This book hooked me like few others have. I usually prefer fiction, but Haynes’s discussion of women in the Greek myths made me reassess so many things I had thought I knew about the subject.
She talks about ten women, including Pandora, Helen, Medusa, Medea, Penelope, and the Amazons. Haynes traces the origins and ongoing writing featuring these characters. I was fascinated to find how many different representations some of them have had.
Haynes makes obvious the misogyny in many of the portrayals, especially when contrasted with how the men are described. She does all of this in a very readable style, which even includes moments of wry humor. I read this as an e-book, but then I bought the paperback, because I wanted to have it on my shelf.
'Funny, sharp explications of what these sometimes not-very-nice women were up to!' - Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's Tale
The Greek myths are among the world's most important cultural building blocks and they have been retold many times, but rarely do they focus on the remarkable women at the heart of these ancient stories.
Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy, from Homer to Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, from the Trojan War to Jason and the Argonauts. And still, today, a wealth of novels, plays and films draw their inspiration from stories…
Like many readers, I love stories about books. I also enjoy novels set in multiple periods.
In this one, set in 1933 Berlin, 1936 Paris, and 1944 New York City, Labuskes skillfully weaves the timelines together. There are many novels about World War II and the years before it, but this one offers perspectives unlike any I’ve read before. I was also touched by learning about the Council of Books in Wartime, consisting of booksellers, publishers, librarians, and authors, who chose books to be sent to those fighting the war.
The books were printed in dimensions to fit into a soldier’s pocket. General Eisenhower even requested that each man about to board a landing craft on D-Day be issued a book. What a stirring testament to the power of story!
For fans of The Rose Code and The Paris Library, The Librarian of Burned Books is a captivating WWII-era novel about the intertwined fates of three women who believe in the power of books to triumph over the very darkest moments of war.
Berlin 1933. Following the success of her debut novel, American writer Althea James receives an invitation from Joseph Goebbels himself to participate in a culture exchange program in Germany. For a girl from a small town in Maine, 1933 Berlin seems to be sparklingly cosmopolitan, blossoming in the midst of a great change with the charismatic new…
Ulleseit skillfully connects the stories of three very different women whose paths intersect in Fort Snelling, in what is now Minnesota, in 1835.
Samantha Lockwood is based on Ulleseit’s ancestor. Harriet Robinson is an enslaved woman, who married Dred Scott. Day Sets, the daughter of a Dakota chief, is a fictional character as far as I know.
I greatly admire how Ulleseit seems able to channel what each of these women might have felt and thought. The inclusion of historical people, such as Harriet and Dred Scott, Zachary Taylor, and his daughter, Sarah, who fancies the young Jefferson Davis, adds authenticity to the narrative.
The river in question is the Mississippi, and having grown up in St. Louis, this detail lent the story an appealing personal connection.
Samantha Lockwood, Day Sets, and Harriet Robinson come to Fort Snelling from very different backgrounds. It's 1835 and the world is changing, fast, and they are all struggling to keep up. After she refuses another suitor he's chosen for her, Samantha's father banishes her to live in the territory with her brother. He, too, tries to take over her marriage plans-but she is determined to find her own husband, even when her choices go awry.
Day Sets demands that her white husband create a school to educate their daughter, supporting her father's belief that his people must learn the ways…
In 1660, Amsterdam is the trading and map-printing capital of the world. Anneke van Brug is one of the colorists paid to enhance black-and-white maps for a growing number of collectors. Her artistic talent brings her to the attention of the Blaeu printing house, and she begins to color for a rich merchant, Willem de Groot. But Anneke is not content to simply embellish the work of others; she longs to create maps of her own. Cartography, however, is the domain of men—so it is in secret that she borrows the notes her father made on a trip to Africa in 1642 and sets about designing a new map.
Anneke hopes to convince the charismatic de Groot to use his influence to persuade Blaeu to include her map in the Atlas Maior, which will be the largest and most expensive publication of the century. But family secrets, infidelity, and murder endanger her dream. Will her map withstand these threats, or will it be forever lost?
