What Books by Women Are You Reading Now? -- February 2011

I thought we might need a new thread, since February is here.

I am reading Sharp Through the Hawthorn, which the sequel to A Nest of Magpies. Light an pleasant reading.

P.S. Touchstones appear to be wacky...again!

I'm reading My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor. It is the memoir of a brain scientist's personal experience with having a stroke.

2> Is that the woman who gave the TED talk? That was such an amazing talk. I should check out the book if it's the same woman.

Sorry, drawing a blank on what a TED talk is.

4> http://www.ted.com/talks They're mostly a bunch of really smart people sharing interesting ideas about many topics - science, the environment, technology, feminism, you name it. I searched for Jill Bolte Taylor and indeed she did give a fascinating talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight...

I saw her TED talk, and I've started her book twice, I guess just not at the right time. It's still there calling to me though.

I just finished and reviewed Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. It's a great study of women in the antebellum south. Now I start on The Warmth of Other Suns about the migration of African Americans from the south to the north and west. I saw Isabel Wilkerson on BookTV. She's so completely knowledgeable about her subject I couldn't resist the book.

I seem to be working my way through Lisa Gardner's D.D. Warren mysteries. I'm on The Neighbor.

Reading the incredibly charming Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson.

Thank you, lemontwist. I look forward to listening to her talk.

I enjoyed My Stroke of Insight very much, but I don't think the writing was particularly outstanding. This is one of those books where the story is so compelling, it makes it worthwhile. She certainly has a unique perspective because of her background in neuroanatomy. Her beautiful stained glass creations, one of which is on the cover of the book, are incredible. It was interesting to me that she used this creativity to regain her memories.

I am reading Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson and really immersed in it

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand is a good choice for a bleak February.
It should leave you feeling good.

I just started Joyce Carol Oates' A Widow's Story. It's a topic many of us wonder about....

We've had this conversation before, but I can't help noting that of the LT categories 'Popular This Month,' 'Top Wishlisted Books' and 'What Members Are Reading' are all hitting at 20% women authors. (Sounds of screams coming from my otherwise placid Tennessee Valley home....)

I don't have much fiction on my plate at the moment, but just finished reading Nancy Kerrigan's Artistry on Ice and started Eve Ensler's I am an Emotional Creature.

I enjoyed My Stroke of Insight very much, but I don't think the writing was particularly outstanding. This is one of those books where the story is so compelling, it makes it worthwhile. She certainly has a unique perspective because of her background in neuroanatomy.

I completely agree. Some parts are fascinating, or helpful, or both. Other parts are, to me, a lot of noise. Not that it's a long book, but I think it could have been even shorter. However, it's definitely a worthwhile read.

I saw her TED talk, and I've started her book twice, I guess just not at the right time. It's still there calling to me though.

I wouldn't hesitate to skim the parts that don't work for you and just read the good bits!

Reading Beyond the Pink Moon by Nicki Durlester. A wonderful book by a woman whose family has the BRCA2 gene, which has been strongly implicated in prostate, ovarian and breast cancer. It tells her family's story and her own story of discovering and surviving breast cancer. A short book, but moving and very informative even for those who do not have a genetic predisposition to breast cancer.

Don't know why the touchstones just keep saying loading but never do...
Link to the book:
http://www.librarything.com/work/book/69715847

I'm reading The Sea Captain's Wife, a non-fiction work about Eunice Richardson Stone (soon to be Richardson Stone Connolly), a working-class woman born in New Hampshire who ended up a Unionist in Alabama during the civil war and, eventually (I haven't got to this bit yet) married to a black man living in the Cayman Islands. It's told by a historian, with the primary source the large number of letters saved by Eunice's mother.

I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would - it's a well written history about a woman who is challenging my preconceptions pleasingly. It makes an interesting contrast to the last biography in my log, The Queen of Whale Cay, which had a woman at its core who sounds more interesting, but was a much less satisfying read.

In one of the latter essays in I Feel Bad About My Neck Nora Ephron talks about the books that mesmerize her. Everything she says about reading is so familiar, but all but one of the books she mentions are by men, and the sole female was Doris Lessing. I read The Golden Notebook, and thought I would like it, but I couldn't get past the characters revulsion at her own smell while menstruating. It made me so mad that I haven't read anything else by her. I think I mentioned this before and someone, probably you OtherJoyce, told me what a good writer Lessing is and (I think) that she was just reflecting the feeling of other women about menstruation. It's amazing to me that this is the only woman Ephron could cite as being of interest to her.

