Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Love at first sight may be a romantic illusion. Wild excitement at first sight is certainly real. That's what I experienced reading the first couple of pages of Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem. I quickly realized that this collection is a literary event not to be missed. When I was in college, I bought myself a copy of Didion's Democracy but did not get beyond the first couple of pages. After picking up Slouching Towards Bethlehem I had to force myself to keep appointments because I did not want to put the book down.  For once the advertisement on the back cover is not an exageration of the merits of a book but rather nicely captures the quality of its contents. It says:  "Universally acclaimed when it was first published in 1968, Slouching Towards Bethelehem has become a modern classic. More than any other book of its time, the collection captures the mood of the 1960s America, especially the center of its counterculture, California. More...