Iâve always been interested in the interconnected lives of women and of womanhood. I find that it's also important to acknowledge the diversity in womenâs experiences in all cultures and points in history. My first academic essay, which was published, was âReevaluating of the Role of Women in Beowulfâ which, in my youth, helped to not only flesh out the historical and contemporary roles women or persons who identify as women have had but also to begin to understand what that means to myself and to those around me. Since then, when writing about women in my numerous stories and novels, I focus on how she exists within her world and how she defines herself.
Here is a book that grabbed me from the first paragraph. Itâs a wonderful exploration of contemporary Japan and the struggles that women have as they grow and age. As a woman in my mid-thirties, I enjoyed the self-deprecating and honest imagery that was presented through the characters in this novel.
A BEST BOOK OF 2020 TIME Magazineă»The Atlantică»Book Riotă»Electric Literatureă»The New York Times (Notable Book of the Year)
The story of three women by a writer hailed by Haruki Murakami as Japanâs most important contemporary novelist, WINNER OF THE AKUTAGAWA PRIZE.
On a sweltering summer day, Makiko travels from Osaka to Tokyo, where her sister Natsu lives. She is in the company of her daughter, Midoriko, who has lately grown silent, finding herself unable to voice the vague yet overwhelming pressures associated with adolescence. The story of these three women reunited in a working-class neighborhood of Tokyo is told throughâŠ
Alice Walker is one of my constant and favorite authors and I find myself re-reading her works often. I was fortunate enough to be part of a discussion of this book with Alice Walker present and was in awe of how forthright she was. Gathering Blossoms Under Fire is a collection of her journals that shared such intimate moments from her life.
'These journals are a revelation, a road map and a gift to us all' TAYARI JONES, author of An American Marriage
From the acclaimed author Alice Walker - winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize - comes an unprecedented compilation of four decades' worth of journals that draw an intimate portrait of her development as an artist, intellectual and human rights activist.
In Gathering Blossoms Under Fire, Walker offers a passionate, intimate record of her intellectual, artistic and political development. She also intimately explores - in real time - her thoughts and feelings as a woman, aâŠ
This book is a literary historical novel. It is set in Britain immediately after World War II, when people â gay, straight, young, and old - are struggling to get back on track with their lives, including their love lives. Because of the turmoil of the times, the number ofâŠ
I first read The Bread Givers in college. It was assigned to me and I read the entire thing on a flight to London. This is one of my favorite novels to read because of how the narrative follows a young Jewish woman in New York as she struggles against tradition and expectations to pursue her own desires.
First published in 1925, Anzia Yezierska's "Bread Givers" is the tale of a young Jewish-American immigrant woman and her struggle to control her own destiny in Manhattan's Lower East Side at the turn of the century. The novel is based in large part on Yezierska's own life experiences immigrating from Poland as a child and growing up in New York City in an Orthodox Jewish family. "Bread Givers" centers on the story of its main character, Sara Smolinsky, who lives with her older sisters and parents in a poor tenement in the Lower East Side. The Smolinsky family is destituteâŠ
I enjoyed the presentation of the historical and biographical point of view in this book which follows Forough Farrokhzad from a forced marriage to her life as a poet and filmmaker. The poetry from Forough Farrokhzad itself is used to give insight into her thoughts and desires. Her poem "Sin" was one that I read and re-read at different points during the book because of how it intertwined with the narrative.Â
LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER âąÂ A spellbinding debut novel about the trailblazing Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad, who defied societyâs expectations to find her voice and her destiny
âA complex and beautiful rendering of [a] vanished country and its scattered people, a reminder of the power and purpose of art, and an ode to female creativity under a patriarchy that repeatedly tries to snuff it out.ââThe New York Times Book Review (Editorsâ Choice)
All through her childhood in Tehran, Forugh Farrokhzad is told that Persian daughters should be quiet and modest. She is taught only to obey, but she always findsâŠ
Hope, Laughter, Survival on the Refugee Trail
by
Eileen Kay,
Dramatic true story with a wacky sense of humor.
Retired English teacher in Budapest meets foreign medical students fleeing the war in Ukraine, producing a sweet and unlikely friendship, spicy soup, and wicked joking. A sense of humor, however dark, can keep us from despair.
This was one of the first women-focused love stories Iâd read as a young adult, so it holds a nostalgic essence over my experience reading womenâs fiction. I enjoyed how it shared the life of a young lesbian woman as she came of age in the 1890s. Overall, the novel was fun and exciting and showed the resilience of the narrator as she sought to live her truth.
'Piercing the shadows of the naked stage was a single shaft of rosy limelight, and in the centre of this was a girl: the most marvellous girl - I knew it at once! - that I had ever seen.'
A saucy, sensuous and multi-layered historical romance set in the 'roaring' 1890s, Tipping the Velvet follows the glittering career of Nan King on her journey from Whitstable oyster-girl to music-hall star to cross-dressing rentboy to East End 'tom'.
In 2011, Tara Larson is told that her English teaching contract would not be renewed. Upset and despondent, she moves from her small hometown of Minot, North Dakota to take an Assistant Language Teaching position in Tokyo, Japan. Having barely traveled outside her home state, Tara finds new cultural experiences while in the Land of the Rising Sun. It is there that she meets Ami Kishiguchi and the two share an inexorable bond. However, when the Tohoku earthquake and nuclear disaster threaten to separate them, Tara must decide if she will stay and continue her relationship or leave Japan for the safety of home.
Artist Nilda Ricci could use a stroke of luck. She seems to get it when she inherits a shadowy Victorian, built by an architect whose houses were said to influence the mindâsupposedly, in beneficial ways. At first, Nildaâs new home delivers, with the help of its longtime housekeeper. And NildaâŠ
Did a heartbreak ever make you want to move to the other side of the planet?
Failed comedian and heartbroken idiot escapes to a jungle hut on an obscure island in Thailand. Warm sunshine, new friends, and fresh mangoes heal most wounds.
âFunny, wise and thought-provoking, outspoken, touching, surprising, andâŠ