#16 - Nope, wasn't me. I've never read Lessing, and I don't have any of her books in my humongous TBR pile, or even on my wishlist. She's always seemed like one of those writers I'm supposed to read, but that I can't seem to find any interest in reading. That bit you mention doesn't make me want to read her, either . . .

I'm so glad it wasn't you. Now I feel even less like I need to try one of her other works.

I just checked out Mary Doria Russell because adding Thread of Grace to The Sparrow made me think she must be catholic. I find she was raised catholic and converted to Judaism. Aha, it makes so much sense now.

I tried The Golden Notebook and didn't even get up to the bit you describe, Joyce! But I do have another couple of hers on the shelves that I'd like to try - Alfred and Emily and The Fifth Child.

Well, let us know if you ever get around to her, wookiebender. I keep hearing all the positives. Maybe there's one particular work I should try.

</i>oops! Sorry, duplicate post from above in #14.

About to start The Joy Luck Club . Really liked the movie and now finally getting around to reading the book .

krazy4katz, we've read that some women with the gene get preventitive mastectomies. Do any of the men get preventative prostatecomies?

Hmmm interesting question, Joyce. I don't know. ;-)

I don't know how malignant, BRCA2-linked prostate cancer is and how easy it is to screen. If you can get tested every year so that you would be sure to catch it early and it is then curable, you probably wouldn't do a "prostatectomy" (or whatever...). You would just treat whatever you found.

In Nicki Durlester's case, 7 out of 8 siblings in her mother's generation got either breast or ovarian cancer. Six of the 7 died. All 3 brothers got cancer also. Nicki was very vigilant about mammograms and still ended up with Stage II, so that is why preventative mastectomies might be recommended for individuals with BRCA2.

Sue Miller's Lost in the Forest I've read almost all her books & enjoyed them.

I just finished, though haven't reviewed yet, The Warmth of Other Suns. It took her 15 years to research and write this book, and it's a striking achievement. African Americans migrating away from the Jim Crow South to the North and West surprisingly end up acting like any other immigrants cooking the food of their former homes, associating with people from their home counties, working very hard, placing value on he family, sometimes retaining their strong accents for life, sending money home, and encouraging people from their old homes to join in the migration. On the one hand they were the typical immigrants, on the other they wanted people to acknowledge that they were as American as the people in their new chosen cities.

Now I'm starting Quicksand by Nella Larsen which is quite evocative of Edith Wharton so far.

#27 - The Warmth of Suns sounds really interesting.

I am reading a fantasy Flesh and Fire by Laura Anne Gilman as well as a contemporary romance Virgin River by Robyn Carr

I've just picked up I Think of You, a collection of short stories by Egyptian/British author Ahdaf Soueif, whose touchstone won't work for some reason. I'm neither Egyptian nor a British resident, but the stories are filled with things that I and probably many others can relate to -- the imaginations and imagery of childhood; the joys and difficulties of school; being a shy young girl who loves books and reads during every spare moment; etc. I'm really enjoying the stories so far. :)

#28 It's a very interesting book, OtherJoyce, and I learned about the railway line that included The City of New Orleans (which I hummed through about half the book.)

I just finished Quicksand and it's a great read. All Helga Crane's choices are impetuous, and I think Nella Larsen sacrifices the character for the opportunity to describe the many ways a mixed race woman could live in 1920's United States. There's the "squeeze all the native out of them" school where all attempts as self expression are squashed. After reading a little about the Indians under British rule, I think this is the sort of school she was after where the Indians end up more British than the British. She takes just a little time to explore the lack of opportunities for a black woman in a northern city where the only jobs open to her are menial. Helga Crane, well educated and proper, loves to read and thinks she can therefore get a job as a librarian without further education. In fact, Larsen was a librarian, but she must have found a way to get the proper credentials.

Then there's the wonderful stay in Harlem. I love this description:
For the hundredth time she marveled at the gradations within this oppressed race of hers. A dozen shades slid by. There was sooty black, shiny black, taupe, mahogany, bronze, copper, gold orange, yellow, peach, ivory, pinky white, pastry white. There was yellow hair, brown hair, black hair, straight hair, straightened hair, curly hair, crinkly hair, woolly hair. She saw black eyes in white faces, brown eyes in yellow faces, gray eyes in brown faces, blue eyes in tan faces. Africa, Europe, perhaps with a pinch of Asia, in a fantastic motley of ugliness and beauty, semibarbaric, sophisticated, exotic, were here.

