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The Future Is Female: Reading Women Leaders

September 30, 2017 in Book Matters, Country Matters, Feminist Matters, Listing

If there’s one silver lining of this disastrous year in U.S. politics, it’s that female leaders have really stepped to the forefront – from former Attorney General Sally Yates, who refused to endorse the proposed travel ban on people from majority-Muslim countries, to Senator Kamala Harris, the only sane voice in the Session hearings, to U.S. representative Maxine Waters, one of Trump’s most vocal critics. So one of my new hobbies is reading books by and about female politicians who have beaten all kinds of odds. Here’s a breakdown of some of my favorites, including Hillary’s new (searing) memoir.

What Happened—Hillary Rodham Clinton
She may not have (officially) won the 2016 election, but the future is still female to Hillary. In this much-anticipated, admirably candid memoir, she explores why the first female U.S. presidential nominee of a major political party was defeated by a man whom even the GOP admits has a “woman problem.” From the anti-lady sentiment still holding sway – “I wish so badly we were a country where a candidate who said, ‘My story is the story of a life shaped by and devoted to the movement for women’s liberation’ would be cheered, not jeered. But that’s not who we are” – to her lambasting of press coverage – “[Trump’s actions] sucked up all the oxygen in the media” and Trump’s “dark energy” – Hillary never holds back, even when acknowledging her own blunders. (Yep, she regrets the “deplorables” comment as much as we do.) Brave, commanding, and ruefully honest, it’s hard to read this memoir of loss and not wish she’d won. Continue Reading →

Rereading the 12th Street Riot

September 2, 2017 in Book Matters, Country Matters, Listing

It’s been five decades since the 1967 Detroit Riot, but the issues surrounding it are as urgent as they’ve ever been. Certainly they’re as divisive. Witness how U.S. citizens can’t even agree on whether to refer to it as a riot or a rebellion. What we do agree on is that the six-day uprising was one of the most violent in our country’s history, and that it presaged a new era in race relations in America, not to mention a totally misguded movie that has only succeeded in tanking Kathryn Bigelow’s career.

The 12th Street Riot, as it also was called, began when white police officers raided an after-hours club in a mostly black neighborhood, and long-simmering anger about the police force’s racism boiled over along with frustrations about segregationist employment, housing, and education policies. When all was said and done, entire city blocks were burnt down, 43 people were dead, 1,189 were injured, more than 7,000 had been arrested, and 683 buildings were destroyed. A presidential commission later determined that “police officers shot at least twenty people to death, and Army troops and National Guardsmen killed up to ten more.” All but ten of the forty-three killed were black. Continue Reading →

Fur People Books

August 15, 2017 in Book Matters, Cat Lady Matters, Listing

Check out anyone’s social media feed, and chances are good it’s as full of pets as it is of kids. In the last few decades, we have developed an unprecedented intimacy with our domesticated animals; we give them human names as opposed to the Smoky and Spot of yesteryear, and their diets are often as organic and carb-conscious as our own. As an unabashed cat lady – though I prefer the sultrier title of “cat woman” – I see no problem with this trend. Animals provide unconditional love; animals remind us to stay present; animals never ignore our text messages. Judging from these wonderful books about the relationships between humans and animals, I’m not alone in my animal passions.

My Dog Tulip–J.R. Ackerley, Introduction by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
British writer and editor J. R. Ackerley didn’t even like dogs much until he found himself the kept man of Tulip, a German shepherd with tastes as particular as his own. Droll, dry, and tenderhearted (aka eminently British), this memoir will hurt the heart of anyone who’s lived alone with a dear pet.

Flush–Virginia Woolf
A well-known animal lover (her friends called her Goat), Virginia Woolf was so charmed by poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel Flush that she wrote an autobiography about him. Yep, you read that right. The author of Orlando and A Room of One’s Own wrote a whole book from a pup’s perspective. Whimsical and warmhearted, this is easily Woolf’s most loose-limbed literary effort. Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy