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From a renowned sociologist, the wisdom of saying goodbye

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot is enthralled by exits: long farewells, quick goodbyes, sudden endings, the ordinary and the extraordinary. There's a relationship, she attests, between small goodbyes and our ability "to master and mark the larger farewells."

In Exit, her tenth book, she explores the ways we leave one thing and move on to the next; how we anticipate, define, and reflect on our departures; our epiphanies that something is over and done with.
Lawrence-Lightfoot, a sociologist and a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has interviewed more than a dozen women and men in states of major change, and she paints their portraits with sympathy and insight: a gay man who finds home and wholeness after coming out; a sixteen-year-old boy forced to leave Iran in the midst of the violent civil war; a Catholic priest who leaves the church he has always been devoted to, he life he has loved, and the work that has been deeply fulfilling; an anthropologist who carefully stages her departure from he "field" after four years of research; and many more.

Too often, Lawrence-Lightfoot believes, we exalt new beginnings t the expense of learning from our goodbyes. Exit finds isdom and perspective in the possibility of moving on and marks the start of a new conversation, to help us discover how we might make our exits with purpose and dignity.

• Sales Rank: #1239042 in Books
• Published on: 2012-05-22
• Released on: 2012-05-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.37" h x .93" w x 6.30" l, 1.03 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Review
With her trademark grace and insight, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot has added exit lines to her repertoire. in Exit, she is a superb storyteller and a wise guide to the inevitable farewells that punctuate our lives and often set us free. (Ellen Goodman, author of Paper Trail: Common Sense in Uncommon Times)

In searching for the grace and courage of exits at every stage in the life cycle, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot offers insights into the deeper continuities that exits can affirm, binding us together and emphasizing the meaning in the composition of our lives. She argues the need for our culture to evolve rituals that express these enduring values in facing the unknown. (Mary Catherine Bateson, author of Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom)

The resonant testimonials Lawrence-Lightfoot spotlights nicely dovetail into a conclusion befitting her research into the inevitability of departures and our individual choice to accept or bemoan them. A finely researched examination that sheds a new light on the catharsis of goodbye. (Kirkus Reviews)

Lawrence-Lightfoot has penned an examination of how people exit careers, countries, and even life. Believing that the small departures we make daily prepare us for the large ones--emigration, divorce, death--the author argues that each is a drama of ambivalence, decision-making, and epiphany . . . (Publishers Weekly)

About the Author

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, a MacArthur prize-winning sociologist, is the Emily Hargroves Fisher Professor of Education at Harvard University, where, since 1972, she has studied the culture of families, communities, and schools, and the relationships between human development and social change. She is the author of ten books, including The Third Chapter, Respect, The Essential Conversation, and Balm in Gilead, which won the 1988 Christopher Award for "literary merit and humanitarian achievement." In 1993, she was awarded Harvard's George Ledlie Prize for research that makes "the most valuable contribution to science" and is to "the benefit of mankind." She is the recipient of twenty-eight honorary degrees and is the first African-American woman in Harvard's history to have an endowed professorship named in her honor.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
One
 
