This is a joyous
book about living differently in difficult times, a utopian “manifesto” about
the power of art.
The book is partly a global history of “drag,” partly a
personal memoir about growing up “gender queer” and becoming a drag queen, and partly a book of ideas and stories. The author is the winner of the ninth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, an internationally known performer, and a cartoonist who recently did a New Yorker cover—of herself.
I found lots of bold hope in this book, lots of love and magic. The personal is political, feminists have long argued, a connection this book “reveals” on every page.
For
me, the book is also personal in another way. In my long life, far more fun than
having been “Professor Steinberg” for many years is that I am also “Papa
Velour.” As I like to say about Sasha, “she is my son.”
"Drag embodies the queer possibility that exists within each of us-the infinite ways in which gender, good taste, and art can be lived."
-Sasha Velour
This book is a quilt, piecing together memoir, history, and theory into a living portrait of an artist and an art. Within these pages, illustrated throughout with photos and original artwork, Sasha Velour illuminates drag as a unique form of expression with a rich history and a revolutionary spirit.
Each chapter strips off a new layer, removing one tantalizing glove and then another, to reveal all the twists and turns in the life of a…
Perhaps because it was a “number one bestseller” and I am
a snob, I did not expect to be so won over by this book. I was knocked over by its
power and wisdom.
On the surface, this is a fictional reimagining of the
experiences of Shakespeare’s wife and family when their 11-year-old son Hamnet
dies from the plague. We know this happened and that Shakespeare’s writing was
affected by this trauma, including Hamlet. But this is not a book about Shakespeare.
The man is out of town most of the novel, so much so that his absence
is itself a story.
As a historian, I admired the recreation of the everyday experiences
of women in England in the 1500s. But what made this book so powerful for me
were the experiences and emotions it summoned about love, loss, and death. I am
not alone, of course, in having experienced all of these.
On the surface, my life
is very distant from the people in Hamnet. But their story and how
O’Farrell tells it touched me deeply.
WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION - THE NO. 1 BESTSELLER 2021 'Richly sensuous... something special' The Sunday Times 'A thing of shimmering wonder' David Mitchell
TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART.
On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?
Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.
I have always loved detective
stories, but I only discovered Inspector
Montalbano through the Italian TV series; it is so evocative of Italy and Sicily and
reminds me of my favorite detectives from Holmes to Maigret.
Only when I
started living part-time in Italy, for unexpected personal reasons, did I turn
to the books (in translation). Now I am really hooked.
Perhaps I identify with
Montalbano: his approach to clues and crimes (which reminds me of the work of a
historian), his troubled feelings about getting older, his arguments with
himself, his sensuality, and his passion for good food. Potter’s Field is
one of the best.
I can list some of its themes: dreams, symbols, politics, the
Mafia, beauty, ideals, sex, betrayal. And, of course, investigating a murder.
When brought together in great storytelling with some remarkable characters, the
mixture is irresistible.
As seen on TV: now a major BBC4 television series. WINNER OF THE CWA INTERNATIONAL DAGGER AWARD 2012 While Vigata is wracked by storms, Inspector Montalbano is called to attend the discovery of a dismembered body in a field of clay. Bearing all the marks of an execution style killing, it seems clear that this is, once again, the work of the notorious local mafia. But who is the victim? Why was the body divided into 30 pieces? And what is the significance of the Potter's Field? Working to decipher these clues, Montalbano must also confront the strange and difficult…
Mark D. Steinberg explores the work of individuals he recognizes as utopians during the most dramatic period in Russian and Soviet history. It has long been a cliché to argue that Russian revolutionary movements have been inspired by varieties of 'utopian dreaming' – claims which, although not wrong, are too often used uncritically.
For the first time,Russian Utopia digs deeper and asks what utopians meant at the level of ideas, emotions, and lived experience.
Despite the fact that many would have resisted the 'utopian' label at the time because of its dismissive meanings, Steinberg's comprehensive approach sees him take in political leaders, intellectuals, writers, and artists (visual, material, and musical), as well as workers, peasants, soldiers, students and others.
