Here are 69 books that Women in American Music Women's Studies Kresge College University of California fans have personally recommended if you like
Women in American Music Women's Studies Kresge College University of California.
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My expertise as a scholar of the women’s music movement spans 40 years--ever since I attended my first concert and music festival in 1981. A lecturer at UC-Berkeley, I’m the author of 19 books on women’s history, and published the first book on women’s music festivals, Eden Built By Eves, in 1999 (now out of print.) More recently I’ve organized exhibits on the women’s music movement for the Library of Congress, co-authored The Feminist Revolution(which made Oprah’s list), and I’m now the archivist and historian for Olivia Records.
A wonderful overview of the early years of Olivia Records, this memoir from the social justice warrior of the original Olivia collective details how the first lesbian recording company was founded—and succeeded, despite all odds. Berson includes romantic insights on the artists’ passion for one another, as well as accounts of building a national audience. For two generations of women who came out with this music, the songs and albums remain critical anthems of female empowerment—and the only music that existed to affirm lesbians’ lives.
Literary Nonfiction. Women's Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. Music. The burgeoning lesbian and feminist movements of the '70s and '80s created an impetus to form more independent and equitable social and cultural institutions--bookstores, publishers, health clinics, and more--to support the unprecedented surge in women's arts of all kinds. Olivia Records was at the forefront of these models, not only recording and distributing women's music but also creating important new social spaces for previously isolated women and lesbians through concerts and festivals. Ginny Z Berson, one of Olivia's founding members and visionaries, kept copious records during those heady days--days also fraught with contradictions,…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
My expertise as a scholar of the women’s music movement spans 40 years--ever since I attended my first concert and music festival in 1981. A lecturer at UC-Berkeley, I’m the author of 19 books on women’s history, and published the first book on women’s music festivals, Eden Built By Eves, in 1999 (now out of print.) More recently I’ve organized exhibits on the women’s music movement for the Library of Congress, co-authored The Feminist Revolution(which made Oprah’s list), and I’m now the archivist and historian for Olivia Records.
This comprehensive exploration of the women’s music movement in the 1970s and 80s looks at every angle of business and culture, from artists, companies, labels, distributors, publicity, session musicians, and more; the book includes over 100 interviews, and draws upon the author’s personal experience as a popular touring performer and recording artist.
In California, a month before the Stonewall Riots in 1969, Maxine Feldman penned a song, “Angry Atthis,” about the shame surrounding lesbians. She didn’t know where she was going to sing her new song until comedy duo Harrison and Tyler asked her to open their shows. On the other side of the country and three years later, Alix Dobkin released Lavender Jane Loves Women, the first record produced, engineered and played by women.
Maxine and Alix had no business plan. They didn’t fit the mold set by mainstream music but they saw great potential to create a powerful soundtrack for…
My expertise as a scholar of the women’s music movement spans 40 years--ever since I attended my first concert and music festival in 1981. A lecturer at UC-Berkeley, I’m the author of 19 books on women’s history, and published the first book on women’s music festivals, Eden Built By Eves, in 1999 (now out of print.) More recently I’ve organized exhibits on the women’s music movement for the Library of Congress, co-authored The Feminist Revolution(which made Oprah’s list), and I’m now the archivist and historian for Olivia Records.
A memoir by one of the most enduring women’s music performers, covering her background in peace activism and solidarity with Black freedom singers that led to the creation of Redwood Records. Wonderful material on the many tensions concerning concerts for women only vs. forming alliances with other progressive communities and performance partners.
Singer-songwriter Holly Near reveals her professional triumphs and setbacks and her personal side, detailing her childhood, her activism, her emerging lesbianism, and her role in women's music
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
My expertise as a scholar of the women’s music movement spans 40 years--ever since I attended my first concert and music festival in 1981. A lecturer at UC-Berkeley, I’m the author of 19 books on women’s history, and published the first book on women’s music festivals, Eden Built By Eves, in 1999 (now out of print.) More recently I’ve organized exhibits on the women’s music movement for the Library of Congress, co-authored The Feminist Revolution(which made Oprah’s list), and I’m now the archivist and historian for Olivia Records.
