The Women's Review of Books articles from September 2006

The Women's Review of Books archives from September 2006

A full cup.(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2006... My cup is full. I am neither an academic nor a welfare mother but rather one of those women with the rare privilege of being retired and on a good pension. I read for new ideas and affirmation of self as woman. I missed Women's Review because I...

No longer overlooked.(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2006... Congratulations on another fine issue (May/June 2006). I'm particularly grateful for the cover story on memoirs of illness and disability, a subject all too often overlooked. Your reviewer, Debra Spark, did an outstanding job of bringing the...

The hard work of organizing.(Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organizations, 1968-1980)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organizations, 1968-1980 By Kimberly Springer Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005, 228 pp., $21.95, paperback For several years now, I've focused in my classes on black feminist thought and...

A lot of everything.('Sex Wars: A Novel of the Turbulent Post-Civil War Period', 'The Night Watch')(Book review)
September 1, 2006... Sex Wars: A Novel of the Turbulent Post Civil War Period By Marge Piercy New York: HarperCollins, 2005, 411 pp., $24.95, hardcover The Night Watch By Sarah Waters New York: Riverhead, 2006, 448 pp., $24.95, hardcover When Sarah Waters...

Other ways of knowing.(Eight Women Philosophers: Theory, Politics, and Feminism)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... Eight Women Philosophers: Theory, Politics, and Feminism By Jane Duran Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006, 308 pp., $29.95, paperback Those who live at the margins of society are stripped--of material, experience,...

A strange and terrible sight in our country.(Essay)
September 1, 2006... In the autumn of 1950, seventeen foreign-born "radicals" living in the United States were imprisoned on Ellis Island in New York City. Because of the repression and silencing of the McCarthy era and its aftermath, we know very little about...

Casualties of salvation.('Saving the World: A Novel')(Book review)
September 1, 2006... Saving the World By Julia Alvarez Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 2006, 368 pp., $24.95, hardcover A woman I knew in college who was envied for her good looks, keen literary intellect, and sassy sense of humor joined a group of us for...

The carrier of the story: a conversation with Julia Alvarez.(Interview)
September 1, 2006... "Our lives of privilege here are built upon poverty somewhere else." --Julia Alvarez I spoke to Julia Alvarez by phone on two separate spring mornings. Alvarez first spoke to me from her hotel room in Portland, Oregon, where she read...

A lone woman's voice.(Jeannette Rankin: A Political Woman)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... Jeannette Rankin: A Political Woman By James J. Lopach and Jean A. Luckowski Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2005, 317 pp., $34.95, hardcover In journalism school, fledgling reporters are taught that stories with...

Fictions and frictions.('The Penelopiad', 'The Tent')(Book review)
September 1, 2006... The Penelopiad By Margaret Atwood New York: Canongate, 2005, 199 pp., $18.00, hardcover The Tent By Margaret Atwood New York: Doubleday, 2000, 160 pp., $18.00, hardcover Margaret Atwood's two new books, The Penelopiad and The Tent are...

The luminous particular.(Collected Poems)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... Collected Poems By Jane Kenyon St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 2005, 357 pp., $26.00, hardcover I first met Jane Kenyon in the early 1970s in Ann Arbor, where I was a young writer and visiting fellow at the University of Michigan. Shortly...

Telepathy.(Poem)
September 1, 2006... Telepathy On the bike path--boys too big for their bikes, outgrowing them, hunched over the handlebars, silly above the shrink-down wheels. And middle-aged guys, in their perfectly stretched colors--red, bright...

Yes loves no.(Poem)
September 1, 2006... Yes Loves No in its heart of hearts. Yes, so cheerful, but looking for a little shade in secret, i.e., the underside of a leaf is pretty interesting, its veins delicate, crossing and recrossing, a silent,...

Jean Segaloff: a lesbian in woman's clothes.(Photography)(Cover story)
September 1, 2006... Jean Segaloff's two- and three-dimensional works in many genres can be found in numerous private and corporate collections throughout the country. During a career that spans more than 35 years, Segaloff has often drawn inspiration from the...

Fiction.('The Housekeeper', 'The Keep', 'The Tree-Sitter', 'Water for Elephants')(Book review)
September 1, 2006... The Housekeeper by Melanie Wallace San Francisco: MacAdam/Cage, 2006, 290 pp., $23.00, hardcover The Keep by Jennifer Egan New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006, 240 pp., $24.00 hardcover The Tree-Sitter by Suzanne Matson New York: W.W....

Saved from Moosewood-Hell.(From Betty Crocker to Feminist Food Studies: Critical Perspectives on Women and Food)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... From Betty Crocker to Feminist Food Studies: Critical Perspectives on Women and Food Edited by Arlene Voski Avakian and Barbara Haber Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005, 283 pp., $24.95, paperback Food is hot....

The next generation's roots.('Can Anything Beat White?: A Black Family's Letters', 'My Conference Kinfolk: A Twenty-First Freedwoman Discovers Her Roots')(Book review)
September 1, 2006... My Conference Kinfolk: A Twenty-first Freedwoman Discovers Her Roots By Thulani Davis New York: Basic Books, 2006, 324 pp., $25.00, hardover Can Anything Beat White?: A Black Family's Letters By Elizabeth Petry Jackson, MS: University...

Back to the garden.(Get a Life)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... Get A Life By Nadine Gordimer New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2005, 187 pp., $21.00, hardcover When the group of African editors of Women Writing Africa: the Southern Region had to choose a text by Nadine Gordimer for their volume, they...

The most beautiful navel in Paris.(Lee Miller: A Life)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... Lee Miller: A Life By Carolyn Burke New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, 426 pp, $35.00, hardcover With Lee Miller: A Life, biographer Carolyn Burke renders scholarship on modernism a great service. Like Burke's previous subject, avant-garde...

The lines of truth and feeling.(A Poet's Prose: Selected Writings of Louise Bogan)(Book review)
September 1, 2006... A Poet's Prose: Selected Writings of Louise Bogan Edited by Mary Kinzie Athens, OH" Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 2005, 394 pp., $19.95, paperback Poet and critic Richard Howard commented that the poetry of Louise Bogan (1897-1970)...

The greening season.(On My Bookshelf)(Barbara Kingsolver, Billy Collins and Linda Grant)
September 1, 2006... This assignment fell to me in the spring, and although I didn't plan it, much of what I read dovetailed perfectly with the greening season. Barbara Kingsolver's novel, Prodigal Summer, begins in May in a riot of birdsong, worm-work, and...