Books on Books: 'The Madwoman in the Attic' by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar

I first came across The Madwoman in the Attic via Madeleine's thesis project in The Marriage Plot, but I'm surprised that I made it through four years of humanities studies without having read it, as I, much like the fictional Madeleine, spent a lot of time with books that were described as "discourses." The Madwoman in the Attic is the O.G. of feminist readings of fiction, and its influence cannot be overstated. I've been thinking a lot about it recently as I was reading Claire Messud's The Woman Upstairs, whose very title and premise are something of an homage. The book is largely concerned with female authors like Jane Austen, the Brontes, and Virginia Woolf, and it's a really excellent follow-up to anyone who has already read and enjoyed some of the major women writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

It's easy to find a first edition at any decent used book store (especially those in college towns), but do yourself a favor a pickup a newer copy that include their revised introduction, which should give you a better taste of the cultural impact the book had on feminism and literature.

This Week in Books I endorse Roxane Gay and Outlander again...

There was a great piece by Michael Harris at Salon about reading and distractions, which everybody should be able to relate to, even the most hardcore readers among us.

Everybody (except me, who hasn't yet read it) has been loving Kate Atkinson's novel Life After Life, and this week it was announced that she's writing a sequel.

Teju Cole is an excellent Nigerian-born novelist who I've endorsed on the blog before (if you loved Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) and he wrote an essay for The New Yorker on re-reading James Baldwin, another author I really admire. In light of recent events in Ferguson, good writing about race in America is clearly as important as ever.

The #WeNeedDiverseBooks has been gaining a lot of momentum this year, especially among librarians, and it makes a good companion to #ReadWomen2014. NPR has been doing quite a bit of coverage on the topic this week, but I especially enjoyed this story about how to sell diverse books, as the lack of market is often cited as the primary reason for the lack of diversity in serious literature.

Finally, Roxane Gay is recapping the entire Outlander series for Vulture, episode-by-episode, so you have yet another compelling reason to get into this show/book series.

#ReadWomen2014: Nora Ephron

This week's #ReadWomen2014 is a particularly fun one, because getting to know Nora Ephron as a writer absolutely includes a screening of her movies, especially When Harry Met Sally, the screenplay of which is even included in The Most of Nora Ephron, a posthumous collection of her work which I recommend for its breadth and variety. In addition to the screenplay, it includes her early journalism, later essays, her Wellesley commencement address about being flat-chested, and her post-divorce novel Heartburn. Really hardcore Nora Ephron fans might want this in addition to some of the individual essay collections (Wallflower at the Orgy, I Feel Bad About My Neck), even though there will be some overlap.

Her writing is smart and funny and so. so absolutely touching and human. She bares her soul in so many ways that manage to be simultaneously funny and sad, and she pretty unapologetically and honestly embraces her flaws, which feels in a strange way like a granting of permission for the reader to do the same. She is someone you can read when you want a really fun, smart book that is entertaining and soulful.

What I'm Reading: 'Persepolis' by Marjane Satrapi

As I've said before, I'm not exactly a big graphic novel/comics reader, but only because I find the medium to be intimidating and inaccessible. I really enjoyed reading Alison Bechdel's graphic memoirs, and got a good response from readers, so I decided to give Persepolis a try, which is probably a much better-known graphic novel because it was adapted into an animated film in 2007.

I'm probably giving myself too much credit for reading two very critically-acclaimed graphic memoirs by women authors -- I still can't call myself a comic book fan or reader. However, I really enjoyed Persepolis and along with Alison Bechdel, it is has served as a good segue into the genre. A lot of folks don't like reading graphic novels or comics because the flow of panels can be confusing, but I read a lot of Archies as a kid, so that's never been a problem for me. I still found Persepolis to be an easy, quick read, and the narrative/panel structure felt very natural. I particularly love Satrapi's stylization, which results in very graphic, very minimalist panels, and very unlike a lot of comic book artwork you might have seen.

This Week in Books: Patti Smith Woke Up Like This.

First of all, this happened and it's everything.

I've stated before that I'm not really doing YA coverage, but if I were, I'd start with Francesca Lia Block, probably the most influential writer of my teen years. I read all her books, and I hope they're still in a box somewhere (Mom?) so I can revisit them someday. This interview she did with The Rumpus was excellent, but also made me feel out of touch because she has published so many new titles since I stopped paying attention.

