by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 25, 2022 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
First, Meghan O’Rourke bares her soul about chronic illness in her 2022 book, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness. And second, she analyzes how US medical care fails patients with difficult to diagnose chronic illnesses. This is two parts...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 19, 2022 | RELAX: Memoir
There’s nothing like sinking into a satisfying essay based memoir. Whether it’s following a cult survivor or a famous Hollywood star, slipping under another person’s skin is one of my favorite bookish pleasures. And sometimes memoirists step away from the simple...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 28, 2021 | LEARN: Medical Memoir
Leigh Cowart explores why people consent to experience pain in their upcoming book, Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose. They take the science of pain and correlate it with a variety of intentional experiences from ballet class to eating wildly...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 8, 2020 | RESIST: Feminism
The good news is you only have to wait until Tuesday 8/11 to read Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women from author Kate Manne. There is absolutely no better time to get the run down on male privilege, since it’s loud and proud all over social media and the news....
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jun 13, 2020 | RELAX: Mystery-Thriller
In Lakewood, the debut novel from Megan Giddings, Lena Johnson is just trying to hold it all together for her family. And that family recently lost its most senior member, her grandmother. That leaves Lena with her ailing mom to care for, as their mountain of debt...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Apr 23, 2020 | RESIST: Social Justice
Tressie McMillan Cottom tells it like it is in Thick: and Other Essays. This one sentence from the titular essay encapsulates her perspective for me. “I do not paint ethereal black worlds where white people can slip into our narratives and leave unscathed by judgment...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Mar 21, 2020 | RESIST: Feminism
The bestseller from Ronan Farrow, Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, documents the process of reporting a huge story. And it shows how that story was like nailing Jell-O to the wall. Or herding cats. Everything conspired against Farrow...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jan 3, 2020 | RELAX: Memoir, RESIST: Feminism
Chanel Miller went to a fraternity house party one evening, and woke up in the hospital the following morning. What happened in between is just one reason why she’s written a memoir. During the party, Miller got quite drunk and passed out. Her sister and friend...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jun 2, 2019 | RESIST: Feminism
Kate Manne is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University. Why am I leading with that in this review? Because knowing that informs everything about her book Down Girl: The Logic Of Misogyny. She’s a brilliant academic thinker and researcher. First and...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Feb 14, 2019 | RELAX: Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi, RESIST: Feminism
A biographer, a wise woman, a wife, a daughter, and an explorer form the core of Red Clocks, from author Leni Zumas. They seem to have only one thing in common—being women living in a country where reproductive rights are more and more limited.Susan is a wife and...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Oct 13, 2018 | RESIST: Feminism
Let me tell you how I started reading Good and Mad from Rebecca Traister. I was watching Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I was also on Twitter, because I wanted to experience this momentous hearing with other people, even...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 12, 2018 | LEARN: Medical Memoir
Porochista Khakpour spends much of her book, Sick: A Memoir, talking about relationships. Sometimes it’s her parents or girlfriends. But more often it’s the men in her life. I’ve seen reviewers bemoan this. But here’s what I think. A single young woman, battling...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 30, 2018 | RESIST: Feminism
If you’re looking for concrete ideas about everyday activism, read Keep Marching: How Every Woman Can Take Action and Change Our World by Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner. The author breaks down today’s most critical human rights issues, and provides an action plan. Keep...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 6, 2018 | LEARN: Medical Memoir
Abby Norman tells her often harrowing story with grace in Ask Me About My Uterus. She’s had to make her way through life in pain, and mostly alone. I’m in awe of her courage and fortitude! Norman spent her childhood with an absent father, and a functionally absent...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Mar 22, 2018 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
I wanted to love Naomi Alderman’s The Power so much. Heck, it was one of President Obama’s 2017 favorites. I suggested it to my new (and offline!) book group, which I should have known was the kiss of death. In truth, The Power could have been so much more. Instead,...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Feb 21, 2018 | RESIST: Feminism
Kate Harding wrote Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture–and What We Can Do about It before the #MeToo movement began. Since it was published many more high profile sexual harassment and assault accusations and consequences have occurred. I figured...
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