This feature (for now in the custody of sarah.of.a.lesser.god) is our way of sharing those book titles, both fiction and nonfiction, that have been standouts in recent reading, and hopefully getting some from our readers in return. The focus is primarily, but not necessarily exclusively, on books concerning women and feminism, and/or written by female authors.
My Pick: Catherine the Great by Leonie Frieda. I am a sucker for a good biography, especially ones about European women between 1100-1800. Catherine’s notoriety is carefully examined and the slurs against her dissected so that only the facts are what should influence the reader’s opinion of the French queen. Frieda compiled meticulous research that sheds a great deal of light on how powerful women were viewed and treated in medieval times — and neatly foreshadows attitudes towards powerful women in our own time.
What say you? Have any titles to share with the Harpies and your fellow readers?
In order to justify having rows and rows of books in my place, I’ve decided to re-read some of my favorites that I’ve insisted on keeping.
I recommend reading what you already have and LOVE.
(I am working on the third LOTR book)
But, I will be tracking down that Catherine book at the library. Thanks!
@sukie: I love re-reading. Unfortunately I have 75 or so unread books in my apartment and they are crying my name! It’s hard to spare times for the old favorites.
Sarah, you can read one old one and then one new one. Trade off and on.
I decided if I’m not going to want to read all my books again, I might as well sell them or give them away. (I’m trying to downscale)
@sukie: I will do that when the semester ends! Trying to maneuver Woolf and Dickens in between my pleasure reading so it’s 2 books at a time everyday. And I read at least a chapter of LOTR every week. But that will be dealt with in a post relatively soon…
Ooh, great feature! I will definitely add that book to my reading list. I have two similarly-themed recommendations to share:
Katherine by Anya Seton
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
BTW, my recommendations are both works of fiction, but they are still quite good!
Everyone everywhere should read the novels of Marilynne Robinson. There are only three, and they’re relatively short, although they’re so beautifully written they seem longer.
Housekeeping
Gilead
Home
@Kivrin: I am amending the intro because I realize it makes it sound like I’m not interested in fiction recs! I am trying to get into reading fiction, which does not come naturally to me.
I just finished and loved _Foxfire_ by Joyce Carol Oates. It’s a novel about a girl gang in 1950s (or early 60s?) upstate New York. It has a few over-the-top moments (as per JCO), but I found it a really exciting, and even inspiring, read. It channels teenage anger very well.
I also want to mention the novelist Darcey Steinke–she writes so, so beautifully, and doesn’t get enough attention. My favorite is _Jesus Saves_, about a young girl who has been abducted and another girl who becomes obsessed with her. I’m reading Steinke’s _Milk_ right now, and it’s lovely, about God and sex but really about loneliness, but a little too erotic to read during my commute… I’m so paranoid about people looking over my shoulder.
Becky, I found _Housekeeping_ to be a letdown, but I think my expectations were impossibly high, and I owe Robinson another chance. Do you have a preference for _Gilead_ or _Home_?
@Spark: Gilead and Home are companion pieces–Gilead comes first chronologically and the Home spins off one of the Gilead characters and tells a story that’s parallel to the action in Gilead. Gilead’s truly beautiful and has wonderful unexpected moments that make it so worthwhile. I wept at the end. You may like it better than Housekeeping, which IMO was the weakest of the three.
Also, y’all, I truly recommend Andrea Levy’s Orange Prize winner, Small Island, about Jamaican immigrants in WWII-era London. It looked at English society and immigration from a viewpoint I’d never read about before.
If you like a good thriller, go out and get yourself Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin. It’s a fabulous novel about a woman in medieval England who was a doctor and a kind of sleuth/medical examiner–Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II are featured in the series.
@sarah, if you’re looking for a way back into literary fiction, I recommend The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman. It’s about a prostitute living during a cholera epidemic in 19th-century England, and it is un-put-down-able. Sheri Holman is a great writer but also a great storyteller (which is rare, I think).
@Spark: Thank you for the recommendation! I am reading a lot of fiction for school right now and am going to try and keep doing so when the semester ends. I love my nonfiction but I want to expand my horizons.
@sarah, I’m the opposite — I have a really hard time reading non-fiction — so I appreciate the recommendations from the other side of the shelf, so to speak.
I’ve been reading The chronicles of the Necromancer by Gail Z. Martin, she was selling and signing books this year at the Arizona Renaisance festival, so I couldn’t help but to buy one book. I’m a sucker for supporting emerging writers when I see them out promoting their books. She writes fantasy fiction that definitely has a lot of feminist and pagan influences.
For any budding architecture/design fangirls like myself, I just finished Design and Feminism (ed. Joan Rothschild). I only really warmed up to the more theoretical writing and essays concerning public housing and graphic design, but worthy of a skim.
Going thru a bit of a ya phase right now, but have some Butler and a ZN Hurston bio up next.
I would highly recommend the memoir:
“Dance of the Dissident Daughter” by Sue Monk Kidd
(author of “The Secret Life of Bees”)
This book chronicles Kidd’s journey through discovery, enlightenment and turning away from the Baptist church and the patriarchy of Christianity. I respect her struggle to come to terms with turning her back on her former way of life.
I recommend reading all of Mary Gaitskill and A.M. Homes. Why should you listen to me, a stranger? Cuz I’m an author, damn!
(I know, so what.) Love your site.
Kelly Simmons, author of STANDING STILL
I recommend Waiting, by Ha Jin. This is probably his most famous book – won a award, can’t remember which one – and it’s got an interesting look at women and relationships in post-Revolution China.
I think I’ve pimped this here before, but Ann Packer’s The Dive From Clausen’s Pier. Our heroine, Carrie, is 23, works in the rare book library at the University of Wisconsin and is dating a nice guy, Mike, but she’s been bored for a while. She’s thinking about dumping Mike when they go on a weekend trip with friends, and he becomes paralyzed. Then she does the unexpected – she dumps him anyway, and moves to New York to attend fashion school. It read it when I myself was 23 and working at a library at the University of Madison, and it captures that time in your life when you both don’t know what the hell you’re doing with your life and you’re stuck in a rut (okay, maybe I was the only one who felt that at 23).
@kelly: I’m an aspiring author! You’re two thousand steps ahead of me!
Thanks all for the input! Definitely have some stuff to add to my Barnes & Noble list!
I feel a little ashamed because most of what I read is either for school or is by idols of who PilgrimSoul would call the dudely literati, so leaving aside that stuff, since it’s not exactly what this feature is about:
Amy Hempel is the best short story writer I know of. Hands down. Some stories are obviously better than others, but all are terrific and the ones that are excellent really come close to perfect.
I just got Zadie Smith’s On Beauty to read during my upcoming flight and I’m pysched. I loved White Teeth, Smith’s first novel. It’s one of those fantastic multi-threaded novel with lots of strong female non-white characters. Zadie Smith is awesome!
I also got Curtis Sittenfeld’s latest, American Wife. She wrote Prep, which I really enjoyed.
Any editors reading this late post, I would really dig this sort of feature, but expanded to all media! I’m trying to give some parity to my book, cd and DVD shelves. I want to immerse myself in women musicians, women directors, women writers, etc… What do you think?