sophia's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 06 Apr 2025 14:10:05 -0700 60 sophia's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Captain of Her Soul: The Life of Marion Davies]]> 60589391
From Marion Davies's humble days in Brooklyn to her rise to fame alongside press baron William Randolph Hearst, the public life story of the film star plays like a modern fairy tale shaped by gossip columnists, fan magazines, biopics, and documentaries. Yet the real Marion Davies remained largely hidden from view, as she was wary of interviews and trusted few with her true life story. In Captain of Her Soul , Lara Gabrielle pulls back layers of myth to show a complex and fiercely independent woman, ahead of her time, who carved her own path.

Through meticulous research, unprecedented access to archives around the world, and interviews with those who knew Davies, Captain of Her Soul counters the public story. This book reveals a woman who navigated disability and social stigma to rise to the top of a young Hollywood dominated by powerful men. Davies took charge of her own career, negotiating with studio heads and establishing herself as a top-tier comedienne, but her proudest achievement was her philanthropy and advocacy for children. This biography brings Davies out of the shadows cast by the Hearst legacy, shedding light on a dynamic woman who lived life on her own terms and declared that she was "the captain of her soul."]]>
344 Lara Gabrielle 0520384202 sophia 0 to-read, scms-books 4.18 Captain of Her Soul: The Life of Marion Davies
author: Lara Gabrielle
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<![CDATA[Performative Opacity in the Work of Isabelle Huppert]]> 79072204 168 Iggy Cortez 1474479839 sophia 0 to-read, scms-books 4.00 Performative Opacity in the Work of Isabelle Huppert
author: Iggy Cortez
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<![CDATA[Hidden Light: Judaism and Mystical Experience in Israeli Cinema (Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Studies)]]> 123354056 292 Dan Chyutin 0814350690 sophia 0 to-read, scms-books 0.0 Hidden Light: Judaism and Mystical Experience in Israeli Cinema (Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Studies)
author: Dan Chyutin
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<![CDATA[Hollywood and Israel: A History]]> 58064555
From Frank Sinatra’s early pro-Zionist rallying to Steven Spielberg’s present-day peacemaking, Hollywood has long enjoyed a “special relationship� with Israel. This book offers a groundbreaking account of this relationship, both on and off the screen. Tony Shaw and Giora Goodman investigate the many ways in which Hollywood’s moguls, directors, and actors have supported or challenged Israel for more than seven decades. They explore the complex story of Israel’s relationship with American Jewry and illuminate how media and soft power have shaped the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Shaw and Goodman draw on a vast range of archival sources to demonstrate how show business has played a pivotal role in crafting the U.S.-Israel alliance. They probe the influence of Israeli diplomacy on Hollywood’s output and lobbying activities, but also highlight the limits of ideological devotion in high-risk entertainment industries. The book details the political involvement with Israel―and Palestine―of household names such as Eddie Cantor, Kirk Douglas, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, Vanessa Redgrave, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert De Niro, and Natalie Portman. It also spotlights the role of key behind-the-scenes players like Dore Schary, Arthur Krim, Arnon Milchan, and Haim Saban.

Bringing the story up to the moment, Shaw and Goodman contend that the Hollywood-Israel relationship might now be at a turning point. Shedding new light on the political power that images and celebrity can wield, Hollywood and Israel shows the world’s entertainment capital to be an important player in international affairs.]]>
368 Tony Shaw 0231183410 sophia 0 to-read, scms-books 4.18 2022 Hollywood and Israel: A History
author: Tony Shaw
name: sophia
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2022
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<![CDATA[New Directions in Israeli Media: Film, Television, and Digital Content]]> 217873819 A comprehensive analysis of the major trends and developments in contemporary Israeli media.


In the twenty-first century, Israeli filmmaking has transformed from a localized industry into a globally recognized and diverse national cinema, its filmmakers gaining prominence internationally and introducing new themes, aesthetics, and voices to the scene. At the same time, Israeli television shows have emerged as a dominant force, propelled by the rise of streaming. Through the rise of online content creation and consumption, especially in the 2010s, new voices have revolutionized the creative landscape.


With Israel’s position at the cutting edge of technology and virtual platforms, Israeli media has seen a boom, winning prizes at international film festivals and adapting shows like Euphoria, Homeland, and Fauda for wider audiences. In New Directions in Israeli Media, fourteen contributors detail the shifting dynamics of Israeli cinema, television, and online content in the digital age, exploring how globalization, technological advances, and changing audience preferences are reshaping creative industries. Editors Yaron Peleg, Eran Kaplan, and Ido Rosen have assembled a volume that prompts critical reflection on the intersection of art, technology, and culture in a rapidly changing media landscape.]]>
364 Yaron Peleg 1477331034 sophia 0 to-read, scms-books 0.0 New Directions in Israeli Media: Film, Television, and Digital Content
author: Yaron Peleg
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Jerusalem: The Biography 9477628 The epic story of Jerusalem told through the lives of the men and women who created, ruled and inhabited it.

Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths; it is the prize of empires, the site of Judgement Day and the battlefield of today’s clash of civilizations. From King David to Barack Obama, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the Israel-Palestine conflict, this is the epic history of 3,000 years of faith, slaughter, fanaticism and coexistence.

How did this small, remote town become the Holy City, the ‘centre of the world� and now the key to peace in the Middle East? In a gripping narrative, Simon Sebag Montefiore reveals this ever-changing city in its many incarnations, bringing every epoch and character blazingly to life. Jerusalem’s biography is told through the wars, love affairs and revelations of the men and women � kings, empresses, prophets, poets, saints, conquerors and whores � who created, destroyed, chronicled and believed in Jerusalem.

Drawing on new archives, current scholarship, his own family papers and a lifetime’s study, Montefiore illuminates the essence of sanctity and mysticism, identity and empire in a unique chronicle of the city that many believe will be the setting for the Apocalypse. This is how Jerusalem became Jerusalem, and the only city that exists twice � in heaven and on earth.]]>
752 Simon Sebag Montefiore 0297852655 sophia 0 currently-reading 4.07 2011 Jerusalem: The Biography
author: Simon Sebag Montefiore
name: sophia
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century]]> 1911 593 Thomas L. Friedman 0374292795 sophia 0 to-read 3.69 2005 The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
author: Thomas L. Friedman
name: sophia
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Choosing a Jewish Life: A Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and for Their Family and Friends]]> 75508 Married to a convert herself, Anita Diamant provides advice and information that can transform the act of conversion into an extraordinary journey of self-discovery and spiritual growth.

Here you will learn how to choose a rabbi, a synagogue, a denomination, a Hebrew name; how to handle the difficulty of putting aside Christmas; what happens at the mikvah (ritual bath) or at a hatafat dam brit (circumcision ritual for those already circumcised); how to find your footing in a new spiritual family that is not always well prepared to receive you; and how not to lose your bonds to your family of origin. Diamant anticipates all the questions, doubts, and concerns, and provides a comprehensive explanation of the rules and rituals of conversion.]]>
304 Anita Diamant sophia 0 4.18 1998 Choosing a Jewish Life: A Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and for Their Family and Friends
author: Anita Diamant
name: sophia
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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The Weight of Ink 34471004 704 Rachel Kadish sophia 0 currently-reading 4.27 2017 The Weight of Ink
author: Rachel Kadish
name: sophia
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Rebecca of Salerno: A Novel of Rogue Crusaders, a Jewish Female Physician, and a Murder]]> 59892385
The Ivanhoe backstory: Jewish women in medieval England do not fall in love with Christian knights like Ivanhoe. Neither do they heal knights from battle wounds. But Rebecca does both—and nearly pays with her life. Rescued by Ivanhoe from being burnt at the stake as a sorceress, she flees from England and the man she loves.

Rebecca of Salerno: In Salerno, Kingdom of Sicily, Rebecca pursues her dreams by attending medical school. Practicing her profession, she defies family pressure to marry Rafael, the man who loves her. But more pressing is the conquest of Sicily by the Hohenstaufens and the arrival of rogue crusaders, both of which threaten Salerno’s long-standing atmosphere of tolerance. When a rabbi is falsely accused of murdering a crusader, Rebecca and Rafael commit to pursuing justice and protecting the Jewish community.

This story provides fascinating history, as of the medical school in Salerno, where women and men—Christians, Muslims, and Jews—studied together. It also exemplifies the recurring Jewish experience of persecution, search for refuge, and resilience to remake lives. Also, Rebecca struggles to balance community expectations and traditions with her desire for fulfillment—one of the great challenges facing women throughout the ages.]]>
264 Esther Erman 1647422477 sophia 0 to-read 4.30 Rebecca of Salerno: A Novel of Rogue Crusaders, a Jewish Female Physician, and a Murder
author: Esther Erman
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<![CDATA[Now You Are a Missing Person: A Memoir in Poems, Stories, & Fragments]]> 152131780
"A poignant tale of grief and hope that stirs the heart."
―Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)]]>
162 Susan Hayden 1957799102 sophia 0 to-read 4.87 Now You Are a Missing Person: A Memoir in Poems, Stories, & Fragments
author: Susan Hayden
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average rating: 4.87
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<![CDATA[Joheved (Rashi’s Daughters #1)]]> 136960 386 Maggie Anton 0976305054 sophia 0 to-read 3.98 2005 Joheved (Rashi’s Daughters #1)
author: Maggie Anton
name: sophia
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2005
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Miriam (Rashi’s Daughters #2) 462284 Rashi?s Daughters, author Maggie Anton brings the Talmud and eleventh-century France to vivid life and poignantly captures the struggles and triumphs of strong Jewish women.]]> 496 Maggie Anton 0452288630 sophia 0 to-read 4.03 2007 Miriam (Rashi’s Daughters #2)
author: Maggie Anton
name: sophia
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2007
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Rachel (Rashi’s Daughters #3) 6368197
Rachel is the youngest and most beautiful daughter of medieval Jewish scholar Salomon ben Isaac, or "Rashi." Her father's favorite and adored by her new husband, Eliezer, Rachel's life looks to be one of peaceful scholarship, laughter, and love. But events beyond her control will soon threaten everything she holds dear. Marauders of the First Crusade massacre nearly the entire Jewish population of Germany, and her beloved father suffers a stroke. Eliezer wants their family to move to the safety of Spain, but Rachel is determined to stay in France and help her family save the Troyes yeshiva, the only remnant of the great centers of Jewish learning in Europe.

