I’m sitting here wondering if Joan Didion had a clock radio.
Let me back up and explain.
In 2019, I wrote a column about an auction of the late author Philip Roth’s effects. I jokingly speculated that I could perhaps bid on his Proton 320 clock radio alarm clock, having precisely zero intention of actually bidding.
And yet, at the end of the online bidding for Philip Roth’s alarm clock, I was victorious. It sits on a shelf in my home office, displaying the time, and giving me access to over-the-air broadcasts on the AM and FM bands.
As of yet, it has not transferred any of Roth’s literary genius to me, but I still get a kick out of seeing it there and thinking about how I got so carried away in my pursuit of an object once owned by a writer whose books seem likely to endure well past my lifetime.
On Nov. 16, 248 lots of Joan Didion’s effects are being auctioned off by the Stair Galleries in in Hudson, New York, and I’m ready to become the foremost collector of author-owned clock radios.
If you are interested in owning something once owned by the author of such widely revered books as “The White Album” and “The Year of Magical Thinking,” you’re not alone. Stair Galleries has reportedly been inundated with interest from people desperate to possess anything once touched by Didion, including a single paper clip.
Many of the lots are art owned and previously hung in Didion’s New York apartment, including prints by Cy Twombly and Edward Ruscha, and a signed Annie Leibovitz portrait of Didion, her husband John Gregory Dunne, brother-in-law Dominick Dunne and nephew Griffin Dunne, the actor who also directed a (Biblioracle approved) 2017 documentary on his aunt, “Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold.”
There’s also some nice-looking furniture, some less nice-looking furniture, several lots of desk bric-a-brac (scissors, pens). There are numerous blank notebooks, suggesting Didion is like a lot of other writers who know the worst thing is to be caught short when you need to write something down.
If you’re a newbie to the bidding on the effects of a famous deceased author game, let me warn you that the two IBM Wheelwriter 5 typewriters are going to be far too rich for your blood, as you may be competing against the likes of famous typewriter collector Tom Hanks for them.
Philip Roth’s Olivetti manual went for $17,500, well above the estimated $300 to $500. His IBM Selectric II’s went for $4,800 and $5,000.
As Didion’s stature has only grown since her passing, while Roth’s was somewhat in decline, I expect the action will be even heavier for her items. Alas, there is no clock radio, so my quest to corner the market on 80’s era electronics once owned by great writers will not progress.
More Top Picks Best Sigma Lenses
I am intrigued by several lots containing personal copies of books from her library, including one of “Women Poets” featuring books by Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, Anne Sexton and others.
You can own Didion’s entire library of Hemingway’s books, Orwell’s books, Fitzgerald’s books, Norman Mailer’s books, John Updike’s books and William F. Buckley’s books. (People forget that Didion started her career as a conservative.)
If you do decide to join in and find yourself in a battle to the last dollar for Didion’s collection of Philip Roth’s books, you’ll know it’s me.
I think they’ll look good next to his clock radio.
John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read
1. “Daisy Darker” by Alice Feeney
2. “Homeland Elegies” by Ayad Akhtar
3. “Tracy Flick Can’t Win” by Tom Perrotta
4. “Our Missing Hearts” by Celeste Ng
5. “The Boys” by Katie Hafner
— Mary R., Chicago
Just in time for Mary, Kevin Wilson (“Nothing to See Here” and “The Family Fang”) has released another charmer that she’ll pick up and not put down until she’s finished. At least that’s what happened to me with “Now Is Not the Time to Panic.”
1. “The Unwinding” by George Packer
2. “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson
3. “H is for Hawk” by Helen Macdonald
4. “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion
5. “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer
— Lynn K., Salt Lake City, Utah
Clearly a fan of narrative nonfiction here. I’m going to a bit of a throwback, a book that helped establish the contemporary interest in the form, “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” by John Berendt.
1. “The Lincoln Highway” by Amor Towles
2. “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens
3. “The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk
4. “Things We Never Got Over” by Lucy Score
5. “Beartown” by Fredrik Backman
— Michelle P., LaGrange
More Top Picks Best Brazilian Churrasco Skewer Sets
I think Louise Erdrich is a good fit for Michelle. Almost can’t go wrong with anything by Erdrich, but I’ll specifically recommend “The Night Watchman.”
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to [email protected].