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Beloved by
Toni Morrison--author of Song of Solomon and Tar Baby--is a writer of remarkable powers: her novels, brilliantly acclaimed for their passion, their dazzling language and their lyric and emotional force, combine the unassailable truths of experience and emotion with the vision of legend and imagination. It is the story--set in post-Civil War Ohio--of Sethe, an escaped slave who has risked death in order to wrench herself from a living death; who has lost a husband and buried a child; who has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad: a woman of "iron eyes and backbone to match." Sethe lives in a small house on the edge of town with her daughter, Denver, her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, and a disturbing, mesmerizing intruder who calls herself Beloved. Sethe works at "beating back the past," but it is alive in all of them. It keeps Denver fearful of straying from the house. It fuels the sadness that has settled into Baby Suggs' "desolated center where the self that was no self made its home." And to Sethe, the past makes itself heard and felt incessantly: in memories that both haunt and soothe her...in the arrival of Paul D ("There was something blessed in his manner. Women saw him and wanted to weep"), one of her fellow slaves on the farm where she had once been kept...in the vivid and painfully cathartic stories she and Paul D tell each other of their years in captivity, of their glimpses of freedom...and, most powerfully, in the apparition of Beloved, whose eyes are expressionless at their deepest point, whose doomed childhood belongs to the hideous logic of slavery and who, as daughter, sister and seductress, has now come from the "place over there" to claim retribution for what she lost and for what was taken from her. Sethe's struggle to keep Beloved from gaining full possession of her present--and to throw off the long, dark legacy of her past--is at the center of this profoundly affecting and startling novel. But its intensity and resonance of feeling, and the boldness of its narrative, lift it beyond its particulars so that it speaks to our experience as an entire nation with a past of both abominable and ennobling circumstance. In Beloved, Toni Morrison has given us a great American novel. Toni Morrison was awarded the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in Literature for Beloved.
Pride and Prejudice by
Jane Austen's classic comedy of manners is one of the most enduring love stories in English literature In a remote Hertfordshire village in the early nineteenth century, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have a problem. Or rather, five vivacious, headstrong problems: Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine, and Lydia. Mr. Bennet loves his daughters dearly, but spends more time with his nose buried in a book than planning for their futures. Since her husband's property can only pass to a male heir, Mrs. Bennet insists that the girls find rich husbands. But her daughters would rather fall in love than listen to their mother's advice. Jane, the eldest and most beautiful, attracts the attentions of a young gentleman named Charles Bingley, but his good friend Mr. Darcy disapproves of the match. Elizabeth, always eager to defend her sweet-natured sister, detests the prideful Mr. Darcy, even after he asks for her hand in marriage. But when a chance encounter reunites the combative couple, Elizabeth realizes that her prejudices have been standing in the way of her heart's true desire. A razor-sharp satire of English country life and a stirring tribute to the power of romance to overcome the longest of odds, Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen's masterwork and one of the finest novels ever written.
The Handmaid's Tale by
An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from "the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction" (New York Times). Now an award-winning Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss.
The Bluest Eye by
Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison powerfully examines our obsession with beauty and conformity--and asks questions about race, class, and gender with her characteristic subtly and grace. In Morrison's best-selling first novel, Pecola Breedlove--an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment. Here, Morrison's writing is "so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry" (The New York Times).
The House of the Spirits by
"Spectacular...An absorbing and distinguished work...The House of the Spirits with its all-informing, generous, and humane sensibility, is a unique achievement, both personal witness and possible allegory of the past, present, and future of Latin America." --The New York Times Book Review Our Shared Shelf, Emma Watson Goodreads Book Club Pick November/December 2020! The House of the Spirits, the unforgettable first novel that established Isabel Allende as one of the world's most gifted storytellers, brings to life the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban is a volatile, proud man whose voracious pursuit of political power is tempered only by his love for his delicate wife Clara, a woman with a mystical connection to the spirit world. When their daughter Blanca embarks on a forbidden love affair in defiance of her implacable father, the result is an unexpected gift to Esteban: his adored granddaughter Alba, a beautiful and strong-willed child who will lead her family and her country into a revolutionary future. One of the most important novels of the twentieth century, The House of the Spirits is an enthralling epic that spans decades and lives, weaving the personal and the political into a universal story of love, magic, and fate.
The Awakening by
Kate Chopin's groundbreaking novel of early feminism set against the evocative backdrop of turn-of-the-century New Orleans Edna Pontellier is trapped. By her marriage, by her responsibilities to two young sons, by the expectations of Creole society. When she falls in love with the charming and flirtatious Robert Lebrun during a summer on the Louisiana coast, Edna awakens to a new sense of herself, and to the possibility of true independence. Mademoiselle Reisz, a locally renowned musician, offers one example of the self-sufficient, artistic existence Edna might lead. An affair with the notorious womanizer Alcée Arobin warns of the passion and danger inherent in living outside the boundaries of convention. Torn between the life that was handed to her and the one she wants to live, Edna makes a shocking decision. Overwhelmingly criticized in its day for its frank depictions of female sexuality, marriage, and a woman's desire for independence,nbsp;The Awakeningnbsp;is now celebrated as one of the earliest--and most revolutionary--feminist novels in American literature.
