Comments on: Harpy Book Club

By: katie80andstuff

katie80andstuff — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 04:26:47 +0000

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?

By: kithkin

kithkin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:45:47 +0000

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.

By: sarah.of.a.lesser.god

sarah.of.a.lesser.god — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:21:06 +0000

@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!

By: ratinski

ratinski — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:58:25 +0000

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).

By: kelly simmons

kelly simmons — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:11:07 +0000

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

By: Becky

Becky — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:37:23 +0000

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.

By: AnnoyingFemaleLeadVoiceover

AnnoyingFemaleLeadVoiceover — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:59:02 +0000

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.

By: Tersa

Tersa — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:09:48 +0000

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.

By: Kivrin

Kivrin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:48:20 +0000

@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.

By: sarah.of.a.lesser.god

sarah.of.a.lesser.god — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:07:37 +0000

@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.