I think me and this essay collection got off on the wrong foot. I listened to the audiobook of this last year and reread it this year after having read a bunch of Joan's other books. I love how sharply she writes and how well she balances the emotional with the objective. 

While most writers tend to romanticise the late sixties/early seventies, the hippie movement, the drugs and the free love, Didion shows another side to it all. A darker and more brutal side that I think added another dimension to my understanding of the time period. 

Aside from the titual essay 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem'n the essay that touched me the most was the last one in this volume, 'Goodbye to All That'. Didion's relationship with New York, always feeling like an outsider, hanging around with other outsiders and alway knowing when the next plane home was reminded me so much of how I feel about the city that I am going to university in. It always fascinates me how certain experiences completely transcend generation and geographic location.