A lot of people experience some trepidation about diving into the world of graphic novels; there is an intimidatingly huge selection, and it can be tricky for the uninitiated just to deal with the broadest labels (graphic novel, comic, omnibus, book). It's silly to classify graphic novels as a genre though, because there is such a breadth of variety among them, much like traditional novels. It would seem strange today to describe your reading habits with the statement, "I like novels," because yes, of course, but what kind of novels? Graphic novels should be approached in the same way-- you will like some more than others, and you will probably most enjoy those that closely resemble the traditional novels you like.
Read more#ReadWomen2014: Flannery O'Connor
I already kicked off the week with a post on Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor's short novel which I just wrapped up. After finishing the novel I have very little add except to implore you to take the time to read it, especially as it will only require one sitting. That one sitting would be enhanced with a hot, muggy day, a rocking chair on the porch, and a tall, sweaty glass of iced tea (or something stronger).
Read more#ReadWomen2014: Hillary Clinton
I have made very little secret of the fact that I love Hillary Clinton and will be supporting her in 2016, when she inevitably runs for POTUS. That said, political memoirs and whatnot are normally not my thing. They often come across as very short-sighted, because they focus so tightly on a micro-world view that reflects only a small chunk of the writer's career. Plus, they are written and released on a campaign schedule as part of a media strategy, which inherently demeans their authority and merits.
I will be the first to admit that Clinton's most recent book Hard Choices is no exception-- it was released in a summer that will almost certainly mark her announcement of her intention to run and the beginning of her campaign, and this is absolutely reflected in the book itself, which seeks to answer the inevitable questions regarding her relationship with Barack Obama, the Benghazi incident, and her husband's role in her career. But all of that aside, she is certainly the most significant female politician in the country, and one of the most powerful women in the world, so her words should carry a lot of weight.
If the politicized nature of Hard Choices is too much for you to stomach, why not go old school and dust off a copy of It Takes a Village, Clinton's volume on American children and families. The proverb in the title has become so ubiquitous and been parodied quite a bit, but the book itself has lost very little of its meaning or impact. And I'd like to point out that no other active FLOTUS has written and published a real book.
Living History was Clinton's attempt at an autobiography, written shortly after her election to the US Senate in 2000. Unlike Hard Choices, Living History is much more focused on her life before she became a politician and provides very a satisfying anecdotal narrative of her formative years and experiences. It serves as a nice reminder of just how incredible, smart, and hard-working she is. Some critics were disappointed by her lack of candor, but I don't think a candid account of her life and career should be expected until her political life is officially over.
#ReadWomen2014: Edith Wharton
I think Edith Wharton is one of the most under-rated female authors. Yes, she is a bit well-known and some of her novels appear on AP reading lists, but most people manage to get through high school and college without ever having read her work, and if The House of Mirth were a Henry James novel (which it kinda could be), it would be put up on a higher pedestal. I don't know what it is about Edith Wharton -- maybe because her novels are about the American upper classes, or maybe because she was herself an extraordinarily wealthy and independent woman, no one takes her as seriously as an author who struggled a bit more? Wharton was widely celebrated in her own time, but her work seems to have fallen out of favor over other American women writers of the same era who were more concerned with class struggle, racism, and the immigrant experience (Willa Cather, for example). If nothing else, she should be lauded as the proof of concept for Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own; as an independently wealthy woman with few domestic concerns, Wharton was a very productive and successful writer.
Read more#ReadWomen2014: Mid-Year Review
I am now six months in to my #ReadWomen2014 committment, and it seems only appropriate to take a moment to reflect on how my endeavor is progressing so far. I had a few goals in mind when I took up the task of exclusively reading books by women this year; I wanted to expose myself to far more books by women of color; I wanted to catch up on the contemporary literary fiction by women that I kept hearing about but hadn't read; and finally, I wanted to read some of the most noteworthy works of feminist literature/non-fiction, because it seemed in keeping with the spirit of the undertaking.
Read more#ReadWomen2014: Joan Didion
Joan Didion eluded me for a long time, because she, along with Joyce Carol Oates, is a hugely prolific writer in so many different genres. I'm still too scared to deal with the Oates canon, but I've finally dipped my toes in the Didion waters. I started with Slouching Towards Bethlehem, one of her collections of early essays, mostly focused on California in the 1960s. It was a nice book to pick up after finishing Against Interpretation, as it followed a very similar structure. As I mentioned in that post, I love essay collections because they allow me to dive in and out of a book so easily, and I gulped Slouching Towards Bethlehem down over the course of a long weekend.
Read more#ReadWomen2014: Virginia Woolf
This week's #ReadWomen2014 author recommendation is going old school. Virginia Woolf is the O.G. advocate of women in literature-- she read plenty of women authors and was a notable appreciator of George Eliot before it was cool; she delivered a lecture on why there aren't more women writers historically, which was subsequently turned into the excellent little volume known as A Room of One's Own; perhaps most importantly, she was a critically-acclaimed novelist herself, which only served to legitimate her opinions even further.