Featuring an Introduction by artist Linda Tillery, the book offers a timely critique of white-centered women’s music events and the possibility of Black women’s music festivals. The author looks at the different experiences of Black audiences in primarily white feminist festival spaces and the role of Black lesbian artists across several generations.
Drawing on fieldwork conducted at eight women's music festivals, Eileen M. Hayes shows how studying these festivals--attended by predominately white lesbians--provides critical insight into the role of music and lesbian community formation. She argues that the women's music festival is a significant institutional site for the emergence of black feminist consciousness in the contemporary period. Hayes also offers sage perspectives on black women's involvement in the women's music festival scene, the ramifications of their performances as drag kings in those environments, and the challenges and joys of a black lesbian retreat based on the feminist festival model. With acuity and…
My name is Bri Bruce, writing as B. L. Bruce, and am an award-winning poet and Pushcart prize nominee from California. Over the last decade and a half, my work has appeared in dozens of literary publications. I am the author of four books and Editor-in-Chief of nature-centric magazineHumana Obscura. I was raised with a wildlife biologist/avid gardener for a mother and a forestry major/backpacker/fisherman as a father. Both my parents instilled in me at a young age a love of nature. A lifetime spent outdoors inspires my work—so much so that I’ve been called a “poetic naturalist” and the “heiress of Mary Oliver.”
This volume of selected poems and unpublished works spoke to me during a time when I was finding my voice, and was formative during my early years as a poet. While not heavily embedded in the nature genre, the author on occasion writes her observations of the natural world with strong imagery. The author is also from my hometown of Santa Cruz, California, and left her mark on the poetry community. Her poems are powerful but accessible and written in simple language, which I feel makes for the best kind of poetry.
California poet and activist, Maude Meehan speaks eloquently. Washing the Stones resonates with compassion and a strong spirit. This stunning collection spans twenty years of work from Chipping Bone and Befoe the Snow, plus new, never-before-published poems
My favorite books are funny/sad. In my own writing, I aspire for balance between satire and sympathy, going to dark places and shining a light of hilarity on them. I’m compelled by the psychological complexities of desire, particularly in female characters—flawed, average women, struggling for empowerment. For me, desire is inextricably bound with loss. I’m inspired by loss both superficial and profound, from misplaced keys to dying fathers. Many voices clamor in my head, vying for my attention. I’m interested in ambitious misfits, enraged neurotics, pagans, shamans, healers, dealers, grifters, and spiritual seekers who are forced to adapt, construct, reinvent and contort themselves as reality shifts around them.
Over Easy is the first part of Madge’s story, followed by The Customer is Always Wrong. They can be read separately as each stands on its own, but are best absorbed one after the other. These books are visually inventive and full of unforgettable characters who leap off the page and lodge in your imagination. The story follows Madge, an open-hearted artist who finds refuge and adventure in the wise-cracking, fast-talking, drug-taking world of the Imperial Café where she gets a job as a waitress after being denied financial aid to cover her last year in art school. Full of wit and pathos, Mimi Pond captures the perfect balance of hilarious and heartbreaking, all with fantastic drawings. She makes it look easy!
Over Easy is a brilliant portrayal of a familiar coming-of-age story. After being denied financial aid to cover her last year of art school, Margaret finds salvation from the straight-laced world of college and the earnestness of both hippies and punks in the wisecracking, fast-talking, drug-taking group she encounters at the Imperial Cafe, where she makes the transformation from Margaret to Madge. At first she mimics these new and exotic grown-up friends, trying on the guise of adulthood with some awkward but funny stumbles. Gradually she realizes that the adults she looks up to are a mess of contradictions, misplaced…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
As a social scientist, I've always been interested in how the communities we live in shape our values, priorities, and behavior. I also care about how institutional change—from small things like a college offering a new major to big things like a town choosing to incorporate—can shape communities. Each of these books has changed my thinking about how we influence, and are influenced by, the communities we live in, for better or worse. I'm a professor in the departments of Political Science and Quantitative Theory and Methods at Emory University in Atlanta, and I hold a Ph.D. in the Social Sciences from Caltech.