As she did so effectively in Joheved and Miriam , Maggie Anton vividly brings to life the world of eleventh-century France and a remarkable Jewish woman of dignity, passion, and strength.]]>
420 Maggie Anton 0452295688 sophia 0 to-read 3.99 2009 Rachel (Rashi’s Daughters #3)
author: Maggie Anton
name: sophia
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2009
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The Dovekeepers 10950924
In 70 C.E., nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman's novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael's mother died in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker's wife, watched the horrifically brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior's daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and an expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power.

The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets - about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.]]>
504 Alice Hoffman 145161747X sophia 0 to-read 4.05 2011 The Dovekeepers
author: Alice Hoffman
name: sophia
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2011
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<![CDATA[The Harem Midwife (Midwife #2)]]> 15792512 Midwife of Venice.
The Imperial Harem, Constantinople, 1579
Hannah and Isaac Levi, Venetians in exile, have set up a new life for themselves in Constantinople. Isaac runs a newly established business in the growing silk trade, while Hannah, the best midwife in all of Constantinople, plies her trade within the opulent palace of Sultan Murat III, tending to the thousand women of his lively and infamous harem. But one night, when Hannah is unexpectedly summoned to the palace, she's confronted with Zofia, a poor Jewish peasant girl who has been abducted and sold into the sultan's harem. The sultan favours her as his next conquest and wants her to produce his heir, but the girl just wants to return to her home and the only life she has ever known. What will Hannah do? Will she risk her life and livelihood to protect this young girl, or will she retain her high esteem in the eye of the sultan?
An adventurous, opulent and deliciously exciting read, peopled with fascinating, unforgettable characters (a court eunuch; the calculating sultan's mother-in-law; the beguiling harem ladies; and a very mysterious young beauty from Venice who shows up on Hannah's doorstep causing much havoc), this novel is sure to please fans of The Midwife of Venice and extend Roberta's reputation as one of Canada's most loved historical fiction authors]]>
320 Roberta Rich 0385676662 sophia 0 to-read 3.64 2012 The Harem Midwife (Midwife #2)
author: Roberta Rich
name: sophia
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2012
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All-Night Pharmacy 58349243
Winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction
Finalist for the California Book Awards
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Novel

Rachel Kushner meets David Lynch in this fever dream of an LA novel about a young woman who commits a drunken act of violence just before her sister vanishes without a trace.

On the night of her high school graduation, a young woman follows her older sister Debbie to Salvation, a Los Angeles bar patronized by energy healers, aspiring actors, and all-around misfits. After the two share a bag of unidentified pills, the evening turns into a haze of sensual and risky interactions—nothing unusual for two sisters bound in an incredibly toxic relationship. Our unnamed narrator has always been under the spell of the alluring and rebellious Debbie and, despite her own hesitations, she has always said yes to nights like these. That is, until Debbie disappears.

Falling deeper into the life she cultivated with her sister, our narrator gets a job as an emergency room secretary where she steals pills to sell on the side. Cue Sasha, a Jewish refugee from the former Soviet Union who arrives at the hospital claiming to be a psychic tasked with acting as the narrator’s spiritual guide. The nature of this relationship evolves and blurs, a kaleidoscope of friendship, sex, mysticism, and ambiguous power dynamics.

With prose pulsing like a neon sign, Ruth Madievsky’s All-Night Pharmacy is an intoxicating portrait of a young woman consumed with unease over how a person should be. As she attempts sobriety and sexual embodiment, she must decide whether to search for her estranged sister, or allow her to remain a relic of the past.]]>
304 Ruth Madievsky sophia 0 to-read 3.48 2023 All-Night Pharmacy
author: Ruth Madievsky
name: sophia
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2023
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The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem 26114648 The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem is a dazzling novel of mothers and daughters, stories told and untold, and the binds that tie four generations of women.

Gabriela's mother Luna is the most beautiful woman in all of Jerusalem, though her famed beauty and charm seem to be reserved for everyone but her daughter. Ever since Gabriela can remember, she and Luna have struggled to connect. But when tragedy strikes, Gabriela senses there's more to her mother than painted nails and lips.

Desperate to understand their relationship, Gabriela pieces together the stories of her family's previous generations—from Great-Grandmother Mercada the renowned healer, to Grandma Rosa who cleaned houses for the English, to Luna who had the nicest legs in Jerusalem. But as she uncovers shocking secrets, forbidden romances, and the family curse that links the women together, Gabriela must face a past and present far more complex than she ever imagined.

Set against the Golden Age of Hollywood, the dark days of World War II, and the swingin' '70s, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem follows generations of unforgettable women as they forge their own paths through times of dramatic change. With great humor and heart, Sarit Yishai-Levi has given us a powerful story of love and forgiveness—and the unexpected and enchanting places we find each.]]>
374 Sarit Yishai-Levi 1250078164 sophia 0 to-read 3.83 2013 The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem
author: Sarit Yishai-Levi
name: sophia
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2013
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The Woman Beyond the Sea 62068917
An immersive historical tale spanning the life stories of three women, The Woman Beyond the Sea traces the paths of a daughter, mother, and grandmother who lead entirely separate lives, until finally their stories and their hearts are joined together.

Eliya thinks that she’s finally found true love and passion with her charismatic and demanding husband, an aspiring novelist—until he ends their relationship in a Paris café, spurring her suicide attempt. Seeking to heal herself, Eliya is compelled to piece together the jagged shards of her life and history.

Eliya’s heart-wrenching journey leads her to a profound and unexpected love, renewed family ties, and a reconciliation with her orphaned mother, Lily. Together, the two women embark on a quest to discover the truth about themselves and Lily’s own origins…and the unknown woman who set their stories in motion one Christmas Eve.]]>
413 Sarit Yishai-Levi 1542037565 sophia 0 to-read 4.07 2019 The Woman Beyond the Sea
author: Sarit Yishai-Levi
name: sophia
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2019
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Künstlers in Paradise 60784564 There was a time when the family Künstler lived in the fairy-tale city of Vienna. Circumstances transformed that fairy tale into a nightmare, and in 1939 the Künstlers found their way out of Vienna and into a new fairy tale: Los Angeles, California, United States of America.

For years Mamie Künstler, ninety-three-years-old, as clever and glamorous as ever, has lived happily in her bungalow in Venice, California with her inscrutable housekeeper and her gigantic St. Bernard dog. Their tranquility is upended when Mamie’s grandson, Julian, arrives from New York City. Like many a twenty-something, he has come to seek his fortune in Hollywood. But it is 2020, the global pandemic sweeps in, and Julian’s short visit suddenly has no end in sight.

Mamie was only eleven when the Künstlers escaped Vienna in 1939. They made their way, stunned and overwhelmed, to sunny, surreal Los Angeles where they joined a colony of distinguished Jewish musicians, writers and intellectuals also escaping Hitler. Now, faced with months of lockdown and a willing listener, Mamie begins to tell Julian the buried stories of her early years in Los Angeles: her escapades with eminent émigrés like Arnold Schoenberg, Christopher Isherwood, Thomas Mann. Oh, and Greta Garbo. While the pandemic cuts Julian off from the life he knows, Mamie’s tales open up a world of lives that came before him. They reveal to him just how much the past holds of the future.]]>
272 Cathleen Schine 1250805902 sophia 0 to-read 3.40 2023 Künstlers in Paradise
author: Cathleen Schine
name: sophia
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2023
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<![CDATA[At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf]]> 32332917 At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf is a thrilling novel, not just as a splendid read but as a deeply resonant work of art driven by the central yearning in the greatest literary narratives: the yearning for a self, for an identity, for a place in the world. Tara Ison has always been a writer I’ve ardently admired. Here she is at the height of her estimable powers.�—Robert Olen Butler

“A suspenseful and disturbing psychological story of an adolescent Jewish girl, relocated from Paris to a small village in Vichy during WWII and hiding with a Catholic family, who becomes increasingly and dangerously aligned with her invented identity. Written in exquisite prose, Tara Ison’s novel of persona, identity and survival in collaborationist France is chilling and profoundly moving.�—Janet Fitch

“Told from the perspective of a young Jewish girl grappling with identity, Ison’s timely book considers that moment between dusk and night, the almost imperceptible shift into darkness, both political and personal, as it exposes the high cost of accommodation of evil and bigotry. Provocative, vivid, and affecting, this novel will inspire important conversations that we all need to be having now.”—EJ Levy, author, The Cape Doctor

When Danielle Marton’s father is killed during the early days of the German occupation of France, her mother sends her to live in a quiet farming town. Now called Marie-Jean Chantier, Danielle struggles to balance the truth of what’s happened to her family and her country with the lies she must tell to keep herself safe. At first, she’s bitter about being left behind by her mother, and horrified at having to milk the cows and memorize Catholic prayers for church. But as the years pass, Danielle finds it easier to suppress her former life entirely, and Marie-Jean becomes less and less of an act. By the time she’s fifteen and there is talk amongst the now divided town of an Allied invasion, Danielle has transformed into a strict Catholic, a fervent disciple of fascism, as well as a German collaborator.]]>
296 Tara Ison 161902926X sophia 0 to-read 3.65 2023 At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf
author: Tara Ison
name: sophia
average rating: 3.65
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My Last Innocent Year 60741808 An incisive, deeply resonant debut novel about a nonconsensual sexual encounter that propels one woman’s final semester at an elite New England college into controversy and chaos—and into an ill-advised affair with a married professor.

