Women's Review of Books - 2016 Issues

January/February 2016

Building Radical Bridges
Florynce “Flo” Kennedy: The Life of a Black Feminist Radical By Sherie M. Randolph
Reviewed by Benita Roth

The Woman You've Never Heard of Who's The Reason You Practice Yoga
The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West By Michelle Goldberg
Reviewed by Heather Hewett

The Mess They Leave Behind
Irrepressible: The Jazz Age Life of Henrietta Bingham By Emily Bingham
Reviewed by Carla Kaplan

Puerto Rican, New Yorker, Latina
Becoming Julia de Burgos: The Making of a Puerto Rican Icon By Vanessa Pérez Rosario
Reviewed by Lorgia García Peña

Lost and Found
M Train By Patti Smith
Reviewed by Lisa L. Moore

Becoming One of Them
The Lioness in Winter: Writing an Old Woman’s Life By Ann Burack-Weiss
Reviewed by Ruth Ray Karpen

Are Scientists Human?
The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science is Still a Boys’ Club By Eileen Pollack
Reviewed by Allie Rubin

Photography
Images of Transition
Photography by Claudine Doury and Commentary by Marie-Christine Guyot
Translated by Ellen Feldman. Click here for the Commentary in French.

Disintegrations and Transformations
Two Faint Lines in the Violet By Lissa Kiernan
Bloom in Reverse By Teresa Leo
Beauty Mark By Suzanne Cleary
Reviewed by Judith Vollmer

Rewilding
The Wolf Border By Sarah Hall
Reviewed by Valerie Miner

Field Notes
A Novel in Verse with the Strengths of Each By Robin Becker

Poetry
By Lauren K. Alleyne

Spanning Class and Country
The Story of My Teeth By Valeria Luiselli, translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
Reviewed by Martha Gies

Revealing Ourselves to Ourselves
A House of My Own: Stories from My Life By Sandra Cisneros
Reviewed by Miroslava Chávez-García

Capacious Feminism
Revolutionizing Expectations: Women’s Organizations, Feminism and American Politics 1965-1980 By Melissa Estes Blair
Watching Women’s Liberation 1970: Feminism’s Pivotal Year on the Network News By Bonnie Dow
Reviewed by Amy Kesselman

Keep It Real
Falling in Love with Hominids By Nalo Hopkinson
Reviewed by Rochelle Spencer

The Age of Curie
Making Marie Curie: Intellectual Property and Celebrity Culture in an Age of Information By Eva Hemmungs Wirten
Reviewed by Sally Gregory Kohlstedt

Women's Review of Books issues are now available for purchase as digital downloads!

March/April 2016

Women As Symbol and Reality
Kabul Carnival: Gender Politics in Postwar Afghanistan By Julie Billaud
Reviewed by Jennifer G. Mathers

One in Two, Two in One
The Story of the Lost Child By Elena Ferrante
Reviewed by Lisa Mullenneaux

"Moses Married a Colored Woman"
The Fight for Interracial Marriage Rights in Antebellum Massachusetts By Amber D. Moulton
Reviewed by Sandra F. VanBurkleo

Both Victims and Perpetrators
Addicted. Pregnant. Poor. By Kelly Ray Knight
Reviewed by Andrea Grimes

Cartoon
In Reference To
By Whit Taylor

Good Reads
Unconventional Characters
By Trish Crapo

Poetry
By Jayne Benjullan
Reviewed by Jennifer G. Mathers

To the Reader in Chief
Some of our favorite feminists recommend books for the next US president’s reading list
By Alicia Ostriker, AnaLouise Keating, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Callie Crossley, Courtney E. Martin, Ellen Feldman, Jennifer Camper, Kate Clinton, Katie Grover, Layli Maparyan, Yi-Chun Tricia Lin, Marjorie Agosin, Martha Nichols, Moya Bailey, Robin Becker, and Rochelle Ruthchild
Illustrations by Jennifer Camper

Stepford Wives and Sexbots
My Fair Ladies: Female Robots, Androids, and Other Artificial Eves By Julie Wosk
Reviewed by Madeleine Monson-Rosen

Singing for the Revolution
A Radical Life in Song: A Memoir By Ronnie Gilbert
Reviewed by Alix Dobkin

New Chinese Poetry
Something Crosses My Mind By Wang Xiaoni, translated by Eleanor Goodman
Salsa By Hsia Yü, translated by Steve Bradbury
Reviewed by Marthine Satris

The Politics of Forgetting - And Remembering
Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women Edited by Mia Bay, Farah J. Griffin, Martha S. Jones, and Barbara D. Savage
Reviewed by Kellie Carter Jackson

The History of Violence
The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America By Sarah Deer
Reviewed by Jody Raphael

Women's Review of Books issues are now available for purchase as digital downloads!