The Joy Luck Club by
Master storyteller Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters in this New York Times bestseller. "The Joy Luck Club is one of my favorite books. From the moment I first started reading it, I knew it was going to be incredible. For me, it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime reading experiences that you cherish forever. It inspired me as a writer and still remains hugely inspirational."--Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians In 1949 four Chinese women-drawn together by the shadow of their past-begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks, eat dim sum, and "say" stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club. Nearly forty years later, one of the members has died, and her daughter has come to take her place, only to learn of her mother's lifelong wish--and the tragic way in which it has come true. The revelation of this secret unleashes an urgent need among the women to reach back and remember...
Anthem by
Ayn Rand's searing portrait of a dystopian future in which all ego has been erasednbsp; In a world where science and learning are banned and the simple utterance of the Unspeakable Word,nbsp;I, is punishable by death, a man named Equality 7-2521 struggles with his unquenchable desire to investigate, to think, to know. His instincts are a "curse" that threatens to bring him to the attention of a government dedicated to the elimination of the self. But Equality 7-2521 cannot ignore his true nature, just as he cannot ignore the fruits of his curiosity: the discovery of the mysterious "power of the sky." His great awakening--in heart, mind, and soul--represents the inevitable triumph of the individual over the collective. A riveting, thought-provoking parable based on the author's experience of life in a socialist state,nbsp;Anthemnbsp;serves as an invaluable introduction to Ayn Rand, her fiction, and her philosophy.
Gather Together in My Name by
In this second volume of her poignant autobiographical series, Maya Angelou powerfully captures the struggles and triumphs of her passionate life with dignity, wisdom, humor, and humanity. "A curiously heartening story in which decency, honor, truth, love do exist, imperfectly, fractionally and flickeringly, not in some Platonic realm of the ideal, but in the flawed lives of real men and women."--The Washington Post Gather Together in My Name continues Maya Angelou's personal story, begun so unforgettably in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The time is the end of World War II and there is a sense of optimism everywhere. Maya Angelou, still in her teens, has given birth to a son. But the next few years are difficult ones as she tries to find a place in the world for herself and her child. She goes from job to job-and from man to man. She tries to return home-back to Stamps, Arkansas-but discovers that she is no longer part of that world. Then Maya's life takes a dramatic turn, and she faces new challenges and temptations.
On Beauty by
Howard Belsey, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn't like Rembrandt, is an Englishman abroad and a long-suffering professor at Wellington, a liberal New England arts college. He has been married for thirty years to Kiki, an American woman who no longer resembles the sexy activist she once was. Their three children passionately pursue their own paths: Levi quests after authentic blackness, Zora believes that intellectuals can redeem everybody, and Jerome struggles to be a believer in a family of strict atheists. Faced with the oppressive enthusiasms of his children, Howard feels that the first two acts of his life are over and he has no clear plans for the finale. Or the encore. Then Jerome, Howard's older son, falls for Victoria, the stunning daughter of the right-wing icon Monty Kipps, and the two families find themselves thrown together in a beautiful corner of America, enacting a cultural and personal war against the background of real wars that they barely register. An infidelity, a death, and a legacy set in motion a chain of events that sees all parties forced to examine the unarticulated assumptions which underpin their lives. How do you choose the work on which to spend your life? Why do you love the people you love? Do you really believe what you claim to? And what is the beautiful thing, and how far will you go to get it? Set on both sides of the Atlantic, Zadie Smith's third novel is a brilliant analysis of family life, the institution of marriage, intersections of the personal and political, and an honest look at people's deceptions. It is also, as you might expect, very funny indeed.
Selected Poems II by
Houghton Mifflin now proudly publishes Selected Poems II, a volume of selections from Atwood's poetry of the last ten years. Underlying oppression and injustice, we hear the music of compassion and fellowship.