It’s 1998 and Isabel Rosen, the only daughter of a Lower East Side appetizing store owner, has one semester left at Wilder College, a prestigious school in New Hampshire. Desperate to shed her working-class roots and still mourning the death of her mother four years earlier, Isabel has always felt like an outsider at Wilder but now, in her final semester, she believes she has found her place—until a nonconsensual sexual encounter with one of the only other Jewish students on campus leaves her reeling.

Enter R. H. Connelly, a once-famous poet and Isabel’s writing professor, a man with secrets of his own. Connelly makes Isabel feel seen, beautiful, talented: the woman she longs to become. His belief in her ignites a belief in herself, and the two begin an affair that shakes the foundation of who Isabel thinks she is, for better and worse. As the lives of the adults around her slowly come apart, Isabel discovers that the line between youth and adulthood is less defined than she thought.

A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, Daisy Alpert Florin's My Last Innocent Year is a timely and wise portrait of a young woman learning to trust her voice and move toward independence while recognizing the beauty and grit of where she came from.]]>
304 Daisy Alpert Florin 1250857031 sophia 0 to-read 3.70 2023 My Last Innocent Year
author: Daisy Alpert Florin
name: sophia
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
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The Family Morfawitz 75417353 288 Daniel H. Turtel sophia 0 to-read 3.37 The Family Morfawitz
author: Daniel H. Turtel
name: sophia
average rating: 3.37
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<![CDATA[The Promise of a Normal Life: A Novel]]> 61273560
Hailed as “radiant and transporting� (Margot Livesey), The Promise of a Normal Life is a poet’s debut novel, so evocative of life as lived that ittransports you to a time and place you can practically see, touch, and feel. The unnamed narrator is a fiercely observant, introverted Jewish-American girl who seems to exist in a private and separate realm. She's the child of a first-generation doctor and lawyer—whose own stories have the loud grandeur of family legend—in an America where Jews are excluded from the country club across the street. Her expectations for adulthood are often contradictory. In the changing landscape of the 1960s, she attempts to find her way through the rituals of life, her geography expanding across the country, across the ocean, and into multiple nations.

Along the way, she meets a glamorous hairdresser on a cruise ship to Israel, loopy tarot-card-reading passengers, and Alice-in-Wonderland lawyers in Haifa. There’s a blue-eyed all-American college boyfriend, a mystified tourist agent in the Lofoten Islands, a handsome eligible rabbi in LA, a righteous and self-absorbed MIT professor, and a clandestine, calculating lover in Boston. Eventually, she finds her own compass, but only after being swept to several distant shores by many winds.]]>
288 Rebecca Kaiser Gibson 1956763333 sophia 0 to-read 3.51 The Promise of a Normal Life: A Novel
author: Rebecca Kaiser Gibson
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average rating: 3.51
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<![CDATA[(Un)kind: How 'Be Kind' Entrenches Sexism]]> 210260169 (Un)kind explores how traditional beliefs about women's 'kind' nature have been repackaged for an age that remains dependent - socially, politically, economically - on female self-sacrifice while finding the concept outdated and essentialist.

Looking at the various guises under which kindness culture is sold to women and girls - from play to self-help, social justice activism to empowerment - it argues that the pressure on women and girls has not decreased, but instead been incorporated into the 'work' of feminism. (Un)kind also proposes that this phenomenon ultimately distorts relations between humans, harming not just those coerced into performing 'kindness work' but the supposed recipients of their services. Kindness culture supports the backlash against feminism while claiming to represent feminism's - and women's - true nature. It is, at heart, unkind.]]>
305 Victoria Smith 0349127123 sophia 0 4.20 (Un)kind: How 'Be Kind' Entrenches Sexism
author: Victoria Smith
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average rating: 4.20
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<![CDATA[Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation]]> 5206073 Beowulf, Sir Gawain is the strange tale of a green knight on a green horse, who rudely interrupts King Arthur's Round Table festivities one Yuletide, challenging the knights to a wager. Simon Armitrage, one of Britain's leading poets, has produced an inventive and groundbreaking translation that "[helps] liberate Gawain from academia" (Sunday Telegraph).]]> 208 Simon Armitage 0393334155 sophia 5 4.05 1375 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation
author: Simon Armitage
name: sophia
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1375
rating: 5
read at: 2021/11/24
date added: 2025/02/17
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Back Mechanic 63221240 303 Stuart McGill 1999195930 sophia 0 Exercise recs are good, but find a summary of it online. ]]> 4.58 2015 Back Mechanic
author: Stuart McGill
name: sophia
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
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Made me feel quite insane, and rather condescending at times. Not for people who have chronic pain. Posits simple changes of postures as able to heal the most severe of cases... does he think nobody ever thought of that before? And that it doesn't work for many....
Exercise recs are good, but find a summary of it online.
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The Women's Room 46456 The Women's Room follows the transformation of Mira Ward and her circle as the women's movement begins to have an impact on their lives. A biting social commentary on an emotional world gone silently haywire, The Women's Room is a modern classic that offers piercing insight into the social norms accepted so blindly and revered so completely. Marilyn French questions those accepted norms and poignantly portrays the hopeful believers looking for new truths.]]> 526 Marilyn French 1860492827 sophia 0 to-read 4.00 1977 The Women's Room
author: Marilyn French
name: sophia
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1977
rating: 0
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All Fours 197798168
A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.]]>
336 Miranda July 0593190262 sophia 0 to-read 3.54 2024 All Fours
author: Miranda July
name: sophia
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Illness: The Cry of the Flesh (The Art of Living)]]> 120826268 160 Havi Carel 1317488644 sophia 0 currently-reading 0.0 2008 Illness: The Cry of the Flesh (The Art of Living)
author: Havi Carel
name: sophia
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[My People Shall Live: Autobiography of a Revolutionary as Told to George Hajjar]]> 799628 229 Leila Khaled 0919600298 sophia 0 4.50 1973 My People Shall Live: Autobiography of a Revolutionary as Told to George Hajjar
author: Leila Khaled
name: sophia
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/21
date added: 2024/12/06
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Young Mungo 58891551
As they fall in love, they dream of finding somewhere they belong, while Mungo works hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his big brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold. And when several months later Mungo's mother sends him on a fishing trip to a loch in Western Scotland with two strange men whose drunken banter belies murky pasts, he will need to summon all his inner strength and courage to try to get back to a place of safety, a place where he and James might still have a future.

Imbuing the everyday world of its characters with rich lyricism and giving full voice to people rarely acknowledged in the literary world, Young Mungo is a gripping and revealing story about the bounds of masculinity, the divisions of sectarianism, the violence faced by many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much.]]>
390 Douglas Stuart 0802159559 sophia 0 to-read 4.38 2022 Young Mungo
author: Douglas Stuart
name: sophia
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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The Red Tent 4989 The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable achievement in modern fiction: a new view of biblical women's society.]]> 324 Anita Diamant 0312353766 sophia 0 to-read 4.21 1997 The Red Tent
author: Anita Diamant
name: sophia
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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The Idiot 30962053 A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself.

The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, befriends her charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate, Svetlana, and, almost by accident, begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary. Selin may have barely spoken to Ivan, but with each email they exchange, the act of writing seems to take on new and increasingly mysterious meanings.

At the end of the school year, Ivan goes to Budapest for the summer, and Selin heads to the Hungarian countryside, to teach English in a program run by one of Ivan's friends. On the way, she spends two weeks visiting Paris with Svetlana. Selin's summer in Europe does not resonate with anything she has previously heard about the typical experiences of American college students, or indeed of any other kinds of people. For Selin, this is a journey further inside herself: a coming to grips with the ineffable and exhilarating confusion of first love, and with the growing consciousness that she is doomed to become a writer.]]>
423 Elif Batuman 1594205612 sophia 0 currently-reading 3.67 2017 The Idiot
author: Elif Batuman
name: sophia
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead]]> 59366182 In this “fun, page-turner of a novel� (Sarah Haywood, New York Times bestselling author) that’s perfect for fans of Mostly Dead Things and Goodbye, Vitamin, a morbidly anxious young woman stumbles into a job as a receptionist at a Catholic church and soon finds herself obsessed with her predecessor’s mysterious death.

Gilda, a twenty-something, atheist, animal-loving lesbian, cannot stop ruminating about death. Desperate for relief from her panicky mind and alienated from her repressive family, she responds to a flyer for free therapy at a local Catholic church, and finds herself being greeted by Father Jeff, who assumes she’s there for a job interview. Too embarrassed to correct him, Gilda is abruptly hired to replace the recently deceased receptionist Grace.