May/June 2016

Gifts from the Goddess of Jurisprudence
Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World By Linda Hirshman
Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Reviewed by Ruthann Robson

Radical Mamas
Mamas of Dada: Women of the European Avant-GardeBy Paula K. Kamenish
Reviewed by Irene Gammel

Achievement. Invulnerability. Comportment
Negroland By Margo Jefferson; Oreo By Fran Ross
Reviewed by Marilyn Richardson

The Interminable Abortion Wars
Abortion After Roe By Johanna Schoen;
After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion DebateBy Mary Ziegler
Reviewed by Rickie Solinger

Attention Must Be Paid
On Becoming a Teen Mom: Life Before Pregnancy
By Mary Patrice Erdmans and Timothy Black; System Kids: Adolescent Mothers and the Politics of Regulation
By Lauren J. Silver
Reviewed by Ruth Sidel

Mental Illness Then And Now
White Matter: A Memoir of Family and Medicine
By Janet Sternburg; The Last Asylum: A History of Madness in Our Times
By Barbara Taylor
Reviewed by Katherine Hayes

Photography Photos Like Jazz: Twenty-First Century Street Photography
By Ellen Feldman

Possessed By Demons
The Strange Case of Ermine de Reims: A Medieval Woman Between Demons and Saints
By Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski
Reviewed by Christina Stern

Claiming An Identity
The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle
By Lillian Faderman
Reviewed by Audrey Bilger

Poetry
By Dina Coe

Field Notes Across The Generations
By Robin Becker

Searching For Home
Fanny Says By Nickole Brown; My Crooked House By Teresa Carson; The Republics
By Nathalie Handal
Reviewed by Carol Bere

Delayed, But Not Forgotten
In Certain Circles
By Elizabeth Harrower
Reviewed by Jessica Jernigan

Complacency Or Peril
The Complete Stories
By Clarice Lispector, translated by Katrina Dobson, edited by Benjamin Moser
Reviewed by Marguerite Itamar Harrison

Plan A And Plan B
Love’s Promises: How Formal and Informal Contracts Shape All Kinds of Families
By Martha Ertman
Reviewed by Dana Rudolph

Women's Review of Books issues are now available for purchase as digital downloads!

July/August 2016

From Scandal to Recovery
Lady Byron and Her Daughters By Julia Markus
Reviewed by Pamela S. Bromberg

Hair
Dressing for the Culture Wars: Style and the Politics of Self-Presentation in the 1960s and 1970s By Betty Luther Hillman
Reviewed by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell

Feminism and Terrorism
Death in the Shape of a Young Girl: Women's Political Violence in the Red Army Faction By Patricia Melzer;
After the Red Army Faction: Gender, Culture, and Militancy By Charity Scribner
Reviewed by Elizabeth Heineman

An Avant-Garde Life
Edgewise: A Picture of Cookie Mueller By Chloé Griffin
Reviewed by An Paenhuysen

The Cult of Forbidden Thoughts
The Big Green Tent By Ludmila Ulitskaya, translated by Polly Gannon Reviewed
by Beth Holmgren

Racism, Sexism, and Nursing
Nursing Civil Rights: Gender and Race in the Army Nurse Corps By Charissa J. Threat
Reviewed by Jane E. Schultz

The Speech of the Dispossessed
Women in Dark Times By Jacqueline Rose
Reviewed by Rebecca Steinitz

Good Reads Unraveling By Trish Crapo

Poetry By Angela Consolo Mankiewicz

Cartoon By A.K. Summers

Women in Print
The Feminist Bookstore Movement: Lesbian Antiracism and Feminist Accountability By Kristen Hogan
Reviewed by Susanna J. Sturgis

A Rediscovered Poet for our Time
Anything that Burns You: A Portrait of Lola Ridge, Radical Poet By Terese Svoboda
Reviewed by Margaret Randall

Constructing Identity up Against a Wall
Bitter Almonds By Lilas Taha;
The Blue Between Sky and Water By Susan Abulhawa;
A Curious Land By Susan Darraj;
Ali and His Russian Mother By Alexandra Chreiteh, translated by Michelle Hartman
Reviewed by M. Lynx Qualey

Conocimiento Lunar / Lunar Knowledge
Light in the Dark / Luz en lo oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality By Gloria Anzald, edited by AnaLouise Keating
Reviewed by Romana Radlwimmer

Just the Facts
Galileo's Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science By Alice Dreger
Reviewed by E.J. Graff

Women's Review of Books issues are now available for purchase as digital downloads!