HOME
 
 
When most of us think about home, we picture a physical place: the house where we grew up, the address we learned by heart in case we got lost, the room we painted hot pink when we turned eight and our parents allowed us to choose the color, the crack in the third flagstone step leading to the front door, the way no one used the front door anyway, since everyone came in through the back door right off the kitchen. Or our vision of home might be of the house where we now live with our children, where we make the mortgage payments each month and pay the electricity and oil bills, where we have set up a basketball hoop in the driveway for the kids to practice for the big games on Friday night up at the school, where we have barbeques for the neighbors on hot summer evenings, where the traffic and chaos of kids and dogs and busy schedules and homework are both comforting and exhausting. Our vision of home, whether it is the home of our childhood or the home we are creating as adults, has a location, an address, a mark on the map. It is a physical, tangible place. We have photo albums that chronicle our growing family over the years, everyone lined up on the front steps in the same pyramid arrangement—parents on top, kids on the bottom—with smiles that stay the same even as the bodies get bigger and bulkier.
Home is also the place where life is most familiar, where we fall into old patterns, where our roles become scripted and predictable, where there is a fine line between the bonds that bind and constrain. It is also a place where we live by secret codes and allusions that outsiders—even intimate outsiders—don’t understand or appreciate. In her beautiful essay “On Going Home” (1961), Joan Didion speaks about the power and pull of home.
I am home for my daughter’s first birthday. By “home” I do not mean the house in Los Angeles where my husband and I and the baby live, but the place where my family is, in the Central Valley of California. It is a vital though troublesome distinction. My husband likes my family but is uneasy in their house, because once there I fall into their ways which are difficult, oblique, deliberately inarticulate, not my husband’s ways. We live in dusty houses (“D-U-S-T,” he once wrote with his finger on the surfaces all over the house, but no one noticed it) filled with mementos quite without value to him (what could the Canton dessert plates mean to him? How could he have known about the assay scales, why should he care if he did know?) …1
Home, here, is defined as much by those who are outsiders—who have no real clue of what is going on, where signals seem opaque and oblique—as by those who have the inside track, who know the secrets and shadows, the habits and artifacts, the history of the family that lives in this house. Home is made more vivid by the contrasts that get drawn between the outsider’s discomfort and cluelessness and the insider’s ancient and intuitive understandings.
In his biography of the poet Wallace Stevens (1968), Robert Pack echoes Didion’s portrayal of going home, drawing the connection between the intimacy and belonging that home represents and the intimacy with his readers that Stevens achieves through his poetry. Stevens translates the language, rhythm, and cadence from his childhood home into his verse, capturing the themes of family and the feelings of familiarity with which we can all identify. Writes Pack:
Home is the place where one understands the routine, knows the secret rhythms of family activity and communication, and feels the fullness of the presence of the familiar objects. It is this sense of intimacy that Stevens seeks with the world, and it is this sense of order a poet achieves that makes this intimacy possible.2
Here we get a sense of home as the place where we learn to interpret the noises and the silences, the texts and the subtexts of our lives, where the layers and subtleties of our communication are inscribed in our hearts and minds, our bones and bodies, eventually turning up—at least in Stevens’s and Didion’s case—in the form and texture of their art.
The novelist Paule Marshall takes us a step further into the auditory dimensions and cadences of home. In her autobiographical novel, Brown Girl, Brownstones, she offers an evocative and searing portrait of an immigrant family transplanted from Barbados to Brooklyn, and she speaks about home as the sound of the language of the Bajan women as they sit talking in the kitchen.3 It is a language that Marshall herself heard as a child as she sat on the edges of the women’s circle soaking up the gossip, the stories, savoring the rhythms and poetry of their words. In “From the Poets in the Kitchen,” a short essay published in The New York Times, Marshall speaks about the language of home—particularly the talk among the women in the kitchen—that carried with it beauty, wisdom, poetry, and culture, that survived the transplantation from the blue-green sea and open horizons of Barbados to the city streets and brownstones of Brooklyn.
I grew up among poets—whatever that breed is supposed to look like. Nothing about them suggested that poetry was their calling. They were just a group of ordinary housewives and mothers, my mother included, who dressed in a way (shapeless housedresses, dowdy felt hats, dark, solemn coats) that made it impossible for me to imagine they had ever been young.4
So whether we envision home as a place, a physical location on the map that we can now google for directions; whether we feel it in the familiarity, obliqueness, and intimacy of family; or whether we hear it in the language and poetry of our mothers, home is the place we return to. It is the place that forms us, that embraces and inhibits us, that shapes our identity. It is a place where our arrival is awaited.
The tales of exit found in this chapter reframe and transfigure the meaning of home. The two stories—of a teenage Iranian boy escaping the political strife and violence in his war-torn country to come to America, and of a middle-aged gay man reflecting on his long and brave exit from the closet—shape a view of home that is earned and discovered after the protagonists have traveled far away, literally and figuratively, from their family’s place of origin, far away from the cultures and communities that nourished and raised them. The lens of exit in both narratives points to the emotional and spiritual construction of home as a hard-won place of comfort, safety, belonging, and love. Finding home requires leaving and searching, trials and tribulations, and many exits along the way.
HUNGRY FOR HOME
“I’ll go.”
It did not hit him that he was actually leaving—his family, his country, his life—until he arrived at the airport in Tehran, surrounded by his parents and siblings and a huge crowd of aunts and uncles, some of whom had traveled hundreds of miles to say goodbye. He was carrying one small cardboard suitcase, and his mother had sewn a zippered pouch into his underwear to hide the $3,000 he was taking with him. His father had had to sell a plot of land, use all of the family’s savings, and borrow from his uncles in order to come up with the money that Bijan Jalili needed to travel to the United States.
Suddenly the fear swept over him, and he froze. How could he have said—in a moment of weakness—that he would go to school in America? How could he have committed to something that now seemed so scary and wrong? How could he leave all those he loved and the life he knew? This was unbearable. “Just then it hit me … What have I done! But it was too late to back out,” says Bijan, his whole body shivering as he must have done on that fateful day. “I couldn’t stomach it … my belly was burning. I was scared out of my gourd … I was like a child afraid of the dark … I felt like I was lost in the jungle, being swallowed up by dangerous creatures.”
Bijan looked over at his father, whose head was bowed in prayer, his face washed in tears, a picture of agony and faith. His mother couldn’t stop crying—huge, sobbing wails that echoed through the airport lounge—as she clung to him for dear life. Finally his plane was announced and the waiting was over. Bijan hugged everyone hard and kissed them each on both cheeks before beginning the long march down the ramp to the plane. “Leaving my parents behind was unbearable. My feet were like Jell-O. I could hardly move them. I thought that I would just collapse.” Bijan had never even seen an airport before, never been on a plane. He stowed his suitcase and climbed into the window seat. “The fear was overwhelming as I looked down after takeoff and saw Tehran disappear behind me.” I look across the table and see the sixteen-year-old scared boy. It is thirty years later, and Bijan’s face is contorted in a grimace. He looks down to wipe away the tears with the back of his hand.
The plane touched down at Kennedy Airport at 8:00 p.m. As he heard the screech of the landing gear, Bijan’s fear took over his body and he started to shake. He looked out the window and saw the city stretched out below, “an ocean of light.” “I was new to electricity,” says Bijan as he remembers the strange sensation of seeing a whole city of twinkling lights that seemed to form the shape of “a fiery dragon.” His only thought was that he wanted desperately for the plane to turn around so he could go home. “I wanted to go back to my mom, to bury my head in her bosom … to have her hold me again.”
Once he was off of the plane, the scene was shocking. “I thought to myself, Everything in New York looks so big! I had never seen people over six feet tall … and there...