In between trying to memorize the lines to Catholic mass, hiding the fact that she has a new girlfriend, and erecting a dirty dish tower in her crumbling apartment, Gilda strikes up an email correspondence with Grace’s old friend. She can’t bear to ignore the kindly old woman who has been trying to reach her friend through the church inbox, but she also can’t bring herself to break the bad news. Desperate, she begins impersonating Grace via email. But when the police discover suspicious circumstances surrounding Grace’s death, Gilda may have to finally reveal the truth of her mortifying existence.

With a “kindhearted heroine we all need right now� (Courtney Maum, New York Times bestselling author), Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is a crackling and “delightfully weird reminder that we will one day turn to dust and that yes, this is depressing, but it’s also what makes life beautiful� (Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl).]]>
256 Emily R. Austin 198216736X sophia 0 3.85 2021 Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead
author: Emily R. Austin
name: sophia
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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Beside occasional corny hyperlib lines here and there I enjoyed.
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Cleopatra and Frankenstein 57693262 For readers of Modern Lovers and Conversations with Friends, an addictive, humorous, and poignant debut novel about the shock waves caused by one couple's impulsive marriage.

Twenty-four-year-old British painter Cleo has escaped from England to New York and is still finding her place in the sleepless city when, a few months before her student visa ends, she meets Frank. Twenty years older and a self-made success, Frank's life is full of all the excesses Cleo's lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint, and the opportunity to apply for a Green Card. But their impulsive marriage irreversibly changes both their lives, and the lives of those close to them, in ways they never could've predicted.

Each compulsively readable chapter explores the lives of Cleo, Frank, and an unforgettable cast of their closest friends and family as they grow up and grow older. Whether it's Cleo's best friend struggling to embrace his gender queerness in the wake of Cleo's marriage, or Frank's financially dependent sister arranging sugar daddy dates to support herself after being cut off, or Cleo and Frank themselves as they discover the trials of marriage and mental illness, each character is as absorbing, and painfully relatable, as the last.

As hilarious as it is heartbreaking, entertaining as it is deeply moving, Cleopatra and Frankenstein marks the entry of a brilliant and bold new talent.]]>
384 Coco Mellors 1635576814 sophia 0 to-read 3.70 2022 Cleopatra and Frankenstein
author: Coco Mellors
name: sophia
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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A Certain Hunger 44294655
But there is something within Dorothy that's different from everyone else, and having suppressed it long enough, she starts to embrace what makes Dorothy uniquely, terrifyingly herself. Recounting her life from a seemingly idyllic farm-to-table childhood, the heights of her career, to the moment she plunges an ice pick into a man's neck on Fire Island, Dorothy Daniels show us what happens when a woman finally embraces her superiority.

A satire of early foodieism, a critique of how gender is defined, and a showcase of virtuoso storytelling, Chelsea G. Summers' A Certain Hunger introduces us to the food world's most charming psychopath and an exciting new voice in fiction.]]>
250 Chelsea G. Summers sophia 0 to-read 3.73 2019 A Certain Hunger
author: Chelsea G. Summers
name: sophia
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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Big Swiss 60701439
One day, Greta recognizes Big Swiss’s voice in town and they quickly become enmeshed. While Big Swiss is unaware Greta has eavesdropped on her most intimate exchanges, Greta has never been more herself with anyone. Her attraction to Big Swiss overrides her guilt, and she’ll do anything to sustain the relationship…]]>
336 Jen Beagin 1982153083 sophia 0 to-read 3.69 2023 Big Swiss
author: Jen Beagin
name: sophia
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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Boy Parts 49083140
Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina’s relationship with her obsessive best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention�

Boy Parts is the incendiary debut novel from Eliza Clark, a pitch-black comedy both shocking and hilarious, fearlessly exploring the taboo regions of sexuality and gender roles in the twenty-first century.]]>
304 Eliza Clark 1910312649 sophia 0 to-read 3.74 2020 Boy Parts
author: Eliza Clark
name: sophia
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace]]> 1204092
Philosopher, mother, and feminist Sara Ruddick examines the discipline of mothering, showing for the first time how the day-to-day work of raising children gives rise to distinctive ways of thinking.]]>
320 Sara Ruddick 0807014095 sophia 0 3.84 1989 Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace
author: Sara Ruddick
name: sophia
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/20
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<![CDATA[The Committed Life: Principles for Good Living from Our Timeless Past]]> 892450 333 Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis 0060930853 sophia 0 to-read 4.54 1998 The Committed Life: Principles for Good Living from Our Timeless Past
author: Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis
name: sophia
average rating: 4.54
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/27
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<![CDATA[Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures--The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text: Torah Nevi’im Kethuvim]]> 20324816 1622 Anonymous sophia 0 currently-reading 4.45 1985 Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures--The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text: Torah Nevi’im Kethuvim
author: Anonymous
name: sophia
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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Becoming a Jew 727987 495 Maurice Lamm 0824603508 sophia 0 currently-reading 4.19 1991 Becoming a Jew
author: Maurice Lamm
name: sophia
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[To Life: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking]]> 358136 304 Harold S. Kushner 0446670022 sophia 0 4.23 1993 To Life: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking
author: Harold S. Kushner
name: sophia
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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Intermezzo 208931300 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]>
454 Sally Rooney 0374602638 sophia 0 currently-reading 3.88 2024 Intermezzo
author: Sally Rooney
name: sophia
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender]]> 520510 263 Nancy J. Chodorow 0520221559 sophia 0 currently-reading 3.53 1978 The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender
author: Nancy J. Chodorow
name: sophia
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1978
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Gender and Representation in the Films of Ingmar Bergman (Studies in Scandinavian Literature and Culture)]]> 592991
This book covers the whole of Bergman's production, but concentrates in particular on close analyses of five of his major Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, The Silence, Persona, and Cries and Whispers. In addition to bringing post-modernist theoretical strategies to bear on the films, it offers a clear, current, pluralist feminist perspective.]]>
240 Marilyn Johns Blackwell 1571130942 sophia 0 currently-reading 3.67 1997 Gender and Representation in the Films of Ingmar Bergman (Studies in Scandinavian Literature and Culture)
author: Marilyn Johns Blackwell
name: sophia
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution]]> 305826
"In order for all women to have real choices all along the line," Adrienne Rich writes, "we need fully to understand the power and powerlessness embodied in motherhood in patriarchal culture." Rich's investigation, in this influential and landmark book, concerns both experience and institution. The experience is her own - as a woman, a poet, a feminist, and a mother - but it is an experience determined by the institution, imposed in its many variations on all women everywhere. She draws on personal materials, history, research, and literature to create a document of universal importance.

One of our most distinguished poets, ADRIENNE RICH was born in Baltimore in 1929. Over the last forty years she has published more than seventeen volumes of poetry and five books of nonfiction prose, including Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations; On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Blood, Bread, and Poetry; and What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics. She has received numerous awards, including the Ruth Lilly Prize, the Lambda Book Award, the National Book Award, and the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. She lives in California.]]>
322 Adrienne Rich 0393312844 sophia 0 currently-reading 4.23 Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution
author: Adrienne Rich
name: sophia
average rating: 4.23
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<![CDATA[Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women's Rights Worldwide]]> 60588930
Since the beginning of the #MeToo movement, tens of thousands of people in South Korea have taken to the street, and many more brave individuals took a stand, to end a decades-long abortion ban and bring down powerful men accused of sexual misconduct—including a popular presidential contender. South Korean feminists know that the revolution has been a long time coming, between battles against its own patriarchal society as well as challenging stereotypes of docile Asian women in the Western imagination.

Now, author Hawon Jung will show the rest of the world that these women are no delicate flowers—they are trailblazing flames. Flowers of Fire takes the reader into the trenches of this fight for equality, following along as South Korean activists march on the streets, navigate public and private spaces where spycam porn crimes are rampant, and share tips and tricks with each other as they learn how to protect themselves from harassment and how to push authorities to act.

Jung, the former Seoul correspondent for the AFP, draws on her on-the-ground reporting and interviews with many women who became activists and leaders, from the elite prosecutor who ignited the country’s #MeToo movement to the young women who led the war against non-consensual photography. Their stories, though long overlooked in the West, mirror realities that women across the world are all too familiar with: threats of defamation lawsuits to silence victims of assault, tech-based sexual abuse, and criminal justice systems where victims� voices are often met with suspicion and abusers� downfalls are met with sympathy. These are the issues at the heart of their #MeToo movement, and South Korean women have fought against them vigorously—and with extraordinary success. In Flowers of Fire, Jung illuminates the strength and tenacity of these women, too often sidelined in global conversations about feminism and gender equality.]]>
304 Hawon Jung 163774241X sophia 0 currently-reading 4.38 2023 Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women's Rights Worldwide
author: Hawon Jung
name: sophia
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2023
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Butcher 197516630 From one of our most accomplished storytellers, an extraordinary and arresting novel about a women’s asylum in the nineteenth century, and a terrifying doctor who wants to change the world

In this harrowing story based on authentic historical documents, we follow the career of Dr. Silas Weir, “Father of Gyno-Psychiatry,� as he ascends from professional anonymity to national renown. Humiliated by a procedure gone terribly wrong, Weir is forced to take a position at the New Jersey Asylum for Female Lunatics, where he reigns. There, he is allowed to continue his practice, unchecked for decades, making a name for himself by focusing on women who have been neglected by the state—women he subjects to the most grotesque modes of experimentation. As he begins to establish himself as a pioneer of nineteenth-century surgery, Weir’s ambition is fueled by his obsessive fascination with a young Irish indentured servant named Brigit, who becomes not only Weir’s primary experimental subject, but also the agent of his destruction.

