Books

10 Essential Books About Writing

Must-read titles for writers include works by Elena Ferrante, Akwaeke Emezi, Meg Wolitzer, Yoko Ogawa, and more.

Remarkable Acts: Han Kang's latest novel pays tribute to those killed in the Gwangju Uprising

Throughout the book, Han raises the question of what it is that allows groups of people to commit such remarkable acts—both of violence and of bravery.  Read more »

My President Loves to Read

When Obama talks about the power and meaning that he has gleaned from books, I hear the words of every person I’ve ever known who loves to read. Read more »

Stars Within Our Reach: Dava Sobel's Latest Book Honors the women of the Harvard College Observatory

The Glass Universe reads like a series of biographies linked by science and women’s rights, and its stories span more than a century. Read more »

Off the Hook: A Q&A With "American Hookup" Author Lisa Wade

“Students spent a lot of time worrying about whether they were having enough fun, if they were fun people, and if the fun they were having was the ‘right’ kind of fun: raucous, drunken, sexy, and just a tad perilous. Hooking up is the pinnacle of this.” Read more »

Bad Things Milo Yiannopoulos Has Done, In Case His New Publisher Cares (Just Kidding, They Totally Don't Care)

While I wish this book deal was a stunt, a mainstream book publisher actually believes Yiannopoulos’s words are worth publishing. Read more »

Bitch's Best Books of 2016

How many of the Bitch community’s best books of 2016 have you read? Read more »

It’s Jane’s House—We Just Live in It: Brontë, Feminism, and the Gothic Tradition

The themes and tropes Jane Eyre combined so brilliantly—patriarchy and male control, female dopplegangers, and, of course, gothic houses—remain ever-present in literature and popular culture. Read more »

Ambition Condition: Women, writing, and the problem of success

By not owning up to her ambitions—whether they’re in the public or private realms—a writer feeds the machine that discounts the aspirations and talents of all women writers. Read more »

Good Looking Out: Siri Hustvedt's New Essay Collection is an Exercise in Interdisciplinary Curiosity

Hustvedt dispenses with illusions of academic objectivity and doesn’t hesitate to share her thoughts and feelings throughout these pieces. Read more »

2016 Reading Challenge: 50 Books by Women of Color

If you don’t seek out new voices, it’s easy to fall into reading books primarily, if not solely, by white authors. Read more »

Pages

Black Girls Hunger for Heroes, Too: A Black Feminist Conversation on Fantasy Fiction for Teens

What happens when two great black women fiction writers get together to talk about race in young adult literature? That's exactly what happens... Read more »

Demanding the Impossible: Walidah Imarisha Talks About Science Fiction and Social Change

Before she was a poet, journalist, documentary filmmaker, anti-prison activist, and college instructor, Walidah Imarisha was fascinated... Read more »

Eat, Pray, Spend: Priv-Lit and the New, Enlightened American Dream

Even as reports on joblessness, economic recovery, and home foreclosures suggest that no one is immune to risk during this recession, the popularity of women’s wellness media has persisted and, indeed, grown stronger.  Read more »

Hot Under the Bonnet: The Cooptation of Amish Culture in Mass-Market Fiction

Dubbed “Amish romance novels,” “Amish fiction,” or the more waggish “bonnet rippers,” these novels just one entry point into the varying images of Amish communities in U.S. popular culture. Read more »