This would seem to be the right place for Helga Crane, but she couldn't comfortably mix the Helga and Crane sides of herself there. Then there's a description of her in white society where she was valued for her sensual otherness. She longed to have "that blessed sense of belonging to herself alone and not to a race."
Larsen adds a religious sharecropper to the mix, lest we forget what the African Americans were migrating away from.

This is such a wonderful work. What a loss that for whatever reason Larsen was not able to continue with her art.

I finished The Thirteenth Tale last night - great story, loved it! - and have now moved on to The Lacemakers of Glenmara by Heather Barbieri.

>33 lkernagh:
I loved both of those books

My copy of Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin came in, so I joined the group read.

Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen. I was kind of avoiding this book because I thought it would be depressing and disturbing. It's about a battered wife and her 10-year-old son who "disappear" with the help of an organization made up of anonymous volunteers. So far, I've just gotten sucked into the story. Considering the other, more challenging books I've got going on (which are not by women and thus unmentionable) it serves as light reading.

Loved The Thirteenth Tale, too. My #1 book of 2007. I'm still waiting for Setterfield to write another book. Been waiting 3 years. At least.

> 27 I read Quicksand and Passing back as an undergrad and enjoyed them both. Nella Larsen is a talented writer.

Yesterday I finished Our Eleanor: A Scrapbook Look at Eleanor Roosevelt's Remarkable Life by Candace Fleming (bonus of being about a woman as well as by a woman). It's technically YA/children's, but I see no reason why adults wouldn't like it, too. Excellently done.

Now I'm starting The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Also up (as an audio book) is Belle Weather: Mostly Sunny with a Chance of Scattered Hissy Fits by Celia Rivenbark -- so far not to my taste, but we'll see how it turns out in the end.

I got completely lost in the world of Black and Blue. If you do too, you might appreciate Crows Over a Wheatfield by Paula Sharp. She's wonderful.

Today I started The Hills at Home, about a New England family that all descend upon their old family home. The writing is delightful and I know I'm going to enjoy this !!

#39, I'd never heard of Nancy Clark, so many thanks for the The Hills at Home reference. I needed a vacation read for next week and this sounds like just the thing.

Actually, while page-turning, I found Black and Blue quite underwhelming. I'll get around to reviewing it one of these millenia.

I checked out the Crows book, and it does pick up on the part of Black and Blue that I found most interesting: the anonymous, underground network.

I just started In the Land of Invisible Women. I didn't realize that she was a British-born muslim who was in the US to study. She left for Saudi Arabia because her visa ran out and she was no longer permitted to stay. Interesting so far.

I finished Passing and can see why Nella Larsen is taught in college. She has such powers of observation and quite an ability to make the reader see just what she does. What a woman.

Now I start on Their Eyes Were Watching God. It's been years since I read it.

> 42 krazy4katz, I too found Dr. Ahmed's book very interesting. She was featured in LibraryThing's Author Chat awhile back, and talked with readers and answered questions, here. (Apologies for the redundancy if you have seen that already, but in case, there it is.)

Thanks, Essa! I had not seen this. k4k

I'm about a quarter of the way through Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens. I had a very amusing hour or so with it this morning--Dickens can really be fun if you're in the mood.

After a very bloke-orientated month so far, I've just picked up The Small Hand by Susan Hill. A good ghost story so far, I'm only reading it during the day because I don't want to get too spooked reading it at night!

>40 dianaleez:: dianaleez, yes it would make a very good vacation read! My copy was a Christmas gift from a fellow LTer (with impeccable taste, of course). I'd not heard of Nancy Clark before either. Today I found myself thinking about the family in the book as I went about my non-bookish business. I couldn't wait to get back to them and see what they'd been up to !

I finished The Lace Makers of Glenmara - found it to be a heartfelt, charming story about community, friendship, find your way and, of course, lace making! Next up is Frida's Bed by Slavenka Drakulic, a story focused on the inner life of artist Frida Kahlo.

I'm really enjoying The Girl Who Chased The Moon .

I finished Their Eyes Were Watching God. Wow. There's beautiful description, personal growth, and more than one very cringeful moment. It's definitely a book you need to discuss with others, especially women. I hadn't realized how much Richard Wright criticized Hurston. But then look at all the male criticism of Alice Walker when The Color Purple came out. Sometimes men don't like that mirror.

I am currently reading two YA books by women authors.

The first one is Dark Life by Kat Falls - a science fiction one that takes us to the future where people (pioneers) are living totally underwater.

The second book is The Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney - a paranormal adventure.

Both very good reads!!!

