Comments on: Harpy Book Club, July Edition

By: sarah.of.a.lesser.god

sarah.of.a.lesser.god — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 03:08:11 +0000

@Person: That sounds absolutely FASCINATING. I’m usually not one for light beach reads anyway, so I may be using an Amazon gift card toward purchasing that. Thanks for the rec!

@x. trapnel: That is one of my dad’s favorite books of all time. Maybe I’ll ask him for a copy for Christmas.

By: x. trapnel

x. trapnel — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:17:51 +0000

I just mentioned this in another comment, but this is the thread for it, really: I’m halfway through “The Golden Notebook” by Doris Lessing, and it’s fabulous. (Apparently the Institute for the Future of the Book had a project last year where a number of women authors all read TGN together, carrying on a conversation about it online, in the margins, at http://thegoldennotebook.org/ ; I’ll definitely be checking that out when I finish.)

Anyway. It’s fantastic.

By: Person

Person — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:37:06 +0000

I recently finished reading “Honour Killing,” an incredible and heartwrenching book by Turkish journalist Ayse Onal. If you are feeling strong, I highly recommend it. It is the most powerful and thought-provoking book I have read in a while.

Over a number of years, Onal interviewed men imprisoned for murders of female relatives who had done something seen as tarnishing the family’s honor. Most of the men are remorseful; I think only one is not. The situations leading to the murders are complicated, painful, and particularly frustrating to read about as a feminist. (The murders do not seem to simplify much for the families either.) The tellings do not absolve the men of their crimes, but Onal describes the communities these murders take place in in a way that illuminated, for me, the staggering complexity of the problem(s) as well as giving a very clear illustration of men suffering due to misogyny and the oppression of women.

Not so much a beach book.

By: Spark

Spark — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:10:19 +0000

emilyanne, that’s exactly how I imagine her after reading her essays. I’m glad to hear it’s true! Her writing is so smart and sophisticated without being stuffy.
sarah, it’s especially interesting because a lot of it is about the rise of the Christian right and the pro-life movement. There were a lot of moments where I felt like she could have been writing yesterday instead of in 1981. A little depressing, actually.

By: sarah.of.a.lesser.god

sarah.of.a.lesser.god — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:20:20 +0000

@emilyanne: Okay, that book sounds thoroughly awesome. I love reading about medieval/Elizabethan England, so that’s right up my alley. I’m trying to give fiction more attention than I have in the past.

@Spark: I really like the idea of reading feminist writings from the Reagan era when so many liberal movements were stifled. That’s going on the book shopping list!

By: emilyanne

emilyanne — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:12:37 +0000

Spark – Ellen Willis taught me feature writing as part of my journalism MA at NYU in the 90s, she was absolutely incredible. When I moved back to the UK we lost contact and i was very sad to learn that she died of cancer recently. She was one of the best teachers i ever had and really generous about lending her books to people. She had this great Village apartment that was just floor to ceiling with books.

By: emilyanne

emilyanne — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:52:59 +0000

Sounds interesting, I love Kurlansky although I found his novel dragged.

I have one and only recommendation this month – do anything you can to get hold of a copy of Hillary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. It’s published in the US in October but is out in the UK now. It’s huge admittedly (650 pages) and yes it’s a novel about Tudor England and specifically about Thomas Cromwell, More and the whole Henry/Anne Boleyn/ Katherine of Aragon divorce BUT bear with me because it is the best book i have read in years. She’s an incredible writer anyway but this is something else – I tend to agree with veteran editor Diana Athill who essentially compares it to Middlemarch. I can’t remember the last time I read something so fully realised and beautifully written and just all round incredible. Ok rant over.

By: Spark

Spark — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:52:11 +0000

Ooh, I have a feminist book to recommend! NO MORE NICE GIRLS by Ellen Willis, music critic and original rad fem. It’s a collection of essays she wrote during the 1980s. Even the stuff that seems a bit dated at first–Reagan, the beginning of the drug war, anti-pornography feminism–is super relevant, and I learned a lot about the roots of sex-positive feminism, which I think I’ve misunderstood until now. She does write a bit about the Oedipal complex–cringe!–but otherwise very right on.

By: sarah.of.a.lesser.god

sarah.of.a.lesser.god — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:49:24 +0000

@rodriguez: Yeah, the plug was pulled on the whole program before anything could be finished. The entry of America into WWII took funding away from a lot of the New Deal programs and the FWP was the first to be completely shuttered. And you’re right, there’s definitely a lack of the kind of Jewish recipes/cultural annotations that my grandparents grew up with.

@Becky: You also HAVE to read Salt. It’s amazing.

By: rodriguez

rodriguez — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:49:01 +0000

@becky wait what?!?! He wrote that basque thing! I loved that one. Must read food book now!