Read more#ReadWomen2014: Zadie Smith
Because I posted about White Teeth earlier in the week, I figured it was a great time to recommend Zadie Smith for #ReadWomen2014, despite my own admitted ambivalence about her. Maybe ‘ambivalence’ is too strong a term-- I really have enjoyed White Teeth quite a lot, but there have certainly been passages that have dragged along, despite the deftness and wit of the prose. I think what I struggled with in both White Teeth and NW was an inconsistency in my response- I was gripped so much more by certain characters and their passages than others. If White Teeth had been entirely from Irie’s perspective, for example, or NW from Natalie’s, I think I would have engaged with them more fully. Even so, I would strongly recommend either title, and have every intention of reading On Beauty soon. Part of the reason I recommend her so strongly is that I don’t think it’s possible to be a literate young woman in the US today without having read Zadie Smith. She is so ubiquitous and serves as a cultural touchstone -- she gets brief shout-outs on HBO’s ‘Girls’ and ‘Bored to Death,’ two comedy series about writers in NYC. Her essays deserve as much attention as her novels, and any fan of her would do well to subscribe to the New Yorker to enjoy a fuller breadth of her work.
#ReadWomen2014: Toni Morrison
My relationship with Toni Morrison started young and was very deeply forged. I was blessed with a terrific and highly influential English teacher in 11th grade, who assigned The Bluest Eye, Morrison's first novel. I gulped down the entire thing in a day, and then immediately started re-reading it, this time with a pencil in hand to make notes in the margins. I still have that copy, and there is not a single page in it without my underlines, denoting the most sublime moments of her prose.
Beloved is where most folks start with Toni Morrison, and for good reason. It's brilliant and is often tossed around in discussions about the Great American Novel. I spend a good deal of time examining reading lists, and spend even more time reading in order to cross titles off the lists. When I was a younger reader I understood these lists to be sacred, but the more I read the more skeptical I become in many cases, but Beloved deserves every accolade it has received. I'm very curious if it's still taught in high schools as much as it was, but I'm disappointed that I managed to make it through high school and college without having read it.
I read Song of Solomon a few years ago after reading that it was one of President Obama's favorite books. Presidential endorsements don't usually influence my reading habits, but Barack Obama is a talented writer himself, and Harold Bloom admires Toni Morrison as well so it's okay. I was initially disappointed because I knew it took place in Detroit and wanted very deeply to have a stronger personal connection to it as a result, which wasn't the case. That said, it was truly excellent and really exemplifies everything Morrison does best.
Morrison is an author to be read and read again, and as excited as I am to recommend her to anyone, I'm equally as excited to continue discovering her other novels.
#ReadWomen2014: Karen Russell
Embarrassing as it is to admit now, I was a short story skeptic for the better part of my literate life. I am not an English teacher and really have no proposal for improvement, but I think my hatred stemmed from the way short stories were incorporated into English curriculum (i.e., poorly). As an adult, I finally dipped my toes in the short story water with George Saunders, and shortly thereafter, Karen Russell. She makes for a good liaison in that she has published both short story collections as well as a novel and an e-book novella; whatever your fancy, she will help convert you. I started with Vampires in the Lemon Grove, her most recent story collection that was picked for our book club. It yielded one of our best discussions, and surprisingly everyone had a different favorite. I have yet to dig in to her other work, but I have a copy of her first story collection, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves in my stack, and I’m anxious to get my hands on the much-lauded Swamplandia. I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to read her e-book, as I’m a book fetishist and a total luddite when it comes to e-readers, but I love her writing enough to figure it out. So then Karen Russell will have converted me into a lover of short stories AND a user of e-readers, two impressive feats. Did I mention she is young, beautiful, a prolific writer (4 books in 6 years) and now a MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’ recipient?
#ReadWomen2014: Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood is an author who has always resided on a very high pedestal in my mind because when I was young my mother read several of her books, including The Robber Bride, whose distinct cover illustrated with an eye within a human hand made a permanent mark on my psyche, along with the flying dog from “The Neverending Story.” As freaked out as I was by the cover, Margaret Atwood felt like a literary cult leader for women because my mom read The Robber Bride with her book club, and I remember all the women gathered in our family room talking about it. As a result, Margaret Atwood particularly embodies any abstract ideas I’ve ever held about women and reading. That feeling was only further validated when I read The Handmaid’s Tale during puberty; I can’t really think of a more appropriate book for a girl on the brink of womanhood who is confronting her own new-found fertility, although it is decidedly darker than the more “traditional” pillars of the pubescent literary canon, Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret, and so forth. (A very strage aside, I read Lolita around the same time, and I think the argument could be made that these two novels simultaneously directed my life path towards feminism from a very early age. Moms with daughters take note.)
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