scholarship, its fame today, however, rests more on the scope and force of Gibbon's argument and the brilliance of his style, which is still an utter delight to read. But above all, the book is a superb monument to the Enlightenment ideal of rational enquiry which Gibbon made the object of his life's work. With an introduction by renowned scholar Hugh Trevor-Roper.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, and European-style half-round spines. Everyman's Library Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.

Author Biography

JOAN DIDION was born in Sacramento in 1934 and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1956. After graduation, Didion moved to New York and began working for Vogue, which led to her career as a journalist and writer. Didion published her first novel, Run River, in 1963. Didion's other novels include A Book of Common Prayer (1977), Democracy (1984), and The Last Thing He Wanted (1996).

Didion's first volume of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, was published in 1968, and her second, The White Album, was published in 1979. Her nonfiction works include Salvador (1983), Miami (1987), After Henry (1992), Political Fictions (2001), Where I Was From (2003), We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live (2006), Blue Nights (2011), South and West (2017) and Let Me Tell You What I Mean (2021). Her memoir The Year of Magical Thinking won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2005.

In 2005, Didion was awarded the American Academy of Arts & Letters Gold Medal in Criticism and Belles Letters. In 2007, she was awarded the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. A portion of National Book Foundation citation read: An incisive observer of American politics and culture for more than forty-five years, Didion's distinctive blend of spare, elegant prose and fierce intelligence has earned her books a place in the canon of American literature as well as the admiration of generations of writers and journalists." In 2013, she was awarded a National Medal of Arts and Humanities by President Barack Obama, and the PEN Center USA's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Didion said of her writing: I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means." She died in December 2021.