Antiquarian and Classic Book Reviews
Books written by American authors. Usually written in English.
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It actually is a mean-spirited and sexist statement about women in traditionally male roles, positing that when women are working, they are inherently not fulfilling their assigned role in society and apparently everything crumbles around them.
A collection of shorter pieces, and longer prose, all of the writing is connected by Babitz’s love for Southern California’s most famous city and its environs.
This week I’m going to review two McNally selections from earlier this year, both of which are delightful non-fiction reads that I wouldn’t have necessarily chosen off the shelf.
Patricia is not broken by her divorce; instead, she uses it as opportunity to live life on her terms and to determine what it is she wants out of herself and out of a partner. She is a complex character that has a lot to say and also displays a range of emotions that are sometimes contradictory in a very human way.
Johnson does not pull any punches as he examines the lives of societies various down-and-outs.
I’ve decided to review two of Didion’s works (partially because they have been waiting in my to-review stacks for a while, and partially because this is post #222).
Memoirs are tricky sometimes. I only read them when I either am interested in the time period or they focus on something that I read in a literary context.
Van Dyke seeks to explore racism as it exists in obvious, vocally expressed prejudice but also how it can be insidiously lurking below the surface of even some acts of seeming kindness. This writer excels at character study and exploration of human relationships, which definitely keeps you turning pages at an astounding rate.
The thing I wish I had known about this book before I read it? That the narrator is not supposed to be likeable. In fact, the narrator is supposed to evoke anger in the reader more so than any kind of pity.
There are many reasons you should read this book, the primary one being that this novel became one of the first to successfully and comprehensively discuss systemic racism and how it affects Black youth and the Black population in general.
