100 books like Spectacle

McCarthy’s second novel is an underappreciated masterpiece, one that combines the author’s distinct style and notoriously difficult subject matter with a genuinely sublime vision of the world. Simultaneously a horror novel, a historical fiction, a Gnostic heresy, a cosmic joke, and act of spiritual seeking, I cannot recommend it enough.  

Millhauser’s stories are miracles. He combines the wonderstruck imagination of the fairy tale lover with surpassing technical expertise, and the result is beautiful art. This collection’s title story, for instance, is simultaneously a fairy tale, an exploration of group morality, a rigorous demonstration of the Freytagian dramatic structure, and a gripping story from start to finish.

This book lives up to its title in such unexpected, thrilling, and disturbing ways that I continue to marvel at its many accomplishments. It’s tempting to use certain genre terms to describe it: a fairy tale, horror story, thriller. It is all of those things, but it is also a brilliant psychological novel, a historical novel with few peers, and a work of such persuasive realism that it will shake you to the bone. Few books exceed their ambitions in the way this one does.

This novel evokes an extraordinary range of emotions. Skibell works wonders with folklore and history, turning out a tale of tales that is by turns shocking and horrifying, tender, and outrageously funny. The language is deceptively simple and beautiful. Consider this description from the murdered narrator, on returning to his plundered neighborhood after climbing out of a mass grave: “In front of every house were piles of vows and promises, all in broken pieces. How I could see such things, I cannot tell you.” The balance here—of imagination, grief, and lightness—is exquisite.

This crazy quilt of a novel, set in San Francisco, chronicles the liberation of Lizzie, a forty-year-old spinster who is swept into the intrigues of the mysterious Mrs. Pleasant. Mrs. Pleasant, who works as a housekeeper, is rumored to be as rich as a railroad magnate, an angel of charity, a practitioner of voodoo, among other tantalizing (and some substantiated) possibilities.

As enthralled as Lizzie becomes with Mrs. Pleasant, what Lizzie discovers in this story is her own independence and authority. Several real historical figures, including Mary Ellen Pleasant, appear in the book. I love the way Fowler weaves fact with fiction, and how she places badass women at the center of the story.

For those of us who grew up thinking we were the weaker sex/gender, this is a must-read book. When the deck is not stacked in favour of upper-body strength and short bursts of speed, and when factors such as height and weight are controlled (as the latter is, for example, in wrestling competition), women may actually be the stronger sex. I was particularly intrigued—no, annoyed—to read about sports that became segregated by sex only after women proved their superiority (for example, skeet shooting and rifle shooting).

The period after the Civil War known as Reconstruction has long been overlooked by historians and educators; even less has been written about this period from a gendered perspective.

Laura Edwards provides an excellent analysis of the experiences of newly-emancipated women in shaping and surviving the political, social, and economic landscape of Reconstruction. She studies their history through first-hand narratives of how they established households, pursued their legal rights, and claimed their new roles as free women.

The book is not only a fascinating read about Reconstruction, it helped contextualize Edmonia Lewis’s and Meta Fuller’s emancipation sculptures, and their message about the freedwoman’s new identity.

Reading this book is like listening to your incredibly knowledgeable historian friend talk about medieval society over drinks. Janega’s turns of phrase and sharp observations make me laugh, and at the same time, I feel my mind soak up knowledge like a sponge.

This book is about what medieval people thought and why, going back to the philosophies and influences of ancient Greece and Rome. It tackles medieval beauty standards, sexual practices, family life, and work life. It addresses fart jokes and eyeliner, as well as ideas about biology and class disparities. We see women farming, ruling, weaving, brewing, and writing.

Janega argues that it is through seeing the past truly that we can "imagine new futures," making the necessary changes for "a more equitable world."

Jessica Sewell’s book Women and the Everyday City makes us feel like we’re walking the streets of turn-of-the-century San Francisco. She combines traditional architectural history sources like floor plans, maps, and historic photographs with diaries written by women from varied class and ethnic backgrounds to piece together their experiences of the city. My favorite section uses advertisements and published memoirs to demonstrate that women without the economic means and cultural capital to be welcomed in downtown department stores or even some of the local grocery stores had much more complicated choices to make as they navigated everyday needs like finding transportation, buying food, and creating community. She compares the urban public imagination with how the city was actually built and experienced—just like theorist Henri Lefebvre suggests!

In Suicide Blonde, the lead character Jesse tries to sustain a connection with her beautiful bisexual boyfriend, Bell, who though he loves her, cannot refuse the allure of sex with strange men and seems to be regularly “dipped in sleaze.” Jesse becomes caretaker of Madam Pig, an old obese beauty queen who lives in a crumbling old house. The paint peels in the wind with only vacant lots and industrial buildings nearby, as Madam Pig swills red wine and vomits down staircases. I loved this book for the lonely dystopian feel and the way Jesse seems utterly alone in the world. I also loved the natural way Stienke writes about sex. I learned a great deal from her graphic content, learning how to actually write sex into litertaure. The book is not for the faint of heart and does not have a happy ending, but in its way, it… show more.