Class Matters is a terrific book for homeschoolers or for UU folks looking for a non-fiction book discussion. We spend a lot of time talking about feminism or racial prejudice or homophobia but we avoid discussions of class like the plague. Class Matters makes good solid points as to why we need to stop doing this. And it gives a lot of good tips for people who want to take part in classism discussions or movements.
Fabulous book, I’m going to buy it.
It’s important to remember that Lesbian Images was written 30 years ago. We’ve come a long way since then. Sometimes I think we’ve come too far, but that’s another blog entry entirely.
Jane Rule takes a look at lesbian characters in literature. From The Well of Loneliness to a Colette to Orlando with some discussion of books like The Price of Salt and Rubyfruit Jungle. She does a fairly good job of contrasting the characters with the authors who created them, as well. I think maybe I need to read The Well of Loneliness again, and more Colette.
I’d like to see a similar stufy of lesbian images done with literature from the 1970’s to today. Anyone want to take that on?
It’s been a long time since I put off sleep to finish a book. Sleep trumps just about everything right now, my life is just like that. That all changed last night when I found myself closing the final pages of The Birth House at 1:44am.
Sassymonkey and others have been raving about The Birth House for ages. My library, as wonderful as it is, didn’t have it and I couldn’t get it through inter-library loan. So Sassymonkey, she surprised me with it. At first, I was grouchy about that. I owe her a seriously large package and I’m horrible about mailing things. And here she is, sending me package after package after package – making me feel more guilty with each knock on the door by the postman. Also, I’m behind on my reading. How dare she send me books I am dying to read? HMPH.
TW picked up The Birth House before I had a chance. And she read it straight through, staying up long after I’d fallen asleep. This also made me grouchy. TW read MY book BEFORE I had a CHANCE. HMPH. And then she had the nerve to talk about how AMAZING it was. HMPH again.
I decided to ignore the huge stack of library books waiting to go back and picked up The Birth House on Wednesday evening. I read the prologue and promptly went to sleep wondering why this was a book to rave about… the prologue wasn’t. On Thursday evening, I picked up The Birth House and read 12 pages and promptly went to sleep wondering if I was going to be sorely disappointed in this book. I picked up The Birth House on Friday evening and read it straight through – every single page, stopping only to run over and pick up Michelle at 11:30pm and bring her home (whining about her cutting into my reading time).
The Birth House – awesome. Maybe the best book ever written. OK OK not the best book ever written but still, wonderful – spectacular – extraordinay (to borrow TW’s description). And by a Canadian, too. I mean really, Canadian writers rarely grab me and keep me – but Ami McKay, AWESOME.
Buy the book. Read the book. Give it to friends and family. Man, I might have to read it again today! Oh wait, I can’t, I need to read Inheritance of Loss, darn it.
I did it! I finished The Odd Women! For awhile, I thought life was going to conspire against me and prevent me from finishing before the month ended. I’m so glad I read it.
I was afraid I was going to hate it and end my Summer Reading Challenge on a sour note. Gissing, well he’s an odd duck and I can’t decide how I feel about him in general. But I didn’t. It drove me nuts in places, silly women making silly choices and all of those ridiculous men reigning over the women, or expecting to be able to reign over women. Bah. Down with the patriarchy! Heh.
I wasn’t thrilled with how Monica’s story ended. I was very pleasantly surprised by what happened with Rhoda and Everaud, I think that worked well – from the feminist perspective.
The only question I’m left with is why was it so hard to acquire this book? It isn’t available at my library or at the SFCC library (I never had time to check at UF). I checked two used bookstores in town and it wasn’t there. I called Barnes & Noble and it wasn’t in stock. Weird. I don’t understand it.
I only made it halfway through “To Hell With All That” and accidentally returned it to the library on Sunday. Oops. It wasn’t a bad book, interesting in many ways but a little slow. Some of the funny anecdotes weren’t all that funny. I’m sorry I returned it before I finished it. Maybe someday I’ll check it out again and finish, though probably not. There are too many books to read and not enough time.
Technorati Tags: tohellwithallthat, nonfiction, women
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If you read the Daily Dose then you know the picture in this entry comes from the reading/signing at Wild Iris with Michelle Tea. You also know we bought Rose of No Man’s Land, Tea’s first attempt at “fiction”. I read it yesterday and loved it.
Tea said at the reading that it was hard to write fiction, compared to memoirs, I can understand that. She also said she worried that she’d written characters nobody would care about or a narrator who was so obnoxious you wouldn’t want to read the story, this I don’t understand. I thought Trisha was terrific. And Rose, ah Rose, she wasn’t bad herself.
I can totally see this as a film. A cult classic for wild and alternative teen girls. Sort of like Virgin Suicides and Thirteen. Stuff parents do not want to see because it would give them nightmares about their daughters. What it ought to give them is nightmares about what men and boys do to girls everyday and what effect that has on girls.
No, it’s not one of those male-bashing feminist books. Not really. Tea did a nice job of putting across the mesage without slamming it down your throat. And, she gave her female characters the power to deal with the BS men dish out to them. Excellent.