Gender Justice, Development, and Rights by
Recent years have seen a shift in the international development agenda in the direction of a greater emphasis on rights and democracy. While this has brought many positive changes in women's rights and political representation, in much of the world these advances were not matched by increasesin social justice. Rising income inequalities, coupled with widespread poverty in many countries, have been accompanied by record levels of crime and violence. Meanwhile the global shift in the consensus over the role of the state in welfare provision has in many contexts entailed the down-sizing ofpublic services and the re-allocation of service delivery to commercial interests, charitable groups, NGOs and households.Gender Justice, Development, and Rights reflects on this ambivalent record, and on the significance accorded in international development policy to rights and democracy in the post-Cold War era. Key items on the contemporary policy agenda-neo-liberal economic and social policies; democracy; andmulticulturalism-are addressed here by leading scholars and regional specialists through theoretical reflections and detailed case studies. Together they constitute a collection which casts contemporary liberalism in a distinctive light by applying a gender perspective to the analysis of politicaland policy processes. Case studies from Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East, East-Central Europe, South and South-east Asia contribute a cross-cultural dimension to the analysis of contemporary liberalism-the dominant value system in the modern world-and how it exists, and is resisted, indeveloping and post-transition societies.
Glamour by
How do we understand glamour? Has it empowered women or turned them into objects? Once associated with modernity and the cutting edge, is it entirely bound up with nostalgia and tradition?This unique and fascinating book tells the story of glamour. It explores the changing meanings of the word, its relationship to femininity and fashion, and its place in twentieth century social history. Using a rich variety of sources - from women's magazines and film to social surveys and life histories - Carol Dyhouse examines with wit and insight the history and meaning of costume, cosmetics, perfume and fur.Dyhouse disentangles some of the arguments surrounding femininity, appearance and power, directly addressing feminist concerns. The book explores historical contexts in which glamour served as an expression of desire in women and an assertion of entitlement to the pleasures of affluence, finally arguing that glamour can't simply be dismissed as oppressive, or as male fantasy, but can carry celebratory meanings for women.
No Turning Back by
Repeatedly declared dead by the media, the women’s movement has never been as vibrant as it is today. Indeed as Stanford professor and award-winning author Estelle B. Freedman argues in her compelling new book, feminism has reached a critical momentum from which there is no turning back. A truly global movement, as vital and dynamic in the developing world as it is in the West, feminism has helped women achieve authority in politics, sports, and business, and has mobilized public concern for once-taboo issues like rape, domestic violence, and breast cancer. And yet much work remains before women attain real equality. In this fascinating book, Freedman examines the historical forces that have fueled the feminist movement over the past two hundred years–and explores how women today are looking to feminism for new approaches to issues of work, family, sexuality, and creativity. Freedman begins with an incisive analysis of what feminism means and why it took root in western Europe and the United States at the end of the eighteenth century. The rationalist, humanistic philosophy of the Enlightenment, which ignited the American Revolution, also sparked feminist politics, inspiring such pioneers as Mary Wollstonecraft and Susan B. Anthony. Race has always been as important as gender in defining feminism, and Freedman traces the intricate ties between women’s rights and abolitionism in the United States in the years before the Civil War and the long tradition of radical women of color, stretching back to the impassioned rhetoric of Sojourner Truth. As industrialism and democratic politics spread after World War II, feminist politics gained momentum and sophistication throughout the world. Their impact began to be felt in every aspect of society–from the workplace to the chambers of government to relations between the sexes. Because of feminism, Freedman points out, the line between the personal and the political has blurred, or disappeared, and issues once considered “merely” private–abortion, sexual violence, homosexuality, reproductive health, beauty and body image–have entered the public arena as subjects of fierce, ongoing debate. Freedman combines a scholar’s meticulous research with a social critic’s keen eye. Sweeping in scope, searching in its analysis, global in its perspective,No Turning Backwill stand as a defining text in one of the most important social movements of all time.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by
Writing in an age when the call for the rights of man had brought revolution to America and France, Mary Wollstonecraft produced her own declaration of female independence in 1792. Passionate and forthright, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman attacked the prevailing view of docile, decorative femininity and instead laid out the principles of emancipation: an equal education for girls and boys, an end to prejudice, and the call for women to become defined by their profession, not their partner. Mary Wollstonecrafts work was received with a mixture of admiration and outrageWalpole called her a hyena in petticoatsyet it established her as the mother of modern feminism.
The Grounding of Modern Feminism by
Examines changes in the women's movement in the twenty years following women's suffrage, and describes the complex issues of that period.
Worlds in Our Words by
Encompassing several genres of literary composition, this up-beat, multi-cultural anthology provides an integrated curriculum of contemporary American women writers from diverse backgrounds whose works have recently emerged or made an impact on American literature in the last several decades. Juxtaposing the works of emerging writers with those of American classics, this book comes organized into eight thematic sections - language, family, and multicultural histories, transformation, music/spirituality, work, love, and happiness. It includes a variety of genres in each section - fiction, memoirs, essays, poetry, drama - moving from one to another with ease and a sense of discovery. Presenting an original interview at the end of each section with a distinguished author, it provides clearly and concisely written headnotes for each section. Spanning a broad historical range, from Margaret Walker (1915) to the present day, it includes brief biographies for each author, along with contextual notes for each reading. For professors of American literature and/or women's studies; librarians.
