Just Food
Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly by James E. McWilliams (Little, Brown) Say what you want about publishers, but they know how to sell a book. Let’s say a manuscript ended up on an editor’s desk with a title like Some More Things You Need to be [...]
...read moreBetween XX and XY
Between XX and XY: Intersexuality and the Myth of Two Sexes by Gerald N. Callahan, Ph.D. (Chicago Review Press) Hi, all! As some of you may have noticed, my flow of book reviews has slowed to a trickle over the past few months. It’s not because I don’t love what I do! I’m applying to [...]
...read moreOppression, Identity, and Liberation
Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics, and Theory of LGBT Liberation by Sherry Wolf (Haymarket Books) Sherry Wolf’s Sexuality and Socialism is a collection of essays, arranged in the order of the historical eras they examine, that look at the interplay between sexuality and economics, theory, and activism through a Marxist lens. Although the essays wander [...]
...read moreThe Greatest Country and Western Song, Ever, and How Rosanne Cash Ruined It
Hands-down the best country and western song ever, ever, ever is “Long Black Veil.” It sounds like the kind of song that should have always existed, been sung by lonely men wandering Scottish moors or something. It was, though, written by some folks whose names we know–Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin–and first recorded by Lefty [...]
...read moreMagdalene & the Mermaids
Magdalene & the Mermaids by Elizabeth Kate Switaj (Paper Kite Press) A quick note: I wasn’t able to preserve the original formatting of the poems I’ve excerpted. My apologies to the author. Elizabeth Kate Switaj’s Magdalene & the Mermaids is, as the title indicates, divided into two complementary series of poems: the reflections of Mary [...]
...read moreThe East, the West and Sex: Author Richard Bernstein responds
Apparently Richard Bernstein read my non-review of his book and didn’t find it particularly flattering. You can read his comment here. He’s right that I haven’t read the book, and did draw most of my conclusions from various reviews (the Slate review specifically), and from my own experiences with men who have made similar arguments. [...]
...read moreLeaving Us Behind
What We Leave Behind by Derrick Jensen and Aric McBay (Seven Stories Press) Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis by Vandana Shiva (South End Press) Derrick Jensen and Aric McBay’s What We Leave Behind begins with a story about shit. It sounds snarky and unfair when I describe it that [...]
...read moreOne Book I Won’t Be Reading
The East, the West and Sex by Richard Bernstein. The Slate review is actually pretty good. It points out Bernstein’s troubling view of women, and “Eastern” women in particular — with “East” apparently meaning Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Bernstein basically argues that, sure, colonialism was kinda bad and racist, but the sexual interactions [...]
...read moreWhy Do You Speak?
SPEAK! by the SPEAK! Women of Color Media Collective (Liquid Words Productions) When I first listened to SPEAK!, the spoken word collection put out by the SPEAK! Women of Color Media Collective, I shied away from reviewing it. I was too biased, I worried. I couldn’t be objective. Some of the contributors read (and have [...]
...read moreEn Lucha, In Gerangl: On Edens and Utopias
The Garden by Scott Hamilton Kennedy (Black Valley Films) At Home In Utopia by Michal Goldman (Filmmakers Collaborative) Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s The Garden opens with aerial shots of South Central Farm, the 14-acre community garden founded by Latin@ immigrants and other citizens of Los Angeles; against the backdrop of gray warehouses and the L.A. skyline, [...]
...read moreSex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery
Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery by Siddharth Kara (Columbia University Press) This review may contain triggers. At this moment, there are roughly twenty-seven million people enslaved globally, and over a million of them are sex slaves. Millions more have escaped, “earned” their freedom, or died from assault or STDs over the past [...]
...read moreMao’s Menstruation
My Little Red Book edited by Rachel Kauder Nalebuff Do you remember your first period? Wait, no – I phrased that wrong. Do you remember your first annoying classmate who wouldn’t shut up about her period? You know, the one who liked to shout “VAGINA!” just to see people’s reactions? Well, she got a book [...]
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