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 Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker, published in 1983. This one is a sentimental favorite of mine that I am gearing up to re-read. It was the second book I read concerning world religions, way back as a junior in high school. It’s also the first book I read that looked at history, myth, and organized religion through the prism of how it affected gender constructs and relations. For example, a specific look at how the Inquisition treated women and accusations of witchcraft as well as a general overview of its history. And entries on how different cultures viewed menstrual blood, from ancient Chinese myth and the Left Hand Rite of Tantra to the Old Testament and Victorian England. There is comprehensive research on rape and prostitution, the cult of motherhood, asceticism, and even the symbolism of mermaids; individual women, both real and mythological, receive attention (the Virgin Mary, Queen Semiramis, Persephone, the Celtic goddess Arianhrod). It’s a fascinating window into millennia of the lore, beliefs, and history that have influenced the women of the world. I can’t wait to delve into the 1,100 page compendium yet again, so bring on Thanksgiving break!
So, having put in my two cents, what is everyone else reading and recommending these days?
I’ve been reading Karen Armstrong, both her new book and some of her older works. But they are a slog – they’re only for people obsessed with the history of religion. If you are such a person, you might read them along side Dawkins and Hitchens and Harris, and also Freud.
Currently reading Susan Wendell’s The Rejected Body, about intersections of philosophy, feminism, and disability. Working on a blog post about it, too.
@Rodriguez I’m a HUGE fan of Karen Armstrong. I have her A History of God still unread on my bookshelf and can’t wait to start it. Holy War is one of my favorite books that I’ve read in the past two years.
Wow, this book is definitely going on my Christmas list, thanks for the tip Sarah! I am reading the first of Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea series which I somehow mysteriously acquired and found in my basement recently. It’s not high literature I suppose but I eat up magickal, olde timey fantasy shit like that.
Recently read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. I don’t know when the third book in the trilogy is coming out, but I’ve been recommending the heck out of these books to everyone I know. Great fast-paced young adult novels with a strong teenaged female lead. Oh, and they’re post-apocalyptic and anti-tyranny and filled with murder. Of children, by children. I’ve been pitching them to friends as the Anti-Twilight.
I would skip History of God and go right to The Case for God. There’s tons of overlap, and the Case for God has much more current information.
I love Ursula LeGuin lately. I love “Four Ways to Forgiveness, the Word for World is Forest, the Telling, and so many others.
I’ve never read Ursula LeGuin, but I am curious after hearing her mentioned in several Book Club threads. As for Karen Armstrong, The Case for God is her brand new book, right? I might add it to my Chanukah/Christmas list…
@sarah Ursula writes SciFi with so little hardware, it’s really anthropology. She imagines other ways for humans to be, and then casts aliens in that role, and lets humans interact with them.
eg, what would marriage be like if it was a four way contract, with 2 hetero couples and 2 homo couples, and each person in the marriage had two partners, one of each variety?
What about if humans had mating seasons, sorta like birds, or if we were all hermaphrodites, or if we all dreamed collectively at night?
ok I love her, it’s awesome.
yeah Case for God is the new Armstrong, History of God was written around 93.
I really think you would like her, Sarah. For the past year I have only been able to read completely escapist fiction like fantasy, detective and crime novels. I am a super latecomer to genre fiction but now I’m afraid I can’t read anything else. Last week I tried to read Evelyn Waugh’s “Black Mischief,” a satire based veeerrrrrry loosely on Haile Selassie, but completely failed at it.
I’m currently reading The War Against Women by Marilyn French. The studies and stats she cites are a little dated (it was written in 1991) but her arguments are completely relevant. This is a bit unfortunate because you would think in the time span since she’s written it feminism would be more accepted and wide-spread in our culture and politics.
I really enjoy reading her perspective, and she uses a lot of GRE words, which I’m hoping to take in the near future.
I just finished the new Dan Brown, the Lost Symbol, it was amusing but not well written.
Now I’m reading Communion: the Female Search for Love by bell hooks and Belief in a Just World: a Fundamental Delusion by Melvin Lerner.
This is the first bell hooks I’ve ever read, I like her writing style a lot.
I am now reading “Haus ohne Hüter” by Heinrich Böll (a German author, I think he’s been translated to English), it’s about war widows and orphans, very impressive so far.
I’m planning to read something by Ursula leGuin ever since I read and saw the Jane Austen Bookclub :$ (didn’t know her before) In the mean time I’ve come across her more often and this triggered my curiosity even more. Reading the good comments about her here really puts her on top of my list!
Looked it up, and the book by Böll is translated as The Unguarded House and as Tomorrow and Yesterday, both in 1957, in case someone is interested!
I’ve just finished Fanny: A Fiction by Edmund White, which I loved, although it’s very different from his other stuff. (I believe the correct term is historical romp.)
I’ve also just finished The Lost Language of Cranes by David Leavitt, which has a slightly dated prose style but I think the mother is one of the most believable female characters written by a man, which I have ever come across. It also gave me a nice insight into the friend who told me it was his favourite book, at an impressiona
I’m about to ditch A Tree grows in Brooklyn as trite and baggy. I’ve seen great reviews but I think it’s rubbish compared to Anne Tyler or E Annie Proulx.
I received Helpless by Barbara Gowdy in the post today. It was serialised on the radio earlier this but I missed most of it. I had been really looking forward to it, but the weight of all current cases of child abuse (and yes, I know they happen all the time), means I think I might hold off until I can read it without crying.
at an impressionable age!
