The Women's Review of Books articles from September 2008

The Women's Review of Books archives from September 2008

Suffering on both sides.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2008... It is beyond absurd to compare the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto with the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, as Harriet Malinowitz does in her review of The Diary of Mary Berg: Growing Up in the Warsaw Ghetto together with Tasting...

Comparing catastrophes.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2008... The thrust of Nazi occupation of Poland and Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands are different. Rather than extermination, the object of terrorizing the Palestinian population is to force "transfer," a more acceptable current day form of...

Drawing pride.(Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist)(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist By Nancy Goldstein Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008, 240 pages, $35.00, hardcover Despite the recent successes of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (2004) and...

Can't live with it, can't live without it.(Moving Mountains: How One Woman and Her Community Won Justice from Big Coal)(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Moving Mountains: How One Woman and Her Community Won Justice from Big Coal By Penny Loeb Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2007, 306 pp., $27.95, hardcover Many political stories begin with the intensely domestic, but...

Opting for the air conditioning.(The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women, and the Real Gender Gap)(Book review)
September 1, 2008... The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women, and the Real Gender Gap By Susan Pinker New York: Scribner, 2008, 340 pp., $26.00, hardcover [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The paradox of The Sexual Paradox is that, coming out in 2008, it seems so...

Two-story White House, North.(Harriet Wilson's New England: Race, Writing, and Region)(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Harriet Wilson's New England: Race, Writing, and Region Edited by JerriAnne Boggis, Eve Allegra Raimon, and Barbara A. White Durham: University of New Hampshire Press, 2007, 244 pp., $26.00, paperback I sat up most of the night...

The shiver of possibility.(The Plague of Doves)(Book review)
September 1, 2008... The Plague of Doves By Louise Erdrich New York: HarperCollins, 2008, 320 pp., $29.95, hardcover Asked why he planned the kidnapping of his wife, and thereby tore his life apart, a character in The Plague of Doves explains it was...

Scrubwomen of truth.('Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth: Poems 2004-2006' and 'My Body: New and Selected Poems')(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth: Poems 2004-2006 By Adrienne Rich New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007, 109 pp., $23.95, hardcover My Body: New and Selected Poems By Joan Larkin Brooklyn, NY, Hanging Loose...

Lost Luxury.(Poetry)(Poem)
September 1, 2008... Lost Luxury Dawson City, Yukon Territory, 1902 I didn't blink at the man, his chained black bear, its leather dog collar denting the dark fur. He fed it scraps from his left hand while its nose...

Mother-in-Law.(Poetry)(Poem)
September 1, 2008... Mother-in-Law Maybe it was my skirt, like yours, or my hair, curls tangled with youth. Maybe it was the way we both raised our hands to our lips in surprise, or the girl in me you had watched come up as you...

Miriam Goodman, 1938-2008: a friend's reflections.(Photography)(Obituary)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Miriam Goodman was passionate about photography--her own practice and everybody else's. She loved to look, and to see how others viewed their world. Her support of those who struggled and took risks to find their...

Balancing on the Pacific Rim and other travelers' tales.(Good reads)(Book review)
September 1, 2008... The End of Manners by Francesca Marciano New York: Pantheon, 2008, 272 pp., $23.95, hardcover Steer Toward Rock by Fae Myenne Ng New York: Hyperion, 2008, 256 pp., $23.95, hardcover The House on Fortune Street by Margot...

Out of the habit.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Habits of Compassion: Irish Catholic Nuns and the Origins of New York's Welfare System, 1830-1920 By Maureen Fitzgerald Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006, 312 pp., $25.00, paperback Good Hearts: Catholic...

Bringing up baby.('Valuing Children: Rethinking the Economics of the Family' and 'Who Cares for Our Children? The Child Care Crisis in the Other America')(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Valuing Children: Rethinking the Economics of the Family By Nancy Folbre Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008, 235 pp., $45.00, hardcover Who Cares for Our Children? The Child Care Crisis in the Other America By...

A culture of female talent.(The Talented Women of the Zhang Family)(Book review)
September 1, 2008... The Talented Women of the Zhang Family By Susan Mann Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007, 322 pp., $21.95, paperback This elegantly written and produced volume will serve two kinds of specialists--historians of women,...

What we talk about when we talk about ...('One for the Girls! The Pleasures and Practices of Reading Women's Porn', 'Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity' and 'Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex')(Book review)
September 1, 2008... One for the Girls! The Pleasures and Practices of Reading Women's Porn By Clarissa Smith Chicago, IL: Intellect Books, 2007, 263 pp., $55.00, hardcover Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity By Robert Jensen ...

Affection for the world.(Shelter Half)(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Shelter Half By Carol Bly Duluth, MN: Holy Cow! Press, 2008, 244 pages, $15.95, paperback Carol Bly, short story writer, essayist, pamphleteer, gadfly, and teacher, died of cancer last December 21, at 77. Until within a few days...

Remaking the body.('Surgery Junkies: Wellness and Pathology in Cosmetic Culture' and 'Bodies in the Making: Transgressions and Transformations')(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Surgery Junkies: Wellness and Pathology in Cosmetic Culture By Victoria Pitts-Taylor New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007, 200 pp., $19.95, paperback Bodies in the Making: Transgressions and Transformations ...

Out of sight, out of mind.('Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the US Prison System' and 'Wretched Sisters: Examining Gender and Capital Punishment')(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the US Prison System By Silja J.A. Talvi Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2007, 355 pp., $15.95, paperback Wretched Sisters: Examining Gender and Capital Punishment By Mary Welek Atwell...