I finished The snow queen by Joan Vinge, which was very good, lots of strong women especially among the secondary characters - liked them better than the protagonists. I'm now reading Sapphira and the slave girl by Willa Cather, which seems like a fast read despite heavy subject matter.

>50 AquariusNat:: I'm really looking forward to The girl who chased the moon but it doesn't seem to be in any of the bookshops near me yet .

Finished Frida's Bed by Slavenka Drakulic - A truly amazing, brilliant mosaic of Frida Kahlo's life and her work. I posted a review on the book page. Next up is Still Life by Louise Penny. Time for me to make a visit to Three Pines and find out what has captured so much interest.

>51 Citizenjoyce:: Their Eyes Were Watching God was assigned reading when I was either a junior or senior in high school, and I loved it back then. I think I would appreciate it even more now as an adult. I didn't know that Richard Wright was critical of Zora Neale Hurston either. (It's a pity because I like them both.) Do you have any more info on that?

I'm just starting The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner. It's too soon to tell how it will go, yet, but I already find myself liking the main character, Lyndall, a strong-minded, independent, smart girl who is growing up on a South African farm. This is supposed to be an early feminist book, so those who didn't like Doris Lessing just might find what they were looking for with this author.

I'm having difficulty focussing on a book at the moment, but I seem to have (mostly) settled on Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. It's ginormous! But rather good fun so far.

I finished The Hills at Home and thoroughly enjoyed it, although real life intervened and it took me longer to finish than I expected. I'm now reading Salvation City.

Zora Neale Hurston was an African American woman of conservative, even libertarian politics. She hated Roosevelt thinking his welfare state would lead to the weakening of African Americans, and she was very much against Brown vs the Board of Education because, having been raised in an African American town, she firmly believed in separate but equal. These were enough reasons for Wright to dislike her, but add to that she was a feminist who believed that personal growth and love was important. Blasphemy. Save your personal growth until after the revolution, he would have thought. She was also a feminist who wrote a character who clung to her man after he slapped her around and forgave his friends for wanting to do the same. This was one complex and even prickly woman.

And, speaking of prickly women, I've just finished Mama Day by Gloria Naylor and am in awe of her power. Now she can write strong women. There's Mama Day, the un remitting representative of the life force of her island community, her loving sister Abigail, her fierce, proud grand-niece Cocoa (who never would have allowed a man to hit her, rather the opposite). There's also Cocoa's equally proud, completely practical husband George, a trifling minor man, a colorful island character, and a mountainous figure of malevolence masquerading, not always unsuccessfully, as a poor put upon wife and friend. I cried so hard at the end of this book I upset all my dogs.

Ah, thanks. I didn't know much about the personal life (let alone beliefs) of Zora Neale Hurston.

> 59 Citizenjoyce: Thanks for sharing the interesting information about Hurston. It makes me see her work in a different way. I may have to re-read Their Eyes Were Watching God, which, by the way, IMO, has one of the most beautiful openings of any novel I've ever read.

I just read and reviewed the darkly funny Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns and the strangely compelling Bogeywoman by Jaimy Gordon.

Another thing that added to Hurston's comlexity. When writing in her "normal" literary voice she was unsurpassingly beautiful, but she insisted on writing in dialect which alienated many. I understand her wanting to present people in their own voice, but I wish she'd given us more of her own poetic prose.

Rebecca, I loved your review of Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, immediately searched it out in my library system only to find that the only Barbara Comyns book we have is the one about dolls. It's not on Nook either. Let's hope the rest of the world catches up to your opinion.

Citizenjoyce, I'd noticed that without realizing quite why she wrote that way. Now, it makes sense!

Joyce, I heard about it here on LT when someone mentioned the new edition of it put out by the Dorothy Project, and there is also an out-of-print Virago edition.

Greetings: I just joined, though under somewhat false pretenses. I don't try to read women authors--it just seems to happen that way!

I just finished Anne of Green Gables, a re-read. It was fun and charming and sad, a little, but mostly it was a wonderful paean to the beauty of nature. I'd love to visit Prince Edward's Island, but only in the seasons other than winter.

I'm now reading Cain His Brother by Anne Perry, as I'm working my way through her William Monk series. Well, it's called the William Monk series, but it might just as well be called the Hester Latterly series, as she seems to be at least equally important in solving the crimes!

Finished Batwoman: Elegy today. Not by a woman writer but has a strong female protagonist (and also a female villain but that's another story). A welcome change in the comic book world, which isn't always so women-friendly....

