Journalist Sarah Kendzior has always had an unfortunately prescient ability of reading the writing on the wall when it comes to the direction that political winds are blowing in America. Currently based in St. Louis, her 2018 book The View From Flyover Country brilliantly captured a part of America that the media often overlooks, and... Continue Reading →
Two Histories: A Parisian Scandal and the Time-Old Tale of Women and Power
I love history that digs into something that was absolutely massive during its day and now is essentially unknown and forgotten. It always makes me wonder what the same things will be from our era. Sarah Horowitz's The Red Widow: The Scandal that Shook Paris and the Woman Behind it All (September 6, Sourcebooks) does... Continue Reading →
A Long Overdue Comprehensive Biography of Sylvia Plath
Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath (Used or new @ SecondSale.com), by Heather Clark Now she is flyingMore terrible than she ever was, redScar in the sky, red cometOver the engine that killed her—The mausoleum, the wax house The book I most surprised myself by reading last year was Red... Continue Reading →
Morgan Jerkins’ Essays on Higher Education, Feminism, and Coming of Age While Black in America
This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America, by Morgan Jerkins (2018) This book is not about all women, but it is meant for all women, and men, and those who do not adhere to the gender binary. It is for you. You. Our blackness doesn't... Continue Reading →
A Dual Biography Looks at the Lingering Impact of Anne and Sylvia
Three Martini Afternoons at the Ritz, by Gail Crowther Both were emerging poets, and both were hugely ambitious women in a cultural moment that did not know how to deal with ambitious women. Author and biographer specialized in studies of Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath (cool job alert) Gail Crowther weaves together the groundbreaking similarities... Continue Reading →
Two Social Sciences: Middle School Trauma and Mediocre White Guys
My reading lately has been heavily gearing towards pop science and medical and social science topics. These two deal with very specific breeds of evil: mediocre white men who think they deserve the world at the expense of people of color and women, and the middle school experience. Both are atrocious in their own special... Continue Reading →
The Damaging, Disturbing Effects of America’s Ubiquitous “Raunch Culture”
Review: The Pornification of America, by Bernadette Barton Welcome to raunch culture in the 2020s — when the United States has devolved into a Hustler fantasy. Naked and half naked pictures of girls and women litter every screen, billboard, and bus. Pole dancing studios keep women fit while men airdrop their dick pics to female passengers on... Continue Reading →
Isabel Allende On Feminism, Love, And Life Getting Better As It Goes
Review: The Soul of a Woman, by Isabel Allende The patriarchy is stony. Feminism, like the ocean, is fluid, powerful, deep, and encompasses the infinite complexity of life; it moves in waves, currents, tides, and sometimes in storms. Like the ocean, feminism never stays quiet. Beloved Chilean novelist Isabel Allende's second memoir, The Soul of... Continue Reading →
The Ominous Ripple Effects of the Gender Data Gap
Book review: Invisible Women, by Caroline Criado Perez I use gender data gap as an overarching term because sex is not the reason women are excluded from data. Gender is. [...] The problem is the social meaning that we ascribe to that body, and a socially determined failure to account for it. Caroline Criado Perez's... Continue Reading →
A Little of Why We Love Dolly
She Come By It Natural collects author Sarah Smarsh's four long-form essays about Dolly Parton and the beloved singer's connections to feminism through her roots in rural poverty in Tennessee (it's better than I'm setting it up, but that's the basic premise). These essays were the result of a Freshgrass Foundation journalism fellowship Smarsh won,... Continue Reading →
Memoir Mini Reviews: Wiving, Negroland
Wiving is poet Caitlin Myer's memoir about growing up Mormon with a skewed view of relationships with men based on religious tenets and how her own experiences developed, and how that changed as she came into her own and achieved a form of independence. It also covers her relationship to her mentally ill mother and... Continue Reading →
A Biography of Hillary Clinton Through Her Criticisms
The Hunting of Hillary, by Michael D'Antonio (Amazon) Time and again, [Donald Trump] resurrected his favorite enemy, Hillary Clinton, as if she possessed powers that made her more than human and thus someone to be feared despite her retirement from politics. Journalist, CNN commentator, and author of a number of histories and biographies Michael D'Antonio... Continue Reading →