Most helpful customer reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Good concept, but the final result was disappointing.
By Celia Caro
Lawrence-Lightfoot's believes that we do not pay enough attention to the exits in our future-oriented culture. By recognizing that exits are part of life and honoring them with ritual and honest reflection, she feels we can actually feel liberated by the choices and changes we make, however difficult or painful they may be. Unfortunately, the choice she makes of focusing her chapters on individuals who have made big exits in their lives is too narrow, leaving the reader sifting through these highly personal anecdotal accounts for more universal and useful strategies about making their own exits in life.

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Exit: The Endings That Set Us Free
By Louise Tramontano
I was not at all impressed by this book. I expected more information about endings and how to free yourself from them. However, it seemed as though each example simply reiterated the same manner in which people free themselves.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
Don't Exit
By GabiStyle
I had leaved jobs, friends, family, three different degrees, my country ... and I still do not know how to make peace with the exit process. This book give me lots of insides and new ways to see this never-ending process exit. If you ever had avoid to say good bye, read it! Amazing book!

See all 20 customer reviews...

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* Fee Download The Fun Stuff: And Other Essays, by James Wood

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The Fun Stuff: And Other Essays, by James Wood

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Following The Broken Estate, The Irresponsible Self, and How Fiction Works―books that established James Wood as the leading critic of his generation―The Fun Stuff confirms Wood's preeminence, not only as a discerning judge but also as an appreciator of the contemporary novel. In twenty-three passionate, sparkling dispatches―that range over such crucial writers as Thomas Hardy, Leon Tolstoy, Edmund Wilson, and Mikhail Lermontov―Wood offers a panoramic look at the modern novel. He effortlessly connects his encyclopedic, passionate understanding of the literary canon with an equally in-depth analysis of the most important authors writing today, including Cormac McCarthy, Lydia Davis, Aleksandar Hemon, and Michel Houellebecq. Included in The Fun Stuff are the title essay on Keith Moon and the lost joys of drumming―which was a finalist for last year's National Magazine Awards―as well as Wood's essay on George Orwell, which Christopher Hitchens selected for the Best American Essays 2010. The Fun Stuff is indispensable reading for anyone who cares about contemporary literature.

• Sales Rank: #274625 in Books
• Published on: 2012-10-30
• Released on: 2012-10-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.56" h x 1.13" w x 5.93" l, 1.04 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

From Booklist
What makes Wood such a forceful critic is the drilling down of his intelligence, the rigor of his close scrutiny, and the precision, luster, and thrust of his prose. The title essay in his third collection, a book of 23 sit-up-straight critiques, provides intriguing clues to the source of his expressive powers. One of his subjects is Keith Moon, the late, legendary drummer for The Who. Wood’s strategy to unlocking Moon’s “many-armed, joyous, semaphoring lunacy” involves describing his own “austerely Christian upbringing” and “traditional musical education, in a provincial English cathedral town,” and secret devotion to playing the drums. So when he writes that Moon’s drumming “is like an ideal sentence of prose,” we think, ah ha! And so we read to the propulsive beat of his assured and vivid dissections of the writings of George Orwell, Geoff Dyer, Ian McEwan, Cormac McCarthy, Aleksandar Hemon, and Marilynne Robinson. Of particular note is how, in his delving essay on fellow critic Edmund Wilson, Wood parses the tricky art of literary criticism, a form much enlivened by his purposeful flams, rolls, and paradiddles. --Donna Seaman