Sweetiegherkin, I see Don Choi is pictured in the book, but do you know if Katherine Miller has said anything about it? I imagine she'd rather like being thought of as Batwoman.

I am enjoying Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - its size is daunting, but it's a very enjoyable read, so far.

But I just realised Started Early, Took My Dog is due back at the library this weekend (someone else has requested it, so no extension!) so have put aside Jonathan Strange... for the next few days. (Should have enough reading time, I hope.)

Welcome ejj1955!!!

I have read all the books in the William Monk series, and greatly enjoyed them, more than the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series. Have fun reading them,! :-))

> 69

I just did some quick googling and found that Batwoman: Elegy was published before Katherine Miller resigned because of DADT. I see a number of blog posts, reviews, etc. comparing the book to the real-life incident, but nothing from Ms. Miller herself (not to say it's not out there, I just didn't find anything in a quick search). The Dan Choi cameo comes in a section where the author acknowledges consulting Choi to make sure the DADT situation was portrayed realistically.

Thanks, Sweetiegherkin. I'll be looking forward to seeing Miller as Batwoman, if only she could be persuaded.

Just started the most recent entry in the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear, The Mapping of Love and Death.

This was posted on another site and it looks like a deal too good to pass up.

Agate Publishing is giving away free e-book versions of Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans by Rosalyn Story, for the remainder of African-American History Month. It's a novel set in post-Katrina New Orleans, and, for what it's worth, it's gotten excellent reviews on Amazon. I'm not familiar with the book or the author, but I'll certainly give it a try.

More info: Free Wading Home! http://blog.agatepublishing.com/blog/2011/2/16/free-wading-home.html

The interview with Rosalyn Story makes the book seem very good. There's mention of the VIDA article and why there's such a hard time getting this book reviewed and sold.

I'm reading The Stonecutter by Camilla Lackberg, the sequel to The Ice Princess. The Stonecutter continues to follow Erica and Patrik, but of course, there is a brand new murder mystery in the small city of Fjallbacka. I cannot kick this Swedish murder mystery obsession that I have, but I'm not complaining too much!

>75 Citizenjoyce: Thanks Joyce. I downloaded Wading Home to my kindle. k4k

As we are approaching the end of the month I thought I better update my February reading. I finished Still life by Louise Penny - enjoyed this cozy mystery set in the small village of Three Pines in southern Quebec and will continue with the series. Next was The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys - a great WW II story set in the Devon countryside and may appeal to loves of gardening, Virginia Woolf and of course, understanding what it means to love. Followed that with The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean - an alright WW II story that focuses on the siege of Leningrad, memories and Alzeheimer's. I am now reading Dead Cold book two in the Three Pines series.

I was reviewing my reading for 2011 so far and was surprised to discover of the 19 books read this year, 16 are by female authors. Usually my reading is a close 50/50 balance between the genders so I found this to be an interesting statistic.

Edited to fix current book.

Good for you, lkernagh. I was reviewing my reading for 2011 so far and was surprised to discover of the 19 books read this year, 16 are by female authors. It's always good to get those stats up.

It wasn't deliberate, but of the 10 books I've read this year, 9 were by women and one was a collection of short stories, some by women, some by men!

I just finished In Our Control by Laura Eldridge. More than just an informative, well-researched guide to contraception, In Our Control also offers a history of contraception, analysis of the various social and political movements which have affected (and still do affect) women's reproductive choices, and even a section on the environmental impact of birth control. I was totally surprised at what an engrossing read this was, and can't wait for Laura's next project to be released (Body Politic: Dispatches from the Women's Health Revolution).

I'm partly through Free: Adventures on the Margins of a Wasteful Society by Katharine Hibbert, which is a fascinating (at least so far) memoir of a twenty something woman who decides to give up everything and experiment with squatting, dumpster-diving and other alternatives to capitalist/consumerist society for one year.

20 women did that together? I believe in second hand clothes, and second hand furniture, even squatting but dumpster diving for food - couldn' do it.

>82 Citizenjoyce: I think she means a 20-something year-old woman, not 20 women. But totally agree about the dumpster diving. Euww. Used to work with someone who did that, though. She was well-educated and made a decent salary, but overall, one of the most ignorant and saddest people I've ever met.

Of course it was 20-something women, what was I thinking?

>79 Citizenjoyce: Interesting idea about the stats. I looked over my reading for the year so far and 12 out of the 25 books I've read are by women. This counts children's books but doesn't account for books I'm currently reading. It's also worth noting that two of the books by men included strong female protagonists Batwoman: Elegy by Greg Rucka and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.