(Sorry – too many tabs open!)
Has anyone read “Little Bee” by Chris Cleave? I loved it-the characters stay in your mind long after you’ve finished the book.
I also recommend “he Philosopher’s Apprentice”
by James Morrow. He writes wonderful women characters and his plots are wild and funny and unpredictable.
JD Regent – oh I’m sad about that I have a secret love for Black Michief despite its flaws, I wanted at one point to call my son Basil after Basil Seal but oddly enough my husband thinking of another more famous TV Basil vetoed it. I didn’t know it was supposed to be based on Halle Sellasie though, interesting.
As to book recs, I’ve just finished Zeitoun which is only the second Dave Eggers book i’ve ever liked, I think he’s better at the biography/journalism stuff than fiction or indeed his own memoir, which i loathed and I’m now reading Mockingbird which is an interesting biography of Harper Lee – interesting more because it’s about how to write a biography when the subject not only doesn’t want you to but goes out of her way to prevent such a course being taken and thus raises a number of moral issues as well as being a nice read.
Oh and I’d recommend most of the Booker shortlist – this month I’ve read the Glass Room by Simon Mawer which is wonderful and Adam Fould’s The Quickening Maze which is flawed but good plus A S Byatt’s The Children’s Room which I absolutely loved (not always my reaction to Byatt) and a few months ago I read the winner Hillary Mantel’s brilliant Wolf Hall which is about Thomas Cromwell and Tudor England, and which thoroughly deserved to win and has just been published in the US. Read it (although only if you have the stomach for 800 pages of tudor history written with a very sardonic eye and glorious detail).
Finally two other good books – Rory Stewart’s The Places In Between is about his insane but fascinating walk across Afghanistan during the beginning of war there and THe Revolution of Little Girls by Blanche McCrary Boyd remains one of my favourite lesbian coming of age novels and I’m about to start rereading it having found a copy in Housing Works yesterday.
MischiefManager – I love Morrow, I agree he’s got wonderful plots, I loved the Philospher’s Apprentice. Haven’t read the Cleave yet but I’ve heard really good things about it.
Hey folks, I’m a recent subscriber to this blog, and thoroughly enjoying it so far!
I’ve recently read the excellent Australian author Helen Garner’s “The spare room”. It’s a great story about an author (the semi auto-biographical Helen) who cares for her friend while she undergoes VERY alternative therapy in order to cure her terminal cancer.
It’s brutally honest: Helen struggles between giving in to her friend’s unrealistic optimism (i.e. the comfort derived from hope) and her own brutal honesty. Both strong characters, it’s incredibly moving, but more so – it’s incredibly real.
Thoroughly recommended
@MischiefManager I read Little Bee, too (Is that the American title? I read an English version with the title “The Other Hand”?) and found it very impressive. It’s like you say, the characters stay with you a long time after finishing the book.
I read Little Bee – very good!
@Dutchie: Yes, that’s the one. His other book is also very, very powerful. It’s called “Incendiary”.
BTW, I agree with Armstrong fans. She writes with both honesty and respect about the 3 western religions-not an easy thing to accomplish.
Okay, I may have to check out Ursula LeGuin based on the multiple recommendations here!
@bellacoker: The Lost Symbol? See, my mom loved DaVinci Code and tried to get me to read it because of my background in religious studies. So all I know of Dan Brown is the Hollywood adaptations, and I really only saw those because of Ian McKellen (in the first) and Ewan McGregor (in the second). But I could use an amusing, diverting book.
For anyone interested in the 3 monotheisms, I can recommend “God’s Zeal” by Peter Sloterdijk, a German Philosopher. It’s not earth shakingly brilliant, and I think that especially when you’re interested in the topic his ideas aren’t very new, but it’s a good read anyway
He has an interesting style, and uses a lot of humor between the lines!
@mischiefmanager: “Incendiary” was incredible, wasn’t it? Truly unbelievable. I could not stop thinking about it.
re: LeGuin- “The Dispossessed” is perhaps the most thoughtful political novel I’ve read. Absolutely outstanding treatment of anarchosocialism.
I am so cranky that I have no time for pleasure reading. But I love having these discussions stored on the blog, so I can put things on the ol’ Xmas list. And Dutchie, thanks tons for your German suggestions (even though I’d have to read them in translation); it’s rare that I hear current recs for books not in English.
@soalg:
Yeah, it was okay. It’s all about the Masons and the history of Washington D.C. Brown has adapted a bothersome convention of ending every chapter with a cliff-hanger, which gave me a bit of incredulous cliff-hanger fatigue.
Of all of his books I liked Deception Point, one of his early ones, the best. It has a female protagonist.
I’m in the middle of The Caveman Mystique by by Martha McCaughey. There’s a lot of food for thought in this book, not just a superficial discussion. Here’s a link with more information – http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780415934756-0
@emilyanne: I second The Children’s Book by AS Byatt – amazing that she can write with such depth and breadth about Edwardian society and still have you care so much about so many of the individuals caught up in it. Also, I learned so much the Fabians, the close ties between England and Germany and the suffrage movement (some of the prison details!). I’ve just started Wolf Hall, and I know already it’s going to be a doozy.
I know this is well after the original post date, and I’m usually just a lurker, but I know you’re interested in the classics, so if you’re going to check out LeGuin, you may want to read Lavinia, her retelling of the last books of the Aeneid from the perspective of Lavinia. I enjoyed it thoroughly–it provides a striking and refreshing contrast to the original epic.