Review

“Wood is one of the best readers writing today. Devouring these pieces back to back feels like having a long conversation about books with your most erudite, articulate, and excitable friend. To read his essays on the works of Norman Rush, Aleksandar Hemon, Leo Tolstoy, or Lydia Davis is to relive the specific brand of joy created by a particular work of genius. Wood's reviews are never just evaluations; more often they are passionate, sensitive discourses on the variations of authorial voice, the nature of memory, or the burden of biography. … Wood's veneration of virtuosity reminds why we're reading at all--because we still believe that it's possible to find transcendence in great art. Isn't it fun to think so?” ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Wood is now unquestionably one of the most influential voices in contemporary literary criticism.” ―The Millions

“Literary criticism sometimes takes itself too seriously, so it's a pleasure to see that preeminent literary critic Wood's very title reminds us what literature is really about: fun. Here he offers his heartfelt views on writers ranging from Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy, and Mikhail Lermontov to Cormac McCarthy, Lydia Davis, and Michel Houellebecq. . . Get ready for some bracing delights.” ―Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

About the Author

James Wood is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He is the author of How Fiction Works, as well as two essay collections, The Broken Estate and The Irresponsible Self, and a novel, The Book Against God, all published by FSG.

Most helpful customer reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
Good Stuff
By Charlus
This is yet a third collection of Wood's essays and reviews, gathered from The New Yorker, The London Review of Books and The New Republic. While most are book reviews, the first title essay is an homage to the Who's drummer, Keith Moon and the last to his father-in-law. The pieces in this collection are far more accessible than those gathered in his first two, perhaps because of a gradual change in personal style but more likely due to the change in audience, The New Yorker having a wider readership than The New Republic, where he was originally writing many of his pieces. Nonetheless, the acute intelligent analysis remains the same even if the language has become less metaphoric.

An early piece on Sebald's novel Austerlitz represents Wood at his finest. Besides analyzing the themes of the novel, he discusses Sebald's use of photography to illustrate his novel and the blurring of reality with fiction:

"In Sebald's work, then, ... we experience a vertiginous relationship to a select number of photographs of humans - these pictures are explicitly part of the story we are reading, which is about saving the dead; and they are also part of a larger story that is not found in the book, which is also about saving the dead. These people stare at us, as if imploring us to rescue them from the banal amnesia of existence".

There is enough variety of subject matter to (hopefully) silence some of his critics who accuse him of being irrepressibly highbrow (clearly a bad thing in their estimation) and of not liking anything more current than, say, Saul Bellow, but in these pages he champions writers as diverse as David Foster Wallace (who he justly describes as being able to write ideal sentences of prose), Geoff Dyer, Lydia Davis, and Marilynne Robinson. He has more mixed things to say about Paul Auster, Ian McEwan and Alan Hollinghurst.

When referring to Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, he marvels at "the way it rubs its science fiction narrative from the rib of the real, making it breathe with horrid plausibility, and then the way it converts that science fiction back into the human, managing to be at once sinister and ordinarily affecting". He appreciates Norman Rush's ability to write a sentence which "reproduces the crawling movement of identification by which thought moves".

All this may enrage his critics who accuse him of microanalysis and ignoring the big picture as here he repeatedly demonstrates how style and language work to support content and how attention to such details allows the critic to better explain why a novel works or doesn't. And apparently one person's accusation of "jargon" is another person's ability to recognize the use of the precise word at the right time.

Every reader will have literary critics that he or she will find useful mentors in unlocking the riches that good literature has to offer and teaching one how to read better. James Wood is clearly one of mine.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
"literary journalism" at its best
By Stanley Crowe
James Wood is a literary journalist with one foot in academic life -- he teaches at Harvard for part of the year. Reading his work, one finds it easy to believe that he could, if he so wished, have a very successful academic career. He has read everything, as they say, and he writes with exemplary clarity and a welcome freedom from jargon. It's tempting to think that that freedom from jargon represents for him one of the benefits of not being fully committed to an academic career. He writes mostly about books and writers, and there is really only one test that a writer like him must pass for a reader -- does he make one want to read the books and writers he is writing about (or reread and reconsider them if one once has done so)? The answer in his case is a definite "yes."

