In 2019 I read Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion.
Here is a sharp eye and a clear voice that saw America for what it was and still is today.
Editor’s Note, 2025: Revisiting this review several years later, I’d like to revise my review to say that I think Didion is an incredible essayist, who almost puts you under a spell. But ultimately, the worldview she operates under in many of these collected essays is not one I find convincing.