Narrated by Silas Weir’s eldest son, who has repudiated his father’s brutal legacy, Butcher is a unique blend of fiction and fact, a nightmare voyage through the darkest regions of the American psyche conjoined, in its startling conclusion, with unexpected romance. Once again, Joyce Carol Oates has written a spellbinding novel confirming her position as one of our celebrated American visionaries of the imagination.]]>
352 Joyce Carol Oates 0593537777 sophia 0 currently-reading 3.75 2024 Butcher
author: Joyce Carol Oates
name: sophia
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Our Strange Body: Philosophical Reflections on Identity and Medical Interventions]]> 20948646 180 Jenny Slatman 9089646477 sophia 0 currently-reading 3.83 2014 Our Strange Body: Philosophical Reflections on Identity and Medical Interventions
author: Jenny Slatman
name: sophia
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Matricentric Feminism: Theory, Activism, Practice. The 2nd Edition]]> 175365105 355 Andrea O’Reilly 1772583820 sophia 0 currently-reading 5.00 Matricentric Feminism: Theory, Activism, Practice. The 2nd Edition
author: Andrea O’Reilly
name: sophia
average rating: 5.00
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<![CDATA[Mad Mothers, Bad Mothers, and What a "Good" Mother Would Do: The Ethics of Ambivalence]]> 18473893
Applying care ethics philosophy and the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Simone de Beauvoir to real-world experiences of motherhood, Sarah LaChance Adams throws the inherent tensions of motherhood into sharp relief, drawing a more nuanced portrait of the mother and child relationship than previously conceived. The maternal example is particularly instructive for ethical theory, highlighting the dynamics of human interdependence while also affirming separate interests. LaChance Adams particularly focuses on maternal ambivalence and its morally productive role in reinforcing the divergence between oneself and others, helping to recognize the particularities of situation, and negotiating the difference between one's own needs and the desires of others. She ultimately argues maternal filicide is a social problem requiring a collective solution that ethical philosophy and philosophies of care can inform.]]>
272 Sarah LaChance Adams 0231166745 sophia 0 currently-reading 3.60 2014 Mad Mothers, Bad Mothers, and What a "Good" Mother Would Do: The Ethics of Ambivalence
author: Sarah LaChance Adams
name: sophia
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Sublime Object of Ideology]]> 18912
Linking key psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts to social phenomena such as totalitarianism and racism, the book explores the political significance of these fantasies of control.]]>
256 Slavoj Žižek 0860919714 sophia 0 currently-reading 4.07 1989 The Sublime Object of Ideology
author: Slavoj Žižek
name: sophia
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Liv Ullmann: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers)]]> 949739 229 Liv Ullmann 1578068231 sophia 0 currently-reading 0.0 2006 Liv Ullmann: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers)
author: Liv Ullmann
name: sophia
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Queer Bergman: Sexuality, Gender, and the European Art Cinema]]> 16233632 234 Daniel Humphrey 0292743769 sophia 0 currently-reading 4.22 2013 Queer Bergman: Sexuality, Gender, and the European Art Cinema
author: Daniel Humphrey
name: sophia
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/07
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<![CDATA[Ingmar Bergman at the Crossroads: Between Theory and Practice]]> 60652957
In order to throw light on these issues, art practitioners such as film directors Ang Lee and Margarethe von Trotta, film and opera director Atom Egoyan, and film producer and screenwriter James Schamus are brought together with academics such as philosopher and film scholar Paisley Livingston, musicologist Alexis Luko, and playwright and performance studies scholar Allan Havis to discuss Bergman's work from their unique perspectives. In addition, Ingmar Bergman at the Crossroads provides, for the first time, in-depth interviews with Bergman's longtime collaborators Katinka Faragó and Måns Reuterswärd, who both have first-hand experience of working intimately as producers in film and television with Bergman, covering more than 5 decades. In an open exchange between individual and institutional perspectives, this book bridges the often-rigid boundaries between theoreticians and practitioners, in turn pointing Bergman studies in new directions.]]>
270 Maaret Koskinen 1501389645 sophia 0 ma-thesis 0.0 Ingmar Bergman at the Crossroads: Between Theory and Practice
author: Maaret Koskinen
name: sophia
average rating: 0.0
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The Primal Scream 1264935 446 Arthur Janov 0399505377 sophia 0 currently-reading 3.87 1970 The Primal Scream
author: Arthur Janov
name: sophia
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1970
rating: 0
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Women and Madness 162128 Women and Madness remains as important today as it was when first published in 1972.]]> 432 Phyllis Chesler 1403968977 sophia 0 currently-reading 3.88 1972 Women and Madness
author: Phyllis Chesler
name: sophia
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1972
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Disease and Representation: Images of Illness from Madness to AIDS]]> 922187 Gilman, Sander L. 320 Sander L. Gilman 0801494761 sophia 0 currently-reading 3.80 1988 Disease and Representation: Images of Illness from Madness to AIDS
author: Sander L. Gilman
name: sophia
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/02
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<![CDATA[The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom]]> 96884 297 Jonathan Haidt 0465028020 sophia 0 currently-reading 4.08 2006 The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom
author: Jonathan Haidt
name: sophia
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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Illness as Metaphor 119688 87 Susan Sontag 0374520739 sophia 0 ma-thesis 3.98 1978 Illness as Metaphor
author: Susan Sontag
name: sophia
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1978
rating: 0
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The Magic Lantern 213854 The Magic Lantern.

More grand mosaic than linear account, Bergman’s vignettes trace his life from a rural Swedish childhood through his work in theater to Hollywood’s golden age, and a tumultuous romantic history that includes five wives and more than a few mistresses. Throughout, Bergman recounts his life in a series of deeply personal flashbacks that document some of the most important moments in twentieth-century filmmaking as well as the private obsessions of the man behind them. Ambitious in scope yet sensitively wrought, The Magic Lantern is a window to the mind of one of our era’s great geniuses.

“[Bergman] has found a way to show the soul’s landscape. . . . Many gripping revelations.”�New York Times Book Review

“Joan Tate’s translation of this book has delicacy and true pitch . . . The Magic Lantern is as personal and penetrating as a Bergman film, wry, shadowy, austere.”�New Republic

“[Bergman] keeps returning to his past, reassessing it, distilling its meaning, offering it to his audiences in dazzling new shapes.”�New York Times

“What Bergman does relate, particularly his tangled relationships with his parents, is not only illuminating but quite moving. No ‘tell-all� book this one, but revealing in ways that much longer and allegedly ‘franker� books are not.”�Library Journal]]>
314 Ingmar Bergman 0226043827 sophia 0 ma-thesis 4.11 1987 The Magic Lantern
author: Ingmar Bergman
name: sophia
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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Second Skins 991898
In this stunning first extensive study of transsexual autobiography, Jay Prosser examines the exchanges between body and narrative that constitute the phenomenon of transsexuality. Showing how transsexuality's somatic transitions are spurred and enabled by the formal transitions of narrative, Prosser uncovers a narrative tradition for transsexual bodies. Sex change is a plot--and thus appropriately transsexuals make for adept and absorbing authors. In reading the transssexual plot through transsexuals' own recounting, Prosser not only gives us a new and more accurate rendition of transsexuality. His book suggests transsexuality, with its extraordinary conjunctions of body and narrative, as an identity story that transitions across the body/language divide that currently stalls poststucturalist thought.

The form and approach of "Second Skins" works to cross other important and parallel divides. In addition to analyzing transsexual textual accounts, the book includes some 30 photographic portraits of transsexuals--poignant attempts by transsexuals to present themselves unmediated to the world except by the camera. And the author does not shy from exposure himself. Interjecting the personal into his theoretical discussion and close textual work throughout the book, Prosser reads and writes his own body, his purpose in that stylistic crossing to stake out transsexuality--and hence this very book--as his own body's narrative.]]>
288 Jay Prosser 0231109350 sophia 0 research, currently-reading 4.06 1998 Second Skins
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name: sophia
average rating: 4.06
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<![CDATA[Hags: The Demonisation of Middle-Aged Women]]> 61086853
In the last few years, as identity politics has taken hold, middle-aged women have found themselves talked and written about as morally inferior beings, the face of bigotry, entitlement and selfishness, to be ignored, pitied or abused.

Hags asks the question why these women are treated with such active disdain. Each chapter takes a different theme - care work, beauty, violence, political organization, sex - and explores it in relation to middle-aged women's beliefs, bodies and choices. Victoria Smith traces the attitudes she describes back to the same anxieties about older women that drove Early Modern witch hunts, and explores the very specific reasons why this type of misogyny is so powerful today. The demonisation of hags has never felt more now.