I think that a writer like Woods must have a faith that I find very engaging -- a faith that books can be enjoyed by reasonably well-educated readers and that literary journalists like himself are in the business of nurturing that enjoyment. In my own case, I've always believed that I enjoy and indeed admire Orwell, and especially his essays -- but I haven't read him in ages. Reading Wood's essay on Orwell in this volume makes me want to return to them. It's a fairly long essay, touching a number of issues, and not seeking to be the last word, but it's interesting and inviting, and it takes its starting point from an acute perception about Orwell: that while avowedly a socialist, she seems more interested in lambasting the privileged than in specifically addressing remedies for the poor and working folks. And his idea that Orwell is for revolution but isn't "a revolutionary" is worth pondering. It's the kind of judgment that makes you want to go back and test it. A similar essay, in that it has no single focus, is on Robert Alter and the King James Bible. It starts by discussing Alter's translation of the Pentateuch and moves on to questions of theodicy that have nothing really to do with Alter, but it's interesting anyway. The essay on Edmund Wilson is similarly multifaceted -- in that one, I was sort of expecting an analysis of Wilson's sympathy for modernism, but that is referenced rather than discussed, and Wood moves on to talk about Wilson's historical writing and personal writing. He has interesting things to say on it all, and it makes me want to plunge into "To the Finland Station." The essays on Tolstoy and Marilynne Robinson deftly balance criticism and appreciation, and this is one of the things that is so appealing about Wood's writing -- he seems to want to find reasons to be positive. This must come from an awareness that writing is hard to do well and that even things that don't work have taken time and thought and therefore deserve respect. In Robinson's case, he pretty much admits that the narrator of "Gilead" is boring -- but then by deciding to read the novel as a series of Emersonian essays, he finds reason to like it, and even be moved by it, after all. The most focused piece I've read (I haven't yet read every essay) is the one on Ian McEwan -- it traces a pattern of "manipulation" through much of McEwan's fiction, especially in the handling of what might be called the ordering of information. How this essay moves from criticism (Wood doesn't like the manipulation) to understanding of both McEwan and his audience is masterful.

There are a couple of more personal essays -- one on the WHO drummer Keith Moon and the other on his father-in-law -- that are different from the others and in their different ways engaging. Maybe we'll see Wood in future branch out even further to become a master of the "familiar essay' as well as the literary one. Highly recommended for folks who like books.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
A must read for lovers of contemporary literature.
By Noovella
Near the end of these twenty-plus essays I flashed back to being in college in the early 1980s and discovering Garcia Marquez, Borges, John Fowles, Andre Gide, Robbe-Grillet, Italo Calvino, Philip K. Dick and on and on. Amazing, fascinating, cutting-edge, avant-garde literature endures with new writers and their works continue to fill an artistic literary void. This book is one place to fill that emptiness.
The Fun Stuff starts off a little off-beat with a homage to Keith Moon's early success filled with "noise, speed, rebellion" and his eventual decline. The rest of the essays are literary critiques of quality writers and their writing and most of the time both. Woods delves deep, breaks down, tears apart a few times, comes from all directions to decipher the meaning he derives from each subject. His literary knowledge and scholarship is mind numbing as he makes complex connections between varied works that is astounding. In addition, you may need to have a dictionary close by if you read this.

And the subjects he chooses are, for the most part, extraordinary and challenging works of art and at least a few should be on any literature lover's Goodreads read, currently-reading or want-to-read lists. Here are a few of the writers and books he devours.

W.G. Sebald's "beautiful novel" Austerliz, filled with real but fictional photographs and the "rubble of history" and memory.

Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let me Go, an allegorical and tender novel that brings fantasy to an eery and hollow day to day life of clones who become aware of their reason for existing.

Norman Rush's three novels set in Botswana, particularly the masterful Mortals, and its fine intricate plotting and real sense of understanding a place and a marriage falling apart.

The theological questions in Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel The Road.

The career of Edmund Wilson and the issues that affected the iconic journalist and critic's judgement and writing.

Joseph O'Neill's Netherlands and its colonial and colonist metaphor in New York City with the added bonus of the confused immigrant's sense of becoming American as well as the roots of a rootless man.

V.S Naipaul as the wonder and the wounded. A gritty tale of nastiness and personal demons that make you squirm.

The fascinating examples of Robert Alter's translation of the Bible that is startling because we're so used to the King James version.

Marilynne Robision and the the deep division's in a family where faith and pride and perhaps fanatical stubbornness rips a family apart.

Lydia Davis's literature of lives whose habits hide a biting loneliness that they acutely understand and question.

Ian McEwan as a manipulative novelist.

The shallowness of Paul Auster.

And, he rambled on finally getting to George Orwell's revolutionary mysticism as both contradictory and prescient. Orwell's as well as England's victory over Hitler was due to their winning combination of collectivity and individualism.

The magic realism of a mad-hatter Hungarian with a mad name: Laszlo Krasznahorkai.

Ismail Kadare, an Albanian, whose world, revolving around his battle against communism falling, evaporated when it did.

A fascinating final essay about packing up his father-in-law's library of four thousand books.

I particularly loved two essays: the Geoff Dyer piece that made me immediately purchase the novel Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi and the Alekzandar Hemon section and the extraordinary fact that he not only moved to the United States in 1992 and learned to read and write in English, but he became a master craftsman.

There were a few essays that I trudged through, e.g., Tolstoy, but that could be more about me. If you love Leo, you'll probably be engrossed in the rich analysis.

Woods is, to say the least, passionate about books and writers. His dazzling critiques are here for you to examine and discover and disagree, but ultimately he opens countless doors to the wonderful and bottomless worlds of fiction and nonfiction. A must read for lovers of contemporary literature.