September/October 2016

Unfun Feminism
We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to Covergirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement By Andi Zeisler
Reviewed by Paula Kamen, Illustrations by Jennifer Camper

A Spirit Leader
Maya Angelou: Adventurous Spirit By Linda Wagner-Martin
Reviewed by Farah Jasmine Griffin

The Sidewalk Ballet
Becoming Jane Jacobs by Peter L. Laurence
Reviewed by Renée Loth

Changing Women’s Minds
This Book Is an Action: Feminist Print Culture and Activist Aesthetics By Jaime Harker and Cecilia Konchar Farr
Reviewed by Judith Kegan Gardiner

Scar Tissue
The Spectral Wound: Sexual Violence, Public Memories, and the Bangladesh War of 1971 By Nayanika Mookerjee
Reviewed by Ritu Menon

Field Notes
A Formal Feeling Comes By Robin Becker

Photography
Embracing the Surreal By Brooke Burns, Photos By Maia Flore

Philosophy and Action
Senses of the Subject By Judith Butler;
Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly By Judith Butler
Reviewed by Michele M. Moody-Adams

Poetry of the Borderland
A Crown for Gumecindo By Laurie Ann Guerrero; Aguacamino/Waterpath By Rossy Evelin Lima; Blood, Sugar, Canto By ire’ne lara silva; The Ones Santa Anna Sold By Raquel Valle-Sentíes
Reviewed by Norma E. Cantú

Poetry By Mary Ann Donnelly

Aging in the Twenty-First Century
They May Not Mean To, But They Do By Cathleen Schine
Reviewed by Valerie Miner

The Hubbub of Life The Japanese Lover
By Isabel Allende, translated by Nick Caistor and Amanda Hopkinson
Reviewed by Eileen Mary O’Connor

Putin Does Not Believe in Queers
Lesbian Lives in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia By Francesca Stella
Reviewed by Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild

Redemption or Salvation
Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence By Sarah Moslener;
Rescuing Jesus: How People of Color, Women, and Queer Christians are Reclaiming Evangelicalism By Deborah Jian Lee
Reviewed by Monique Moultrie

Wait All
The Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent NationBy Rebecca Traister
Reviewed by E. Kay Trimberger

Women's Review of Books issues are now available for purchase as digital downloads!

November/December 2016

"Muslimwomen," Journalists and scholars
Excellent Daughters: The Secret Lives of Young Women Who Are Transforming the Arab World By Katherine Zoepf
Reviewed by Lila Abu-Lughod

How do you Solve a Problem Like Svetlana?
Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva By Rosemary Sullivan
Reviewed by Lesley Rimmel

When is a Girl not a Girl?
Sex Testing: Gender Policing in Women’s Sports By Lindsay Parks Pieper
Reviewed by Laura Pappano

The Gentle Penitentiary
Liberty’s Prisoners, Carceral Culture in Early America By Jen Manion
Reviewed by Martha Saxton

Women Conservatives
Tea Party Women: Mama Grizzlies, Grassroots Leaders, and the Changing Face of the American Right By Melissa Deckman
Reviewed by Abby Scher

The Dancer from the Dance
The Naked Result: How Exotic Dance Became Big Business By Jessica Berson
Reviewed Lauri Umansky

The Difficulty of Solidarity
Striking Beauties: Women Apparel Workers in the US South, 1930-2000 By Michelle Haberland
Reviewed by Priscilla Murolo

Cartoon By Tara Madison Avery

Good Reads Bad Choices By Trish Crapo

Unreconciled
Chasing Ghosts: A Memoir of a Father, Gone to War By Louise DeSalvo; Mysteries of Love and Grief: Reflections on a Plainswoman’s Life By Sandra Scofield; The Latter Days: A Memoir By Judith Freeman
Reviewed by Rebecca Hussey

The Tragedy in the Breakfast Nook
This Angel on My Chest: Stories By Leslie Pietrzyk The Grass Labyrinth: Stories By Charlotte Holmes
Reviewed by Kelly Cherry

Translation and Retranslation
Good on Paper By Rachel Cantor Ways to Disappear By Idra Novey
Reviewed by Michelle Bailat-Jones

Poetry By Darla Himeles

Construction work
Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith Edited by Alethia Jones and Virginia Eubanks, with Barbara Smith
Reviewed by A.J. Verdelle

Kids Today
Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape By Peggy Orenstein; American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers By Nancy Jo Sales
Reviewed by Nancy Jainchill

Women's Review of Books issues are now available for purchase as digital downloads!

The Women's Review of Books receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.