In the House of Silence by
To complement the novels in Garnet's award-winning Arab Women Writers series, In the House of Silence is a collection of autobiographical writings by thirteen leading Arab women authors. Through these testimonies the women describe their experiences and expose the often-difficult conditions under which their narratives were woven. Patterns emerge, which run throughout their testimonies - experiences of confinement, subjugation, the struggle for education and the eventual use ofwriting as a way out. They speak of their own reasons for writing, of how experiences in family life, politics, exile and even imprisonment have affected them and their work, and of how their motivation has been both tested and reinforced by various setbacks and the struggle for recognition. Startlingly honest, these testimonies will be essential reading for all those interested in women's roles in Arab society and the ways that these roles are changing.
Gilbert and Gubar's the Madwoman in the Attic after Thirty Years by
When it was published in 1979, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imaginationwas hailed as a pathbreaking work of criticism, changing the way future scholars would read Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, the Brontës, George Eliot, and Emily Dickinson. This thirtieth-anniversary collection adds both valuable reassessments and new readings and analyses inspired by Gilbert and Gubar's approach. It includes work by established and up-and-coming scholars, as well as retrospective accounts of the ways in which The Madwoman in the Attic has influenced teaching, feminist activism, and the lives of women in academia. These contributions represent both the diversity of today's feminist criticism and the tremendous expansion of the nineteenth-century canon. The authors take as their subjects specific nineteenth- and twentieth-century women writers, the state of feminist theory and pedagogy, genre studies, film, race, and postcolonialism, with approaches ranging from ecofeminism to psychoanalysis. And although each essay opens Madwoman to a different page, all provocatively circle back--with admiration and respect, objections and challenges, questions and arguments--to Gilbert and Gubar's groundbreaking work. The essays are as diverse as they are provocative. Susan Fraiman describes how Madwoman opened the canon, politicized critical practice, and challenged compulsory heterosexuality, while Marlene Tromp tells how it elegantly embodied many concerns central to second-wave feminism. Other chapters consider Madwoman's impact on Milton studies, on cinematic adaptations of Wuthering Heights, and on reassessments of Ann Radcliffe as one of the book's suppressed foremothers. In the thirty years since its publication, The Madwoman in the Attic has potently informed literary criticism of women's writing: its strategic analyses of canonical works and its insights into the interconnections between social environment and human creativity have been absorbed by contemporary critical practices. These essays constitute substantive interventions into established debates and ongoing questions among scholars concerned with defining third-wave feminism, showing that, as a feminist symbol, the raging madwoman still has the power to disrupt conventional ideas about gender, myth, sexuality, and the literary imagination.
A Literature of Their Own by
When first published in 1977, A Literature of Their Own quickly set the stage for the creative explosion of feminist literary studies that transformed the field in the 1980s. Launching a major new area for literary investigation, the book uncovered the long but neglected tradition of women writers in England. A classic of feminist criticism, its impact continues to be felt today. This revised and expanded edition contains a new introductory chapter surveying the book's reception and a new postscript chapter celebrating the legacy of feminism and feminist criticism in the efflorescence of contemporary British fiction by women.
Jane Austen, Feminism and Fiction by
A classic account of Jane Austen in the context of eighteenth century feminist ideas and contemporary thought.
Becoming by
An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States. In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America--the first African American to serve in that role--she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare. In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her--from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it--in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations--and whose story inspires us to do the same.
Infidel by
In this profoundly affecting memoir from the internationally renowned author of The Caged Virgin, Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells her life story, from her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia to her intellectual awakening in the Netherlands to her life under armed guard in the West.
Living History by
The author chronicles her eight years as First Lady of the United States, looking back on her husband's two administrations, the challenges she faced during the period, the impeachment crisis, and her own political work.
The Heart of a Woman by
This fourth autobiographical work by Maya Angelou tells of her entry into New York's circle of black artists and writers, her involvement in the civil rights movement, and changes in her personal life.
The Glass Castle by
Now a major motion picture from Lionsgate starring Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, and Naomi Watts. MORE THAN SEVEN YEARS ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST The perennially bestselling, extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, "nothing short of spectacular" (Entertainment Weekly) memoir from one of the world's most gifted storytellers. The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family. The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered. The Glass Castle is truly astonishing--a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by
This enlarged edition of the most significant and celebrated slave narrative now completes the Jacobs family saga, surely one of the most memorable in all of American history. John Jacobs's short slave narrative, A True Tale of Slavery, published in London in 1861, adds a brother's perspective to Harriet Jacobs's own autobiography. It is an exciting addition to this now classic work, as John Jacobs presents additional historical information about family life so well described already by his sister. Importantly, it presents the people, places, and events Harriet Jacobs wrote about from the different perspective of a male narrator. Once more, Jean Yellin, who discovered this long-lost document, supplies annotation and authentication. She has also brought her Introduction up to date.