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# Free Ebook Nicholas Miraculous: The Amazing Career of the Redoubtable Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, by Michael Rosenthal

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The extraordinary accomplishments of a great educator and even greater self-promoter To those who loved him, like Teddy Roosevelt, he was "Nicholas Miraculous," the fabled educator who could do everything; to those who didn't, like Upton Sinclair, he was "the intellectual leader of the American plutocracy," a champion of "false and cruel ideals." Ezra Pound branded him "one of the more loathsome figures" of the age. Celebrated and reviled around the world, Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University for forty-four years, was a dominant personality for half a century. In this engrossing biography, Michael Rosenthal explores the many ways in which this extraordinary character seized and wielded power.

Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 while simultaneously president of Columbia University, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Butler imposed himself on America as did few others. Rosenthal's superbly researched, elegantly written narrative brings vividly to life the mania, narcissism, and genius that enabled "Dr. Butler" to transform Columbia into New York's major research university and at the same time to become an internationally recognized institution himself. Rich in social, cultural, and political insight, Nicholas Miraculous illuminates Butler's prodigious career and the complex nature of the age that nourished him.

• Sales Rank: #2372675 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-10
• Released on: 2006-01-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.69" h x 6.40" w x 9.22" l,
• Binding: Hardcover
• 544 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Butler (1862–1947), one newspaper commented three years before he received the Nobel Prize (1931), was "the most lavishly decorated member of the human race." Upon his death, the New York Times described him as "one of the best known Americans of his generation the world over." However, many of Butler's projects—such as the College Entrance Examination Board—are as familiar as he is now forgotten. As president of Columbia University from 1902 to 1945, Butler nurtured the school's growth from small college to major research institution. His involvement in Republican politics brought the friendship (and later the enmity) of several presidents, and as president of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace (1925–1945), his international stature grew. Although Rosenthal, a former Columbia dean of students, attends to the personal affairs of this man absorbed by institutions, Butler's life remains one of meetings, memos and minutes. The author uses an abundance of archival and published material judiciously; his style is felicitous, and the tale is enlivened by in-fighting and occasional scandal. Manipulator? Manager? Opportunist? Idealist? Sycophant? Pioneer? Rosenthal's skill in rendering a complex life in an absorbing fashion reveals them all. 16 b&w illus., 13 political cartoons. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
The animating question of this biography is, How does a once-famous civic leader fall into oblivion? Nicholas Butler autocratically ruled Columbia University from 1902 to 1945. No university president today could dispose of institutional affairs in Butler's I-know-best manner. In some ways, he did know best, expanding Columbia from a college into a world-class university with professional graduate schools; sections duly recount Butler's fund-raising and stag-club networking. What extends Rosenthal's biography from institutional to general interest is Butler's life in public affairs, where he was prominent in the Republican Party, seeking its presidential nomination in 1920. He also presided over the Carnegie Endowment, gaining prestige (and the Nobel Peace Prize) for promoting idealistic schemes of peace. Fair to Butler but arch about his unapologetic, unwavering elitism, Rosenthal delivers a profile that is far livelier than its academic ambience would initially suggest. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“A first-rate biography of Butler, rescuing him from obscurity and describing the sometimes neglected political history of Butler’s era . . . A compelling read, opening a window on the world of early 20th century politics and explaining the rise of the modern university in America.” —Vincent Cannato, New York Post “[A] vividly written and meticulously researched biography . . . [Nicholas Miraculous] is a must for those concerned with the development of college and university education from its dry days in the nineteenth century to its bristling status today.” —Louis Auchincloss, BookForum "Even before he died, or as some say, died out, Butler was out of fashion, out of date, and therefore out of the American mind, which if it yet exists will require this savory memorandum of what a great man was once considered likely to be. It is Rosenthal’s saucy distinction to be aware of all these ‘outs’ and equally aware of the larger and longer ‘in’; what is centrally important about Butler propels him and his subject to necessary attention in our moment when so much has been taken away. A restorative, even a curative book." —Richard Howard
 "Masterful narration, a firm grasp of historical context, and an endless supply of anecdotes, both amusing and appalling, propel this major biography of a seminal figure in American education and political life. Writing with a stiletto-sharp pen, Michael Rosenthal brings back to clamorous life the tireless self-promoter who was Nicholas Murray Butler. A big, boisterous, and valuable book." —Laurence Bergreen
"Though his name is surprisingly little known, Nicholas Murray Butler was one of the most illustrious and influential Americans of the first half of the twentieth century, though he is largely forgotten today. In every way an outsized personality, he was at once a gifted yet imperious administrator and a canny, self-promoting egotist, a pioneering advocate for the modern university yet also a diehard establishment figure who resisted social change. His many-faceted career embraces much of the history of his times. Michael Rosenthal’s sardonic portrait is wonderfully readable and illuminating, critical of the man but respectful of his achievement in creating a great university and bending it to his will for more than four decades." —Morris Dickstein
 "An elegant, richly detailed and irresistibly readable portrait of a man who was arguably the greatest academic careerist and institution builder of the twentieth century. Michael Rosenthal has crafted an epic and novelistically well-written likeness—not, to be sure, as Nicholas Murray Butler himself would have carved it, in the Mt. Rushmore of his own imagination, but one equally generous in its steady reckoning both of Butler’s many gifts and his many foibles, at the head of which must stand a capacity for bloviation second to none in the history of American public life." —Ric Burns