Victoria Smith has decided in this book that she will be the Karen so nobody else has to be, and she ends on a positive note, exploring potential solutions which can benefit all women, hags and hags-in-waiting.]]>
368 Victoria Smith 0349726965 sophia 0 3.51 2023 Hags: The Demonisation of Middle-Aged Women
author: Victoria Smith
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Being and Nothingness 10033 Being & Nothingness is without doubt one of the most significant philosophical books of the 20th century. The central work by one of the century's most influential thinkers, it altered the course of western philosophy. Its revolutionary approach challenged all previous assumptions about the individual's relationship with the world. Known as 'the Bible of existentialism', its impact on culture & literature was immediate & was felt worldwide, from the absurdist drama of Samuel Beckett to the soul-searching cries of the Beat poets.
Being & Nothingness is one of those rare books whose influence has affected the mindset of subsequent generations. Seventy years after its 1st publication, its message remains as potent as ever--challenging readers to confront the fundamental dilemmas of human freedom, choice, responsibility & action.]]>
688 Jean-Paul Sartre 0415278481 sophia 0 ma-thesis, currently-reading 4.00 1943 Being and Nothingness
author: Jean-Paul Sartre
name: sophia
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1943
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<![CDATA[Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, Psychiatry and the Sense of Reality (International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry)]]> 3241530
Feelings of Being is the first ever philosophical account of the nature, role and variety of existential feelings in psychiatric illness and in everyday life. In this book, Matthew Ratcliffe proposes that existential feelings form a distinctive group by virtue of three characteristics: they are bodily feelings, they constitute ways of relating to the world as a whole, and they are responsible for our sense of reality. The book explains how something can be a bodily feeling and, at the same time, a sense of reality and belonging. It then explores the role of changed feeling in psychiatric illness, showing how an account of existential feeling can help us to understand experiential changes that occur in a range of conditions, including depression, circumscribed delusions, depersonalisation and schizophrenia. The book also addresses the contribution made by existential feelings to religious experience and to philosophical thought.

Written in a clear, non-technical style throughout, it will be valuable for philosophers, clinicians, students, and researchers working in a wide range of disciplines.]]>
309 Matthew Ratcliffe 0199206465 sophia 0 ma-thesis, currently-reading 4.50 2008 Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, Psychiatry and the Sense of Reality (International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry)
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Phenomenology of Illness 30211747 for philosophy. Contra the philosophical tendency to resist thinking about illness, Carel proposes that illness is a philosophical tool. Through its pathologising effect, illness distances the ill person from taken for granted routines and habits and reveals aspects of human existence that normally go unnoticed. Phenomenology of Illness develops a phenomenological framework for illness and a systematic understanding of illness as a philosophical tool.]]> 248 Havi Carel 0199669651 sophia 0 ma-thesis 3.96 2016 Phenomenology of Illness
author: Havi Carel
name: sophia
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2016
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<![CDATA[Crip Spacetime: Access, Failure, and Accountability in Academic Life]]> 195522437 240 Margaret Price 1478026138 sophia 0 ma-thesis, to-read 4.43 Crip Spacetime: Access, Failure, and Accountability in Academic Life
author: Margaret Price
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average rating: 4.43
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<![CDATA[The Body and Shame: Phenomenology, Feminism, and the Socially Shaped Body]]> 23736654
The Body and Shame introduces leading twentieth-century phenomenological and sociological accounts of embodied subjectivity through the work of Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault and Norbert Elias. Dolezal examines the embodied, social and political features of body shame. contending that body shame is both a necessary and constitutive part of embodied subjectivity while simultaneously a potential site of oppression and marginalization. Exploring the cultural politics of shame, the final chapters of this work explore the phenomenology of self-presentation and a feminist analysis of shame and gender, with a critical focus on the practice of cosmetic surgery, a site where the body is literally shaped by shame. The Body and Shame will be of great interest to scholars and students in a wide variety of fields, including philosophy, phenomenology, feminist theory, women’s studies, social theory, cultural studies, psychology, sociology, and medical humanities.]]>
206 Luna Dolezal 0739181688 sophia 0 ma-thesis, to-read 4.26 2015 The Body and Shame: Phenomenology, Feminism, and the Socially Shaped Body
author: Luna Dolezal
name: sophia
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2015
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<![CDATA[Treatments: Language, Politics, and the Culture of Illness]]> 2601807 288 Lisa Diedrich 0816646988 sophia 0 ma-thesis, to-read 4.00 2007 Treatments: Language, Politics, and the Culture of Illness
author: Lisa Diedrich
name: sophia
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2007
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<![CDATA[Queer Theory and Social Change (Opening Out)]]> 738908 Max Kirsch presents a challenging alternative to the current fascination with post-modern analyses of identity, culture, and difference. It emphasizes the need for a discussion of the importance of communities and the role of globalization on queer movements.]]> 176 Max H. Kirsch 0415221854 sophia 0 3.50 2000 Queer Theory and Social Change (Opening Out)
author: Max H. Kirsch
name: sophia
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2000
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<![CDATA[Sex Matters: How Male-Centric Medicine Endangers Women's Health and What We Can Do About It]]> 53005266 A clarion call about the dangers of medicine for women, as well as a manual for how women can get the right care for their bodies, from physician and leading expert on sex and gender medicine

Sex Matters tackles one of the most urgent, yet unspoken issues facing women's health care today: all models of medical research and practice are based on male-centric models that ignore the unique biological and emotional differences between men and women -- an omission that endangers women's lives. The facts surrounding how male-centric medicine impacts women's health every day are chilling: in the ER, women are more likely to receive a psychiatric diagnosis with regard to opioid use, while men are more likely to be referred for detoxification; the more vocal women become about their pain, the more likely their providers are to prescribe either inadequate or inappropriate pain relief medication; women often present with nontraditional symptoms of stroke, which causes delays in recognition by both them and their health professionals; and a government accountability study found that 80% of drugs that are withdrawn from the market are due to side effects that happen to women (a result of testing drugs mostly on men).

Leading expert on sex and gender medicine Dr. Alyson McGregor focuses on the key areas where these differences are most potentially harmful, addressing:
- Cardiac and stroke diagnosis and treatment in women;
- Prescription and dosing of pharmaceuticals;
- Subjective evaluation of women's symptoms;
- Pain and pain management;
- Hormones and female biochemistry (including prescribed hormones);
- How economic status, race, and gender identity are additional critical factors.

Not only does Dr. McGregor explore these disparities in depth, she shares clear, practical suggestions for what we can do. A work of riveting expose, revelatory insights into the medical establishment and actionable guidance for putting this information to use, Sex Matters is an empowering roadmap for reinventing modern medicine -- and for self-care.]]>
272 Alyson J. McGregor 073824676X sophia 0 currently-reading 4.11 2020 Sex Matters: How Male-Centric Medicine Endangers Women's Health and What We Can Do About It
author: Alyson J. McGregor
name: sophia
average rating: 4.11
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<![CDATA[Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Politics of Patriarchy in Iran]]> 75676
Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister responds to a number of important questions raised in connection with 9/11. The author considers how veiling intersects with other identity markers in nation-state building and modern formations of gendered citizenship. She shows how Islamic nationalism and fundamentalism are fed by a hybrid blend of images and myths of both pre-Islamic and Islamic Iran, as well as globally circulated patriarchal ideologies.]]>
282 Minoo Moallem 0520243455 sophia 0 research, to-read 3.69 2005 Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Politics of Patriarchy in Iran
author: Minoo Moallem
name: sophia
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2005
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<![CDATA[Unpacking Queer Politics: A Lesbian Feminist Perspective]]> 664261
The new politics repudiated lesbian feminist ideas and celebrated 'manhood' as a goal for gay men. Practices which construct this 'manhood', such as sadomasochism, cutting and piercing, female-to-male transsexual surgery, and which are promoted in queer politics, need to be understood as forms of self-harm which result from the oppression of lesbians and gay men. The political agenda of queer politics is damaging to the interests of lesbians, women in general, and to marginalized and vulnerable constituencies of gay men.

The book concludes by arguing that precisely the commitment to equality in relationships and sex that has been so important to lesbian feminists, and so excoriated in much of queer theory, should form the basis of a social transformation. In this way lesbians should be seen as the vanguard of social change.]]>
184 Sheila Jeffreys 0745628389 sophia 0 3.89 2002 Unpacking Queer Politics: A Lesbian Feminist Perspective
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name: sophia
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2002
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<![CDATA[Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution]]> 75494215 THE REAL ORIGIN OF OUR SPECIES: a myth-busting, eye-opening landmark account of how humans evolved, offering a paradigm shift in our thinking about what the female body is, how it came to be, and how this evolution still shapes all our lives today.

How did the female body drive 200 million years of human evolution?
� Why do women live longer than men?
� Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer’s?
� Why do girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty, when suddenly their scores plummet?
� Is sexism useful for evolution?
� And why, seriously why, do women have to sweat through our sheets every night when we hit menopause?

These questions are producing some truly exciting science—and in Eve, with boundless curiosity and sharp wit, Cat Bohannon covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex: "We need a kind of user's manual for the female mammal. A no-nonsense, hard-hitting, seriously researched (but readable) account of what we are. How female bodies evolved, how they work, what it really means to biologically be a woman. Something that would rewrite the story of womanhood. This book is that story. We have to put the female body in the picture. If we don't, it's not just feminism that's compromised. Modern medicine, neurobiology, paleoanthropology, even evolutionary biology all take a hit when we ignore the fact that half of us have breasts. So it's time we talk about breasts. Breasts, and blood, and fat, and vaginas, and wombs—all of it. How they came to be and how we live with them now, no matter how weird or hilarious the truth is."