This isn’t going to be any adult’s favorite book of all time. The writing just isn’t that great and the story is bouncey. It might, however, become your daughter’s favorite book – if she’s a fan of The Virgin Suicides, or Thirteen or anything by Francesca Leah Block.
I look forward to Tea’s next work of fiction – well not the comic book. Maybe the further adventures of Trisha and Rose (Trisha should be on Real World, imagine THAT!) or just a story about Rose? Whatever it is, I’m pretty sure I’ll smile my way through it – just like I smiled my way through Rose of No Man’s Land.
Technorati Tags: michelletea, feminism, youngadult, women, lesbianism, fiction
Michelle Tea – Fiction! Read More »
I read Odd Girl Out and Odd Girl Speaks Out yesterday and as expected, girls are mean. But they’ve pretty much always been mean. Not all girls and not all of the time, of course. But they are, and they are mean in ways that boys are not. I enjoyed both books, though Odd Girl Speaks Out not so much. Suprisingly untouching stories – or maybe they weren’t very touching because I had just finished Odd Girl Out? Whatever the reason, I was disappointed.
I’ll be back, on one blog or another, to talk about mean girls, Odd Girl Out, us/them and she’s all that – after Michelle finishes reading both books and has time to process her thoughts. I don’t want to post and influence her.
Technorati Tags: oddgirlout, girls, meangirls, teasing, bullies, nonfiction
Ack! I should have stuck with not reading the sequel to Herland because With Her in Ourland was a disappointment. Boring, boring, boring – but that’s what Michelle said about Herland… I wonder if she would like Ourland better?
I didn’t really need to look at “our” history through the eyes of a Herlander – or her husband’s eyes, for that matter. I already Blame the Patriarchy for everything as it is. Well there are some things I do blame my mom for, but those tend to be familial issues and running over dogs and stuff like that.
Blah!
Technorati Tags: herland, withherinourland, charlotteperkinsgilman, feminism, women
I don’t know why we’ve never noticed Charis Books and More on previous trips to Atlanta. I could use the excuse that we most often go at night and it’s set just far enough off of the main road that it is easy to miss. But we’ve gone often enough during the daytime that you’d think we’d have noticed it. Weird. Maybe the fact that we’ve missed it is part of what’s keeping Charis in financial trouble? Or maybe it’s just that small independent bookstores everywhere are suffering?
I made sure we visited this time. It was the least we could do since we all three really love our little women’s bookstore, Wild Iris and would be very sad if it closed. We even bought a little rubber wristband to support their cause. But, well, we weren’t really all that impressed.
We’ve heard about how great this bookstore and what we found was a pretty run of the mill woman’s bookstore. Nothing unusual or special about it. I’m not sure what we were expecting – something to live up to the hype? Oh well, that’s ok, it didn’t stop us from spending just shy of $100 in there, did it? Charis doesn’t have to be anything other than what it is to be worthwhile to the community. It was a nice, clean, well-lit bookstore full of interesting books. Tons of women’s literature, lots of GLBT books, a nice children’s section and TW’s favorite item, Pussy Pucker Pots (you’re welcome, TechnoDyke).
If you’re in Atlanta, visit L5P and be sure not to miss Charis set back just a tiny bit from Moreland, on Euclid. The oldest feminist bookstore in the south is worth a visit.
Technorati Tags: atlanta, charisbooks, l5p, feministbookstore, glbt
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Do we really need feminist bookstores anymore?
I saw this tiny little question linked to a tiny little article about a bookstore I’ve never been to. I was immediately sorry to realize that even though we’ve been to Atlanta many, many times and we’ve been to quite a few bookstores, we have never been to this one. When we go back again, which will be soon, we will seek this one out and enjoy it while we can – since it seems the end may be near.
But beyond this particular bookstore, the question is what really stuck with me. Do we? Do we really still need these kinds of bookstores?
Of course we do! Ummm or do we? I’ve gone back and forth with this, over and over again for two weeks and I still don’t know the answer. Not for myself or for the collective "we".
I didn’t grow up with a feminist bookstore. I don’t think I visited my first one til I was in my late 20’s. Until I moved to Gainesville in 2002 I did not live in a town that had one. So do we really need them? I did fine without one, right?
One of the best things about this town is it’s tiny little women’s bookstore, Wild Iris. We don’t go often, we can’t afford it! Everytime we go in, we walk out with a ton of books and another $100 (or more!) on a credit card. Just knowing it is there, though, makes me happy. It makes me happy to hear my almost 16 year old say "Oh I bet they have that at Wild Iris". It makes me happy to hear her say she went in to browse at Wild Iris while she was wandering around downtown. When we had our mommy and me day last month, we enjoyed going in together and browsing and talking about the books and the women’s comic books and just being there. In that female space.
Last year (or was it the year before) we thought Wild Iris might close. Luckily a new buyer was found and it survives. And it appears to be the only surviving feminist bookstore in Florida. Imagine that…
This still doesn’t answer the question – or maybe it’s the wrong question altogether. Maybe it isn’t about need, it’s about want and the answer to that is a definite yes. We still want feminist bookstores. Definitely.
Technorati Tags: feminist, bookstore, feministbookstore, women, books, feminism
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