Recently in Books Category

Exciting bit from my publisher's news this morning:

The Iranian-American journalist who was sentenced in April, 2009 to eight years in Iranian prison and freed on appeal in May following broad based international pressure, Roxana Saberi's account of her six years in Iran, her imprisonment, her trial, and her ultimate release, providing a look at Iranian society and culture, and the political tensions which have sparked debate across the globe, to Harper for publication in March, 2010.

We just got this letter from a reader:

Help out a newbie!
I just new to feminism, thanks to my psychology of women class I'm taking this summer. It inspired me to read Full Frontal Feminism - now I'm hooked! But...I have no idea where to go from here. What should I read next? And what can I do as someone who's still pretty clueless but would like to change that and get involved?
Thanks for any suggestions!

My two cents:
On reading, you can't go wrong with Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde, Backlash by Susan Faludi, and This Bridge Called My Back by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua (among SO many others). Seal Press also has a new series called Seal Studies designed to be an introduction to a lot of different topics that you might want to check out.

Reading blogs is a great thing too. Make sure to look for voices with perspectives that are unlike your own, allowing you to stretch your definitions of what constitutes a feminist issue and even how you might look at the same ol' things.

On getting involved, I think starting locally is a great way to get your feet wet in feminist activism. Is there a feminist group on your campus or on in your town that you can get involved in? The people you meet there can probably key you into other activist networks. Activism, just like everything else in life, is about relationships, so start meeting other feminists and they'll lead you to the action. Also, be sure to check our events page to look out for other feminists in your area doing great work.

Alright community, what suggestions do you have for this self-declared newbie?

Each year, the Lambda Literary Foundation honors authors who write on LGBT topics. This year's winners were announced at the end of May.

About the awards:

The Lambda Literary Awards seek to recognize excellence in the field of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender literature. Each year, over 80 judges -- writers, booksellers, librarians, journalists -- assess the entries in more than 20 categories.

I love this particular award because I find it a good suggested reading list for LGBT books.

Full list of winners after the jump.

Check out the books: Poems from the Women's Movement by Honor Moore and The Little Book of Meaning by Laura Berman Fortgang.

Approximate transcript after the jump.

If you're in the NYC area, Jessica will be at Bluestockings this Sunday at 7pm for a reading and discussion about The Purity Myth. Come by!

If you want to chat with me about The Purity Myth feel free to hit me up directly or use #puritymyth to talk to me or others about the book. (Not sure what a hash tag is? Check out Deanna's great post, A non-fanatical beginner's guide to Twitter.)

Just a reminder that I'll be doing a reading from The Purity Myth tonight at Revolution Books in Berkeley. Come and say hi if you're in the area! (RSVP to the event on Facebook.)

For other feminist events, don't forget to check out our calendar.

Check out Same Kind of Different As Me, Front Lines, and Black Women's Lives.

Remember that thoroughly researched and eye-opening book I reviewed a few weeks ago called Quiverfull? Well, despite the fact that author Kathryn Joyce wrote an exhaustively detailed and accurate portrayal, free of the kind of snark that so often seeps into subculture journalism, she is being attacked by right wing fear-mongers. Doug Phillips, the director of Vision Forum Ministries, awards Kathryn with, I kid you not, "the 2009 Vulgaria Child Catcher of the Year Award." The explanation:

The first mission of the book is to warn the radical left about America's real threat -- pregnant mothers who quote Psalm 127 and submit to their husbands. The second mission is to paint certain ministries and Christian parents as intolerant racists with a penchant for spousal abuse, and other even more unconscionable crimes (Message to Barack Hussein Obama: "Fearless Leader -- forget, the fundamentalists in Iraq; these prolific Christians are the real bad guys!") The idea here is to throw blood into the water and whoop the press sharks into a feeding frenzy.

But it's not just Kathryn that gets heaps of scorn, it's her publisher, Beacon Press:

None of this should surprise us, because Beacon Press, Joyce's publisher, is well-known as a purveyor of ultra-radical, pro-homosexual, feminist, anti-Christian propaganda, including such books as: The Female Man; Changing of the Gods: Feminism and the End of Traditional Religions; and Beyond Shame: Reclaiming the Abandoned History of Radical Gay Sexuality as well as other titles too vile to name.

Score one for me. Beacon is also publishing my book about young people and social justice next year. I guess I'll be in the running for "the 2010 Vulgaria Child Catcher of the Year Award" for talking about how young lost adolescents are trying to make meaning out of justice instead of captial G, God, or rooting their identities in critical thinking, kindness, and hard work instead of pumping out babies for the Christian army.

I say congrats on Kathryn for such a powerful and, in my opinion, respectful book, and congrats to Beacon, specifically editor Amy Caldwell, for being brave enough to publish ground breaking investigative journalism. It's sad that leaders like Doug Phillips can't acknowledge the quality of a book like Quiverfull and use it as the catalyst for a dialogue among those in his community and outside of it. Until we can speak respectfully (which is what I truly believe Kathryn was trying to do) across religious lines, we will never find common ground.

From the NYTimes:

Marilyn French, a writer and feminist activist whose debut novel, "The Women's Room," propelled her into a leading role in the modern feminist movement, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 79 and lived in Manhattan.

With steely views about the treatment of woman and a gift for expressing them on the printed page, Ms. French transformed herself from an academic who quietly bristled at the expectations of married women in the post-World War II era to a leading, if controversial, opinion maker on gender issues who decried the patriarchal society she saw around her. "My goal in life is to change the entire social and economic structure of Western civilization, to make it a feminist world," she once declared.

That's a goal I can get behind.

More thoughts about French's work and life at Isak.