Gornick is having a moment in her eighties, and
that alone is exciting for me, also in my 80s, and looking to her as a model.
And so I reopened this tough, probing, amusing, enlightening memoir.
It is so
confident, her experience so meticulously depicted; reading it is like
receiving a series of pleasant electrical shocks. Except for our both having
been raised by contentious, critical, strong-willed mothers whose hold on us
was uncanny, our childhoods were utterly different.
But I read her with the
thrill of recognition - of her longing for a larger world while remaining
attached to the immediate one with a fierce loyalty because its values make it
so vulnerable, our attraction to self-centered, failed men, and the eventual
revelation that women have souls just as men do and romantic love has no role
in realizing our best selves. Liberation all over again!
The author recounts her childhood experiences living in a tenement, looks at her relationship with her mother, and describes the lives of women bound to husbands they didn't love
This book is brand new, a bright, original,
engrossing, and highly amusing recreation of a girl's school in
northern England where, in 1805, a key episode in the life of Anne Lister, the
famous lesbian and protagonist of HBO's Gentleman Jack, unfolded.
The
characters and setting are presented with delightful, surprising, utterly
convincing detail. A pair of girls, one audacious and unconventional, the other
a half-caste from India, gradually succumb to an unlikely friendship that
slips ever so delicately into a passionate love affair.
The suspense builds
and builds until the girls' heedless pursuit of pleasure and freedom takes
possession of them. Donoghue's end notes explain what happened to each of them
in the ensuing years and reflect on the importance to her of Lister's life and
also that of her unfortunate lover.
Adding to the already moving, richly told and gripping collection of historical fiction from Emma Donoghue, Learned By Heart is the breathtaking story of two young girls on the margins of life, forging a connection that will last forever.
'Emma Donoghue is a genius of compassion. In our fractured world she brings a great sense of repair to us all.' - Colum McCann, internationally bestselling author of Let the Great World Spin
Eliza and Lister have never been this wide-awake in their lives, and the Slope, with its curtains drawn wide, is bright with starlight. The question Eliza's been needing…
This nonfiction picture of a “forgotten crisis,”
the hysterical extremism in America surrounding World War I, is so packed with
shocking information I finished it in a fury, thinking, “Everyone must read this
book.”
As daily news reports strike so many these days with the sense that
things have never been worse, I believe that we need to know more about history, understand the antecedents of our troubles, and learn from the brave men and
women who fought evil and folly in the past.
The book presents so many parallels to today’s
threats to democracy, some even more deadly than the ones we face— but the
country survived them. For me, this book made me furious but also kindled hope.
National Bestseller • One of the year's most acclaimed works of nonfiction • A Best Book of 2022: New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Chicago Tribune, Kirkus
From legendary historian Adam Hochschild, a "masterly" (New York Times) reassessment of the overlooked but startlingly resonant period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties, when the foundations of American democracy were threatened by war, pandemic, and violence fueled by battles over race, immigration, and the rights of labor
The nation was on the brink. Mobs burned Black churches to the ground. Courts threw thousands of people into prison for opinions…
Tarbell became the “most famous woman in
America.” Her life as a single woman is a panorama of America in the first half
of the twentieth century, including politics, the suffrage movement, the
economy, big business, magazines and public opinion, literature, and most of her
contemporary movers and shakers.
Tarbell’s opinion was sought on everything and
included contrarian views on women’s role in society. Quirky, reserved,
adventurous, and independent, she was uniquely successful in what was still a man’s
world.
