photo via sarah.of.a.lesser.god
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: The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir. I’m still reading it, but I’m almost done! When I finish, I will have read five of Weir’s books, all of which pertain to British royalty and most of which revolve around royal women, and I love how she strips away the gloss of fables and legends to show the real human dramas that motivated these powerful figures. (In addition to The Wars of the Roses, I recommend Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England and The Six Wives of Henry VIII.) The Wars of the Roses works on a much grander tapestry than some of Weir’s more concentrated biographies, chronicling decades of unrest and open war, and there is no central protagonist. Weir takes the time to explore the lives of not only the men in charge but those of their wives and daughters — who are often ignored in other books — and she is candid about the way that women were viewed as chattel and collateral.
I’m reading the book fairly quickly, and hopefully will finish it before school starts again on Monday and I’ll have to spend all my reading time on class assignments. Thus, The Wars of the Roses will be my last bit of summer reading. BeckySharper asked last month what we planned to read on our summer vacations, and I wish I had read more than I did this summer. Still, I got through Weir’s book, plus Irvine Welsh’s fabulous Trainspotting (my beach read while at Harpy House, and a must-read for anyone who saw the movie but has not yet read the source material) and The Creators by Daniel Boorstin (in which there were practically no women mentioned — ugh). As autumn looms, I wonder what all of you leaf through this summer, and what recommendations do you have for the rest of us? Share your picks in the comments!
I loved Rhonda Jantzen’s new memoir MENNONITE IN A LITTLE BLACK DRESS, which got passed around at the Harpy Beach House. It’s short and made me laugh out loud.
My big word-of-mouth pick right now is THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU by Jonathan Tropper. If you’ve never read Tropper, do yourself a favor and get either this book or THE BOOK OF JOE, which is in paperback. They are funny, insightful human dramas that manage to be both dudely and delightful. The way he writes male characters and describes the women in their lives is realistic and utterly charming.
I second Becky’s first recommendation!
Dude, if you finished nothing more than The Creators and half an article in Cosmo, you’d still have accomplished a major reading feat. That book, and The Discoverers, stared menacingly at me from atop my dad’s bookshelf for much of my childhood, intimidating the hell out of me. I doff my hat to you.
I spent my summer reading total crap, as usual. Four Sookie Stackhouse novels, two Fiona Walkers, two Jilly Coopers, a Frederick Forsyth, and two Robert Ludlums. The smartest reading I’ve done has come from you lovely ladies and the collected works of the Oregon appellate courts.
I read about fifteen pages of Mennonite in a Little Black Dress when it came across my desk at my book review internship and it did look like a good read. Too bad I was so engrossed in the tale of Scottish heroin addicts to take it up at Harpy House!
@Penny_Esq: The Creators took me four months to slog through! I did appreciate it and I’m glad I read it, but it didn’t live up to expectations. And apparently no women created anything until about the eighteenth century. (Yeah, right.)
I’m racing through the end of Allison Weir’s excellent The Life of Elizabeth I now, and have also been on an Euro history kick since I finished The Baroque Cycle. I’m going to check out The Wars Of The Roses next. BTW, I noticed Phillipa Gregory has a new novel out, called The White Queen, set during the Wars of the Roses.
I just finished Three Cups of Tea, which is about a guy who starts a nonprofit that builds schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It wasn’t the greatest thing I’ve ever read, but it is inspiring and perhaps an entertaining and accessible starting point for anyone interested in exploring the relationship between education and fanaticism. It also made me realize how little I actually know about those countries despite their constant presence in our news.
I just finished “Little Bee” by Chris Cleave. It was a powerful story on a topic I know shamefully little about. Although the title character has moments of being almost too good to be true, she’s a memorable and compelling character. So is the other main female character. I liked this book so well that I immediately went to the library and got Cleave’s other book.
I just finished ‘Patterns of Childhood’ by Christa Wolf, which is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It’s a semi-autobiographical story about growing up under Nazism and re-visiting childhood from the standpoint of 1970s East Germany, and is great exploration of identity, memory, subjectivity and guilt, collective and personal.
I’m re-reading ‘Pride and Prejudice’ now and am loving it even more than I remembered…
I spent this summer juggling work and my graduate thesis, so all I had the mental energy for was rereading the Harry Potter series (again). But I graduated on Wednesday and I fully intend to read more on my days off. I’m writing down some of the titles you all mentioned as we speak!
@Stacey: me too! I love it. Last year I gave a paper an HP con-it was the first paper I’d written in 25 years!
@Stacey: I just bought a HP book for the first time and I’m gearing up to read it. I re-read Lord of the Rings every year, so I get the love someone can have for a book (or series) enough to read it again and again and again.
Post graduate school, I find myself with the delicious problem of leisurely reading multiple books at the same time an only finishing the ones I want to…instead of rush-reading a novel every week. Notable books from this summer: “Fraction of a Whole” by Steve Toltz and am starting on “Atmospheric Disturbances”,by Rivka Galchen, both seletctions from my book club, aka BookPub, since we meet in bars.
Also, I bought Heather “Dooce” Armstrong’s Memior “It Sucked and then I Cried”- read it straight through, sick on the couch, in less than 2 days. It was hilarious and touching.
@SOALG: HP starts a little simply, so hang in with it. The books get more complex as the characters get older.
Sometimes I think the world is divided between LOTR lovers and HP lovers.
Oh yay, book discussions!
I just read THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Stieg Larsson, and I think it is begging for some feminist literary analysis. (The book’s Swedish title is MEN WHO HATE WOMEN, if that tells you anything.) Anyways, I adored it. The female lead is quite possibly the most amazing feminazi bonerkiller heroine I have ever read in a book, anywhere, ever. All I can say is “Taser” and “tattoo gun.”
@whynotshesaid: I *just* finished that last night. Loved it. The murder mystery is good, the setting is great, and Lisbeth is a feminazi bonerkiller for the ages!
I also think the author got in some excellent social commentary–about the Swedish welfare state, about WWII-era Swedish white supremacy, about the problems of libel law–without ever seeming overly didactic, or agenda-y.
I also felt that in addition to Lisbeth’s awesomeness, his portrayals of women were wholly sympathetic and real. Each of the women was very different, but it was clear that the author liked them, did not judge them, and generally treated them with the same even-handedness as his male characters. It seemed to be to be in keeping with the Scandinavian vision of a gender-equal society. They are WAY ahead of the rest of the world in this respect, IMHO.