Between 1954 and 1981, when this book was written, the number of cities in L.A. County nearly doubled from 45 to 81. Many of these new cities contracted with the county for their basic public services, and were consequently able to maintain low property tax rates. Homeowners "voted with their feet" by moving to these new cities, and previously middle-class places like Compton saw their tax bases plummet while their need for public services skyrocketed. As a native Angeleno, I found Miller's account of the fragmentation of Los Angeles fascinating and devastating. A gem of a chapter entitled "Is the Invisible Hand Biased?" presents a withering critique of the argument—standard in economic theory—that more choices make people better off.
The battle line in the urban conflict lies between the central city and the affluent suburb. The city, needing to broaden its tax base in order to provide increasingly necessary social services, has sought to annex the suburb. The latter, in order to hold down property taxes, has sought independence through incorporation.
Cities by Contract documents and dissects this process through case studies of communities located in Los Angeles County. The book traces the incorporation of "Lakewood Plan" cities, municipalities which contract with the county for the provision of basic—which is to say minimal—services.
If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you know that its climate is unique in the U.S. and that there are many microclimates within the region. It’s all mediterranean, as you can tell by its dry summers and mild, wet winters. But near the coast, summer fog carpets the land for weeks and winter is rarely frosty, while inland summers are hot, winter frosts are frequent. I live here and use my academic and first-hand experience with plants to help regional gardeners create year-round beauty and harvests in all of our wonderful, often perplexing microclimates.
An
introductory chapter describes our greater Bay Area climate and its
microclimates. The plants listed are ones that will thrive in the region with a
minimum of summer water. The glory of the book is in the photographs by Saxon
Holt, which include close shots for identification and wider shots that will
inspire you to combine plants handsomely in your garden.
We’ve all read them: the girl who is unknowingly of royal blood but was sequestered to an ordinary family to protect her identity. The detective with the broken home and a drink problem is driven to solve the crime. The action hero who can shoot their way out of any encounter. While these tropes are the bread and butter of genre fiction, they get overused. I found that my favorite and most engaging characters were those with complicated lives whose pasts might catch up with them at an inconvenient moment. Here are some of my favorite stories with unconventional characters that shine through the narrative.
My copies of this series are so worn by reading and re-reading that they are falling apart. There’s no higher praise from me as a reader.
This is my comfort read, which is odd because it’s about the fall of a civilization—and The Dark, in particular, is terrifying. We never really see them. That’s partly because they aren’t entirely corporeal and can change size and shape at will. It’s also because anyone we know in the story who encounters them is almost certainly fighting for their life.
Are The Dark one character or many? Certainly, what one of them knows, they all know. The key to this conundrum is what motivates them to do as they do, and alien as they are; their motivations are as unexpected as they are profound.
This is beautifully written classic fantasy in all its glory. If you only read one book of these five,…
Gil, a graduate student, discovers that her nightmares of people fleeing in panic from a hideous evil are not dreams and that she is standing in the doorway to another world
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
California’s San Joaquin Valley is so congenial to plants I thought it made me a gardener. When I got my first job in a retail nursery I quickly realized how little I knew. Twenty years in the nursery trade expanded the depth and breadth of my garden skills. I owe my horticultural education to knowledgeable colleagues, an unending stream of interesting questions from nursery customers, and especially to Ed Laivo who introduced me to an ArcticGlo nectarine that commanded my attention.
Because of obvious limitations—space in the garden, sun, availability, and one’s responsibility to be a conscientious steward during a probably unending California drought—it’s impossible to grow as many roses as one would like. It’s not impossible, however, to content oneself with two or three plants for cutting flowers, and, instead, moon over this comprehensive collection of gorgeous photographs, descriptions of form, petal counts, habits, parentage, and scents. Keep 2,000 roses on the bookshelf. This book is a treasure.