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
The Butler Did It
By Lowell P. Beveridge
Nicholas Miraculous: the Amazing Career of the Redoubtable Dr. Nicholas Michael Rosenthal's biography of Nicholas Murray Butler was fascinating reading for me because of Butler's position as my father's boss and major influence on the social, political and academic world in which he lived during the 1930's and early 1940's (my formative years). It was a world of clubby collegiality for those on the inside, formal social affairs, conservative politics, anti-Semitism, and class and cultural snobbery. Attitudes towards Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Fascism and Hitler's Nazis ranged from admiration to toleration - at least up to the time of the invasion of Poland in 1939. The issue of Negroes on the faculty or in the student body was so far from Butler's concern or concept of the way things should be that it is not even mentioned in his biography. Faculty members were free to exercise academic freedom so long as they did not publicly challenge any of the basic principles of the world of Butler and his colleagues. Those who did, were dismissed or passed over for promotion.
My father often complained about the internal politics he had to deal with at Columbia and I had assumed that this was a problem endemic to all academic institutions, but after reading this book I get the impression that it was worse at Columbia than other places because of the personality and policies of Butler himself who was not a very good administrator.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Miraculous Biography of Shaper of Columbia University
By Reinerlaw
Professor Rosenthal has done a superb job of evoking the persona of the man who built Columbia, using his 44-year tenure as university president. The author has even succeeded in evoking the reader's sympathies for Butler, a powerful leader who, viewed in today's lights, was an autocratic megalomaniac who missed many opportunities to build an even greater educational institution on Morningside Heights.

This biography will be of great interest to anyone who spent time at Columbia (or its sister institutions) during the 20th century -- the years during which Butler's influence was at its zenith. It provides, perhaps for the first time, a background for some of the University's admirable traditions, balanced, wisely, by a few rather embarassing episodes in its history.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Must read for those interested in Columbia or the modern university
By Raphael Pope-Sussman
Fascinating story of a man who was a giant of his times but is now just a footnote, even at the university he helped build into a giant of an institution.

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>> Free PDF Counting One's Blessings: The Selected Letters of Queen Elizabeth the Queen MotherFrom Brand: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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William Shawcross's official biography of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, published in September 2009, was a huge critical and commercial success.One of the great revelations of the book was Queen Elizabeth's insightful, witty private correspondence. Indeed, The Sunday Times described her letters as "wonderful . . . brimful of liveliness and irreverence, steeliness and sweetness."

Now, in Counting One's Blessings, Shawcross has put together a selection of her letters, drawing on the vast wealth of material in the Royal Archives and at Glamis Castle. Queen Elizabeth was a prolific correspondent, from her early childhood before World War I to the very end of her long life at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and her letters offer readers a vivid insight into the real person behind the public face.

• Sales Rank: #886985 in Books
• Brand: Brand: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Published on: 2012-11-27
• Released on: 2012-11-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.43" h x 2.11" w x 6.39" l, 2.22 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 688 pages

Features

• Used Book in Good Condition

Review

“[The Queen Mother's letters] do offer a fascinating, provocative first-hand glimpse into another world . . . Perhaps the most endearing side of the collection is the sheer number of earnest thank-you notes, written for everything from gifts to visits, and a great many written to Elizabeth's mother-in-law, Queen Mary, with whom Elizabeth carries on a warm and intimate correspondence. Elizabeth clearly delights in her friends, and is charmingly quick to offer assistance, take an interest in others' lives, and have a laugh at her own expense . . . Read [Counting One's Blessings] for the sheer entertainment value.” ―Heather Horn, The Atlantic

“William Shawcross, a renowned writer and broadcaster who has been given access to nine decades of remarkable correspondence from Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, has traced the stories the letters tell . . . From childhood onwards, her words danced on the page, teeming with vitality, ebullience and optimism . . . Her letters showed a relish for language and sparkled with the joy of living.” ―The Times of India

“The intriguing new book of letters shows the unlikely evolution of the former Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, a charming, vivacious young woman who was one of the most sought-after debutantes of her day, into a gifted queen who became an enduring symbol of the British monarchy . . . she evolved into a curious, vital young woman who was an avid reader.” ―Lorna Koski, Women's Wear Daily