Eve is not only a sweeping revision of human history, it's an urgent and necessary corrective for a world that has focused primarily on the male body for far too long. Picking up where Sapiens left off, Eve will completely change what you think you know about evolution and why Homo sapiens has become such a successful and dominant species.]]>
624 Cat Bohannon 0385350546 sophia 0 currently-reading 4.28 2023 Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution
author: Cat Bohannon
name: sophia
average rating: 4.28
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<![CDATA[Who Cooked the Last Supper: The Women's History of the World]]> 56354
Starting with women in pre-history the author looks beyond the myth of ‘Man the Hunter� to reveal women’s central role in the survival and evolution of the human race. She follows their progress from the days when God was a woman through to the triumphs of the Amazons and Assyrian war queens: she looks at the rise of organised religion and the growing oppression of women: she charts the long slow struggle for women’s rights culminating in the twentieth century women’s movements: and finally she presents a vision of women breaking free.

This brilliant and absorbing book turns the spotlight on the hidden side of history to present a fascinating new view of the world, overturning our preconceptions to restore women to their rightful place at the centre of the worldwide story of revolution, empire, war and peace.

Spiced with tales of individual women who have shaped history, celebrating the work and lives of the unsung female millions, distinguished by a wealth of research, The Women’s History of the World redefines the concept of historical reality.]]>
352 Rosalind Miles 0609806955 sophia 0 to-read 3.82 1989 Who Cooked the Last Supper: The Women's History of the World
author: Rosalind Miles
name: sophia
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1989
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<![CDATA[The Bonds of Freedom: Simone de Beauvoir's Existentialist Ethics]]> 141428 177 Kristana Arp 0812694430 sophia 0 3.77 2001 The Bonds of Freedom: Simone de Beauvoir's Existentialist Ethics
author: Kristana Arp
name: sophia
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2001
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<![CDATA[Three Worlds: Memoir of an Arab-Jew]]> 62918049 In July 1950, Avi Shlaim, only five, and his family were forced into exile, fleeing their beloved Iraq to the new state of Israel.

'Remarkable.' Max Hastings, THE SUNDAY TIMES

Today the once flourishing Jewish community of Iraq, at one time numbering over 130,000 and tracing its history back 2,600 years, has all but vanished.

Why so? One explanation speaks of the timeless clash between Arab and Jewish civilisations and a heroic Zionist mission to rescue Eastern Jews from backward nations and unceasing persecution.

Avi Shlaim tears up this script. His parents had many Muslim friends in Baghdad and no interest in Zionism. As anti-Semitism surged in Iraq, the Zionist underground fanned the flames. Yet when Iraqi Jews fled to Israel, they faced an uncertain future, their history was rewritten to serve a Zionist narrative.

This memoir breathes life into an almost forgotten world. Weaving together the personal and the political, Three Worlds offers a fresh perspective on Arab-Jews, caught in the crossfire of Zionism and nationalism.

***

A TLS AND NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023

'A beautifully written book which artfully blends the personal with the political.' Justin Marozzi, SPECTATOR

'Three Worlds, by the Oxford historian of the modern Middle East Avi Shlaim, is an often enchanting memoir of his childhood in Baghdad... A gripping account... A lost world in Iraq is brilliantly brought back to life in this fascinating memoir.' David Abulafia, FINANCIAL TIMES]]>
374 Avi Shlaim 0861544641 sophia 0 to-read 4.40 2023 Three Worlds: Memoir of an Arab-Jew
author: Avi Shlaim
name: sophia
average rating: 4.40
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<![CDATA[On Female Body Experience: "Throwing Like a Girl" and Other Essays (Studies in Feminist Philosophy)]]> 242327
The lead essay rethinks the purpose of the category of "gender" for feminist theory, after important debates have questioned its usefulness. Other essays include reflection on the meaning of being at home and the need for privacy in old age residences as well as essays that analyze aspects of the experience of women and girls that have received little attention even in feminist theory--such as the sexuality of breasts, or menstruation as punctuation in a woman's life story. Young describes the phenomenology of moving in a pregnant body and the tactile pleasures of clothing.

While academically rigorous, the essays are also written with engaging style, incorporating vivid imagery and autobiographical narrative. On Female Body Experience raises issues and takes positions that speak to scholars and students in philosophy, sociology, geography, medicine, nursing, and education.]]>
192 Iris Marion Young 0195161939 sophia 0 currently-reading 4.16 1990 On Female Body Experience: "Throwing Like a Girl" and Other Essays (Studies in Feminist Philosophy)
author: Iris Marion Young
name: sophia
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1990
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Female Sexual Slavery 1276272 � Los Angeles Times
"Exposes the dark side of sexuality and dares to ask the crucial question, 'why do men do these things to women?'...the issues it raises deserve nationwide attention."
—Susan Brownmiller
"Kathy Barry has written a courageous, crusading book that should be read everywhere, from the local District Attorney's office to the United Nations."
—Gloria Steinem
"This powerful and compassionate book should be read by anyone concerned with social values, with sexuality, with psychology � female and male."
—Adrienne Rich]]>
325 Kathleen Barry 0814710697 sophia 0 4.05 1984 Female Sexual Slavery
author: Kathleen Barry
name: sophia
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Identity And Memory: The Films of Chantal Akerman]]> 1698393 …Ydz…H…S (Je tu il elle,1974); Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975); Meetings with Anna (Les Rendez-vous d’Anna,1978); American Stories/Food, Family, and Philosophy (Histoires d’Amérique,1989); and From the East (ֲ,1993). Akerman has continued to create new and unexpected films that explore ideas about image, gaze, space, performance, and narration.



This collection of essays edited by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster assesses Akerman’s wide-ranging oeuvre, particularly her exploration of identity and memory, and considers her development as an artist and as a social force. Along with a detailed filmography and bibliography, both compiled by Foster, ten of the key figures in contemporary feminist moving-image discourse explore the themes with which Akerman is preoccupied: sexuality and lesbian identity, subjectivity, alterity, quotidian reality, the mother-daughter relationship, and Jewish diasporic identity.



The contributors include Maureen Turim, Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, Jennifer M. Barker, Ivone Margulies, Catherine Fowler, Janet Bergstrom, Ginette Vincendeau, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, Judith Mayne, and Kristine Butler.



Originally published in the United Kingdom by Flicks Books, this marks the first United States edition of Identity and Memory: The Films of Chantal Akerman.]]>
216 Gwendolyn Audrey Foster 0809325136 sophia 0 to-read, research 3.69 Identity And Memory: The Films of Chantal Akerman
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<![CDATA[The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering]]> 48836 Controversial indictment of those who exploit the tragedy of the Holocaust for their own gain.

In an iconoclastic and controversial study, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an interrogation of the place the Holocaust has come to occupy in American culture to a disturbing examination of recent Holocaust compensation agreements. It was not until the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, when Israel's evident strength brought it into line with US foreign policy, that memory of the Holocaust began to acquire the exceptional prominence it enjoys today. Leaders of America's Jewish community were delighted that Israel was now deemed a major strategic asset and, Finkelstein contends, exploited the Holocaust to enhance this newfound status. Their subsequent interpretations of the tragedy are often at variance with actual historical events and are employed to deflect any criticism of Israel and its supporters. Recalling Holocaust fraudsters such as Jerzy Kosinski and Binjamin Wilkomirski, as well as the demagogic constructions of writers like Daniel Goldhagen, Finkelstein contends that the main danger posed to the memory of Nazism's victims comes not from the distortions of Holocaust deniers but from prominent, self-proclaimed guardians of Holocaust memory. Drawing on a wealth of untapped sources, he exposes the double shakedown of European countries as well as legitimate Jewish claimants, and concludes that the Holocaust industry has become an outright extortion racket. Thoroughly researched and closely argued, The Holocaust Industry is all the more disturbing and powerful because the issues it deals with are so rarely discussed.

In a devastating new postscript to this best-selling book, Norman G. Finkelstein documents the Holocaust industry's scandalous cover-up of the blackmail of Swiss banks, and in a new appendix demolishes an influential apologia for the Holocaust industry.]]>
286 Norman G. Finkelstein 185984488X sophia 0 4.15 2000 The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering
author: Norman G. Finkelstein
name: sophia
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2000
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<![CDATA[Decolonizing Feminism: Transnational Feminism and Globalization]]> 33609517
International and interdisciplinary in scope, this book introduces the key issues in, and addresses the most significant challenges for, contemporary transnational feminist politics. In the context of rapid globalization, it explores the theoretical frameworks for thinking through significant concepts in feminist theory and rights, citizenship and immigration, feminist solidarity, decolonizing methodologies and practices, and freedom. From diverse socio-political locations and multiple and interdisciplinary perspectivesauthors propose new ways of thinking about feminist knowledges, methodologies, and practices. Ideal for students and scholars in Gender and Globalization, Transnational Feminism and Feminist Theory more broadly, the volume contributes to the ongoing project of advocating a decolonizing feminist approach to pressing social issues.]]>
316 Margaret A. McLaren 178660258X sophia 0 to-read, research 4.33 Decolonizing Feminism: Transnational Feminism and Globalization
author: Margaret A. McLaren
name: sophia
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<![CDATA[Girlfighting: Betrayal and Rejection among Girls]]> 93548
For some time, reality TV, talk shows, soap-operas, and sitcoms have turned their spotlights on women and girls who thrive on competition and nastiness. Few fairytales lack the evil stepmother, wicked witch, or jealous sister. Even cartoons feature mean and sassy girls who only become sweet and innocent when adults appear. And recently, popular books and magazines have turned their gaze away from ways of positively influencing girls' independence and self-esteem and towards the topic of girls' meanness to other girls. What does this say about the way our culture views girlhood? How much do these portrayals affect the way girls view themselves?

