A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions is the first book by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie that I've read.  Adichie has written several award winning, best selling novels and a short story collection.  When one of Adichie's friends writes to ask how to raise her daughter feminist, A Feminist Manifesto is the resulting compilation of fifteen suggestions for how to accomplish this task. Dear Ijeawele is very much a manifesto for how Adichie lives and thinks as a feminist; it's a codification of her own personal feminism in addition to being a primer on feminism, the ways in which society and the world conditions, raises, views, and treats women differently from men, and gender justice issues.  It is both thoughtful and thought provoking. Adichie's fourth suggestion begins with a warning regarding Feminism Lite or what I would still call subtle misogyny masquerading as feminism and concludes with the point that society has conditioned us to view po...

When I was younger I read a lot about royalty, particularly queens, such as the queens of England.  The truth is I could care less what the men were doing--probably because what they were doing was always so well documented.  I would have rather read about the women and what they were doing, but women's history isn't as well documented and maybe that is what spurs my fascination--there's still an element of mystery.  (And we all know I like to read a good mystery.)  I don't read as much about them anymore, but recently I read a couple books about the kings and queens of England. The National Portrait Gallery's history includes full color photos of portraits of some of the kings and queens.  It details short biographies of the kings and queens of England that includes their personal lives and their reigns.  It begins with an introduction detailing the ancient tribes' kings dating from BC through the ninth century in England.  The biographies start w...

This is the aforementioned review of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks .  This is probably one of the best non fiction books I've ever read, both for subject matter and readability.  It was very popular when it first came out, and I heard great things about it from those who read it.  It wasn't until it was recently returned to the library that I thought I'd give it a try. Through massive research, investigation and reporting, it tells the story of the woman, Henrietta Lacks, whose cells spawned countless cell lines that still live today over half a century since her death.  Her cells led to the development of countless research and scientific breakthroughs: from vaccines to genome mapping and everything in between. Skloot relates the story of Henrietta by framing it within the larger tale of her decade long journey to unearth the facts of the case and find answers for Henrietta's family and descendants.  It is a story that takes many, sometimes bizarre...

For someone who doesn't read non fiction, I've been reading an awful lot of it lately.  For whatever reason, it seems non fiction has been capturing and holding my attention better than fiction has been.  I can't remember if I read this before or after The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (to be reviewed in an upcoming post), but it's getting its post first. Fanny and Joshua: The Enigmatic Lives of Frances Caroline Adams and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is a very long title.  An aside: as a longtime 'name nerd,' I have to say that I love the name Frances Caroline. Joshua Chamberlain was a seminary graduate and professor who felt called to serve his country during her hour(s) of greatest need: the American Civil War.  His military service was distinguished.  Some say that he single-handedly changed the tide of the war at the Battle of Gettysburg where he led his Maine regiment in a brave and dangerous charge against a Confederate regiment as it threatened ...