Flavorwire is one of my favorite sources for literary coverage on the web, and no one understands my love is reading lists more than they do, which is why the new "50 Novels by Women Under 50" list made my week. Besides the obvious cross-over appeal between the list and what I cover on the blog, it also had everything I want from a reading list-- I got to feel smug and proud about the books I've already read; I got affirmation on a lot of books that are on my radar, waiting to be read; and I got to discover so many new books that I trust I'll enjoy, because their other recommendations are so spot on.

Patti Smith reviewed the new Haruki Murakami novel for the NYT. Nothing else to say.

#ReadWomen2014: Roxane Gay

In case you haven't figured it out already, I am a fan of Roxane Gay. I have already endorsed her first novel, An Untamed State, and her essay collection Bad Feminist, out this week. Both are great, and by all means, buy them and read them.

I would be remiss, however, if I didn't include an endorsement for Roxane Gay's prolific writing on all manner of subjects, all over the Internet, most of it freely available. She is at the very forefront of the literary Internet, and her Twitter feed is a joy to behold. There are a few authors I really truly enjoy following on Twitter because they approach it as just another form of authorship, rather than a stream of self-promotion, and Roxane Gay is certainly one of them. I know a lot of people who don't use Twitter because they aren't really sure how or why they need it, and she's a good example of what you might be missing.

Equally as an enchanting is her Tumblr page, which she updates almost daily. This is the best place to find aggregation of all her Internet writing, including terrific essays written for the likes of The Rumpus and Salon. If you enjoyed Bad Feminist, this is the source material from which it was born, and there is plenty more out there. What I particularly love about her Tumblr though is the deeply personal, almost diary-like writing exercises she posts every week. Lately they've been following a similar structural pattern of Gay's narration and photos of her cooking a recipe (she's a devotee of Ina Garten) while she reflects on her life. The results are equally profound and delicious, and if you're a fan of food writing, you'll love it. It reminds me of Nora Ephron's food writing, but maybe a bit more heartfelt and somber. Really, really lovely stuff.

I often try to carve out a ten minute chunk in every work day to see what she's been writing, and I never find myself skimming her content, which is rare for stuff in my RSS feed. I read and digest every word while I sip my coffee, and then I impatiently wait for her to post again. Every voracious reader understands that anxiety and enthusiasm that comes from waiting for a favorite writer to finish a project so it can be consumed, and with Roxane Gay, you only have a wait a few hours.

Finally, she has a work of non-fiction/fiction/poetry on the Haitian diaspora, Ayiti, I haven't read it yet, but I really can't wait to check it out. For those who enjoyed An Untamed State, it will provide a lot of parsing out of the Haitian-American cultural  context of that novel.

#ReadWomen2014 Non-Fiction: 'Bad Feminist' by Roxane Gay

Bad Feminist: Essays

By Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay's book of hilarious and incredible essays drops TODAY so get thee to the bookstore! Some of it has been previously published and circulated on the Internet, so if you're unsure about committing to the whole book, you can dip you your toes in the free content. However, I advocate strongly for just purchasing and reading the whole damn book because there is plenty of new stuff and it's just good.

While she touches on feminism and politics, most of the essays are her pop culture writing, which is some of her absolute best stuff, imho. I am not ashamed to admit that I got into Roxane Gay's writing via her live-tweeting of The Bachelor ( a surprising number of very respected literary authors engage in this), and I'm most looking forward to reading her essay on HBO's Girls, which I somehow missed the first time around.

If you happen to be in the Detroit area, Gay is doing a reading from Bad Feminist  at Literati in Ann Arbor on Thursday, August 7, so you can get a signed copy and support a local independent bookstore.

This Week in Books: David Sedaris is a dump truck...

This week's links will be short and sweet. As a Beyonce fan, I've had a rough one, and I am very ready for the weekend.

A few weeks ago I posted David Sedaris' very funny essay on his FitBit; in it he mentioned his obsessive walks around his neighborhood and all the trash he collected. Now his community has named a dump truck after him. Cute.

John Cheever's former home in Ossining, NY is for sale. Ossining is also the home of the (pre-divorce) Draper family in Mad Men, so that pretty much tells you everything you need to know about John Cheever and Ossining. I read The Wapshot Chronicle last year and it was instantly one of my new favorites.

Finally, Roxane Gay was on Wisconsin Public Radio this weekend and handled some ridiculous questions from callers. Next week Bookhive will be devoted almost exclusively to Roxane Gay (she's doing a reading at my local bookstore and her new book of essays comes out), so consider this your introduction.