In Girlfighting , psychologist and educator Lyn Mikel Brown scrutinizes the way our culture nurtures and reinforces this sort of meanness in girls. She argues that the old adage “girls will be girls”―gossipy, competitive, cliquish, backstabbing� and the idea that fighting is part of a developmental stage or a rite-of-passage, are not acceptable explanations. Instead, she asserts, girls are discouraged from expressing strong feelings and are pressured to fulfill unrealistic expectations, to be popular, and struggle to find their way in a society that still reinforces gender stereotypes and places greater value on boys. Under such pressure, in their frustration and anger, girls (often unconsciously) find it less risky to take out their fears and anxieties on other girls instead of challenging the ways boys treat them, the way the media represents them, or the way the culture at large supports sexist practices.

Girlfighting traces the changes in girls' thoughts, actions and feelings from childhood into young adulthood, providing the developmental understanding and theoretical explanation often lacking in other conversations. Through interviews with over 400 girls of diverse racial, economic, and geographic backgrounds, Brown chronicles the labyrinthine journey girls take from direct and outspoken children who like and trust other girls, to distrusting and competitive young women. She argues that this familiar pathway can and should be interrupted and provides ways to move beyond girlfighting to build girl allies and to support coalitions among girls.

By allowing the voices of girls to be heard, Brown demonstrates the complex and often contradictory realities girls face, helping us to better understand and critique the socializing forces in their lives and challenging us to rethink the messages we send them.]]>
259 Lyn Mikel Brown 0814799515 sophia 0 to-read, research 3.98 2003 Girlfighting: Betrayal and Rejection among Girls
author: Lyn Mikel Brown
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average rating: 3.98
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<![CDATA[Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?]]> 6763725 81 Mark Fisher 1846943175 sophia 0 theory 4.20 2009 Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?
author: Mark Fisher
name: sophia
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism]]> 13712250 224 Sheila Jeffreys 0415539390 sophia 0 research 3.93 2013 Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism
author: Sheila Jeffreys
name: sophia
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Body and the Screen: Female Subjectivities in Contemporary Women’s Cinema (Thinking Cinema)]]> 28514114 208 Kate Ince 1623565812 sophia 0 currently-reading 3.75 The Body and the Screen: Female Subjectivities in Contemporary Women’s Cinema (Thinking Cinema)
author: Kate Ince
name: sophia
average rating: 3.75
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<![CDATA[A Passion for Friends: Toward a Philosophy of Female Affection]]> 1001466 Raymond, Janice G. 275 Janice G. Raymond 0807067393 sophia 0 currently-reading 4.28 1986 A Passion for Friends: Toward a Philosophy of Female Affection
author: Janice G. Raymond
name: sophia
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1986
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<![CDATA[Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West]]> 597663
In the 1970s feminists criticized pervasive beauty regimes such as dieting and depilation, but some new feminists argue that beauty practices are no longer oppressive now that women can choose them. However, in the last two decades the brutality of western beauty practices seems to have become much more severe, requiring the breaking of skin, spilling of blood and rearrangement or amputation of body parts. Beauty and Misogyny seeks to make sense of why beauty practices are not only just as persistent, but in many ways more extreme. It examines the pervasive use of makeup, the misogyny of fashion and high-heeled shoes, and looks at the role of pornography in the creation of increasingly popular beauty practices such as breast implants, genital waxing and surgical alteration of the labia. It looks at the cosmetic surgery and body piercing/cutting industries as being forms of self-mutilation by proxy, in which the surgeons and piercers serve as proxies to harm women s bodies, and concludes by considering how a culture of resistance to these practices can be created.

This essential work will appeal to students and teachers of feminist psychology, gender studies, cultural studies, and feminist sociology at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and to anyone with an interest in feminism, women and beauty, and women s health.]]>
216 Sheila Jeffreys 0415351820 sophia 0 4.00 2005 Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West
author: Sheila Jeffreys
name: sophia
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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The Well of Loneliness 129223
Stephen is an ideal child of aristocratic parents—a fencer, a horse rider and a keen scholar. Stephen grows to be a war hero, a bestselling writer and a loyal, protective lover. But Stephen is a woman, and her lovers are women. As her ambitions drive her, and society confines her, Stephen is forced into desperate actions.

The Well of Loneliness was banned for obscenity when published in 1928. It became an international bestseller, and for decades was the single most famous lesbian novel. It has influenced how love between women is understood, for the twentieth century and beyond.]]>
448 Radclyffe Hall sophia 0 currently-reading 3.74 1928 The Well of Loneliness
author: Radclyffe Hall
name: sophia
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1928
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1984 61439040
Alternate cover edition can be found here.]]>
368 George Orwell 0452284236 sophia 0 4.21 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: sophia
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1949
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose]]> 60943 418 Alice Walker 0156028646 sophia 0 to-read 4.29 1983 In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose
author: Alice Walker
name: sophia
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1983
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<![CDATA[The Empty Wagon: Zionism's journey from identity crisis to identity theft]]> 40581231 1393 Yaakov Shapiro 1642555541 sophia 0 to-read 3.67 The Empty Wagon: Zionism's journey from identity crisis to identity theft
author: Yaakov Shapiro
name: sophia
average rating: 3.67
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date added: 2024/01/27
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The Mandarins 19528 The Mandarins is the emotional odyssey of a woman torn between her inner desire and her public life.

The Mandarins won France's highest literary prize, the Prix Goncourt.]]>
752 Simone de Beauvoir 0007203942 sophia 0 to-read 4.18 1954 The Mandarins
author: Simone de Beauvoir
name: sophia
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1954
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Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter 164006
She vividly evokes her friendships, love interests, mentors, and the early days of the most important relationship of her life, with fellow student Jean-Paul Sartre, against the backdrop of a turbulent time in France politically.]]>
359 Simone de Beauvoir 0060825197 sophia 0 to-read 4.13 1958 Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter
author: Simone de Beauvoir
name: sophia
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1958
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The Weird and the Eerie 29845449
Perhaps a proper understanding of the human condition requires examination of liminal concepts such as the weird and the eerie. These two modes will be analysed with reference to the work of authors such as H.P. Lovecraft, H.G. Wells, M.R. James, Christopher Priest, Joan Lindsay, Nigel Kneale, Daphne Du Maurier, Alan Garner and Margaret Atwood, and films by Stanley Kubrick, Jonathan Glazer and Christoper Nolan.]]>
134 Mark Fisher 1910924385 sophia 0 to-read 4.05 2016 The Weird and the Eerie
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name: sophia
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2016
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<![CDATA[Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution]]> 57186849 A previously unpublished collection of Rodney's essays on Marxism, spanning his engagement with of Black Power, Ujamaa Villages, and the everyday people who put an end to a colonial era Early in life, Walter Rodney became a major revolutionary figure in a dizzying range of locales that traversed the breadth of the Black diaspora: in North America and Europe, in the Caribbean, and on the African continent. He was not only a witness of a Pan-African and socialist internationalism; in his efforts to build mass organizations, catalyze rebellious ferment, and theorize an anti-colonial path to self-emancipation, he can be counted among its prime authors. In drawing together pages where he elaborates on the nexus of race and class, offers his reflections on radical pedagogy, outlines programs for newly independent nation-states, considers the challenges of anti-colonial historiography, and produces balance sheets for a dozen wars for national liberation, this volume captures something of the range and power of Rodney's output. But it also demonstrates the unbending consistency that unites his life and work: the ongoing reinvention of living conception of Marxism, and a respect for the still untapped potential of mass self-rule.]]> 304 Walter Rodney sophia 0 to-read 4.53 Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution
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Assata: An Autobiography 100322
This intensely personal and political autobiography belies the fearsome image of JoAnne Chesimard long projected by the media and the state. With wit and candor, Assata Shakur recounts the experiences that led her to a life of activism and portrays the strengths, weaknesses, and eventual demise of Black and White revolutionary groups at the hand ofgovernment officials. The result is a signal contribution to the literature about growing up Black in America that has already taken its place alongside The Autobiography of Malcolm X and the works of Maya Angelou.

Two years after her conviction, Assata Shakur escaped from prison. She was given political asylum by Cuba, where she now resides.]]>
274 Assata Shakur 1556520743 sophia 0 to-read 4.59 1987 Assata: An Autobiography
author: Assata Shakur
name: sophia
average rating: 4.59
book published: 1987
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<![CDATA[Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination]]> 1035814
“The text is of great value to anyone working on issues pertaining to the fantastic and the uncanny.� —American Studies International

Ghostly Matters immediately establishes Avery Gordon as a leader among her generation of social and cultural theorists in all fields. The sheer beauty of her language enhances an intellectual brilliance so daunting that some readers will mark the day they first read this book. One must go back many more years than most of us can remember to find a more important book.� —Charles Lemert

Drawing on a range of sources, including the fiction of Toni Morrison and Luisa Valenzuela (He Who Searches), Avery Gordon demonstrates that past or haunting social forces control present life in different and more complicated ways than most social analysts presume. Written with a power to match its subject, Ghostly Matters has advanced the way we look at the complex intersections of race, gender, and class as they traverse our lives in sharp relief and shadowy manifestations.

Avery F. Gordon is professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Janice Radway is professor of literature at Duke University.]]>
225 Avery F. Gordon 081662089X sophia 0 to-read, hauntology 4.28 1997 Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination
author: Avery F. Gordon
name: sophia
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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