#ReadWomen2014: Ayn Rand

Okay, okay. But hear me out-- there are really only two authors I read that I would consider "guilty pleasures." There's no good reason to ever feel guilty about reading, even if it's strictly for pleasure. But when you read something that is not only pleasurable but also just plain bad and bad for you, then you might be justified in feeling some guilt. For me, that's George R.R. Martin and Ayn Rand. I'm not sure either one needs much explaining, but the Game of Thrones books (or Song of Ice and Fire books if you're a nerd) are pretty violent and misogynistic, and I normally can't abide genre fiction, but those books just sucked me in.

Ms. Rand on the other hand, is a bad writer and sort of an immoral person, which is why I felt so guilty reading The Fountainhead. which I'm still embarrassed to admit I gulped down in a week. I read it immediately after finishing grad school, when I had lots of time on my hands and was depressed about my employment prospects. I wanted to read something huge, for its own sake, and I picked The Fountainhead. I knew going into it that I had missed the boat-- I was way too old to be indoctrinated into the cult of Ayn Rand, but that almost made it even more pleasurable. It is so silly and the prose is just obnoxiously, deliciously overwrought. Nora Ephron has a terrific essay on it, probably some of the best literary criticism on Ayn Rand I've read, and there are more posts on Nora Ephron coming up, so I highly recommend you check it out.

I read Anthem in high school with the delusional idea that I would submit an essay for the Ayn Rand Institute essay contest, which now that I think about it-- Why are we letting them insert themselves into public education in this way?! But anyway, I never wrote an essay, because I thought the book was pretty dumb-- but I still raced through it and kinda secretly enjoyed it.

I haven't yet read Atlas Shrugged but I have every intention of doing so, again, partially just for the sake of reading a gigantic book. I've already been considering what will happen after #ReadWomen2014 is over (chronologically, that is. Reading women will never actually stop for me), and reading enormous books for the blog is one idea I've been tossing around. I will obviously need to start reading much, much faster in that case, but Atlas Shrugged would definitely make the cut.

If schadenfreude is more your cup of tea, try a good biography of Ayn Rand, which will provide plenty of anti-Rand ammunition. As obnoxious as her belief system was, she was still a pretty fascinating public figure, so this is more on the pleasure side, less of the guilt.

For those who reject my premise of Ayn Rand as guilty pleasure altogether -- here is George Saunders mocking Ayn Rand, which is just pure pleasure in every sense and another ringing endorsement for George Saunders.

Bookhive Afield: Portland, OR and Powell's

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I headed to Oregon recently for my sister's wedding. The wedding was in Corvalis so I was very lucky that I got an afternoon of exploration in Portland before my official MOH duties started. I visited Powell's Books in the Pearl District the last time I visited, and I could not wait to get back there.

Size-wise, it compares to Strand in NYC or John King in Detroit, but what I especially love about it is how wonderfully organized and well-laid out it is. I enjoy an enormous bookstore as much as the next literary hoarder; it can be really pleasurable to get lost in a sea of shelves and discover something you didn't even know you wanted. But on the other hand, book stores are a rarity these days, and for them to serve any practical function in an urban environment, folks need to be able to find what they're looking for. Powell's gives you the best of both worlds; it's a several story building, with different genres on each floor, so it's not hard to find at least the vicinity of what you're seeking, and it's just as easy to wander as you please.

I'm also impressed by how not-seriously they take themselves. That sounds like serious shade so let me clarify: so many bookstores put themselves up on pedestals because books are an expensive luxury (unfortunately) and reading is for serious, smart people (or something like that). Powell's seems to remember that reading is meant to be pleasurable, as is shopping for books, and they have no shame in stocking their shelves with toys, games, stationary, and other nifty book-adjacent merchandise. They have a nice cafe upstairs, a huge selection of magazines, and they devote fairly equal real estate to each genre. If you were a hardcore fan of sci-fi or fantasy, for example, this is the bookstore for you. 

I saw a copy of Marilynne Robinson's Gilead on sale on the very front table, so I snapped that up quickly and then wandered with my husband, who has never been. He wanted to check out some comics, so I found myself leaving with a copy of the complete Persepolis book, which I've been meaning to buy for a long time. I left with a Powell's tote bag too, natch.

I don't get to visit my sister and beautiful Oregon often enough, but I already can't wait to get back to Powell's, and I hope that someday I find myself in Portland with a few hours to just soak it all in.