“With correspondents ranging from Kenneth Clark to Osbert Sitwell, as well as her parents-in-law, daughters and eldest grandson, the Queen Mother's selected letters--collated by her official biographer, William Shawcross--are seldom dull . . . [Counting One's Blessings] provides a study of maturing character against the background of great events . . . However fluffy the Queen may have seemed when young, she proved her mettle in 1939–45. Her wartime letters, showing her abnegation, selfless duty and distress, make impressive reading. They reach, at moments, an eloquent intensity . . . These letters exemplify the truth of a remark of Auden's. ‘Be good and you will be happy is a dangerous inversion,' the poet wrote. ‘Be happy and you will be good is the truth. Men often speak of their right to happiness. In fact, it is their only duty.' The Queen saw happiness as a duty--not an entitlement--because it was her route to good works.” ―Richard Davenport-Hines, The Times Literary Supplement

“One of the most appealing aspects of the Queen Mother was her zest for life to the end--her passion for the arts, horse racing, foreign travel and whizzing round the country in helicopters. She cared nothing about money; even the Queen complained wryly about her extravagance. ‘There's something about her that's kept very young,' Ted Hughes wrote . . . [Counting One's Blessings is] expertly edited and introduced by William Shawcross.” ―Sarah Bradford, The Literary Review

About the Author
William Shawcross became a writer after leaving University College Oxford in 1968. He was in Czechoslovakia during the Soviet occupation; this inspired his first book, a biography of Alexander Dubcek, the Czechoslovak leader, which was published in 1970. Since then he has written and travelled widely. In 1995 he wrote the BBC Television series Monarchy. In 2002 his BBC Television series and book, Queen and Country, celebrated the Queen's Golden Jubilee and examined the changing face of Britain during her reign. He is also the author of Justice and the Enemy: Nuremberg, 9/11 and the Trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (2012). He lives in England.

Most helpful customer reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
A long, long life, in letters
By SciFi Lover
This book contains many letters to Elizabeth's family and friends, written over almost all of the twentieth century. Elizabeth, the mother of Queen Elizabeth II, lived through the two world wars, and she played a major role in England's courageous response to Hitler's 1939 declaration of war as the consort of King George VI.

Many of these letters are thank-you notes, and the reader could not find better models for such letters. Perhaps Elizabeth overused the words heavenly and angelic, but her warmth and enthusiasm for gifts and entertainments come through.

The royal family's joys and sorrows are shared in the letters to family members. Political events are a frequent theme, too, with discussions of growing relationships with Churchill and others. She also describes the exhausting days on tour in faraway places as the royals endure heat and humidity to see their subjects.

Even if you stop reading after the death of George VI in 1952, this book is a fascinating look at the activities of the royal family and the life of a very popular English queen.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting selection
By D. Steele
While I have enjoyed this collection of letters and I know I don't know how the letters were selected and what letters were still available, and what ones weren't or just didn't exist anymore (plus you can't include them all) I wonder about the letters that seem to be missing. No letters after Churchill's death? No letters about the engagement and wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana? Maybe there weren't any. But the Queen Mother did seem to write so many notes and letters to so many people about so many other events, that it seems odd that events like these weren't written about in letters to someone. But all in all I have enjoyed this book. It did help that I had read his biography of the Queen Mother when it came out so that many of the letters fit into a time line.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
A remarkable woman
By Mark Hollingsworth
I read William Shawcross' biography of the Queen Mother in early 2012, and thoroughly enjoyed it. This book added to my knowledge, sympathy and understanding of this most remarkable woman. I am glad I read the biography first, because these letters enable you to not necessarily read the book in chronological order, but you can now revisit areas of the biography and read the detailed correspondence in full that Shawcross used to extract from and create his narrative.

In today's frenetic world with text messaging and e-mail speeding up so much of our communication I spent many enjoyable evenings reading the beautifully crafted letters in this book. Even more intriguing to me was to find that the style and tone, and above all graciousness, of the writing of the Queen Mother never changed over 80 years. She wrote with the same sense of warmth and humour when she was 101, as she had been writing when she was 21!

The Queen Mother never gave an interview to a journalist or the media in her entire life, that is why this book and these letters are so important, because it captures in a way that a journalist could never do the feelings of this most remarkable woman, and her perspective on the history of the 20th century.

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Why Me? The Sammy Davis, Jr. Story

• Sales Rank: #446160 in Books
• Brand: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T)
• Published on: 1989-04
• Ingredients: Example Ingredients
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 314 pages

Features

• Great product!

From Publishers Weekly
You name it and it sounds as if Sammy Davis Jr. has done it. In this sprawling, revealing, lively second autobiography (following the bestseller Yes, I Can , also coauthored with the Boyars) stories of money, sex, violence, drugs, booze, fame, luxury and extravagance spill out relentlessly. Superstardom, admits Davis, has always been his be-all and end-all, and the almost obligatory downside--failed marriages, sickness, age, his own personal IRS auditor--are featured heavily here, along with insider show-biz gossip. More up-tone tales involve life-long buddy and supporter Frank Sinatra, the Rat Pack, the Kennedys, Richard Nixon. At the core of the book is the extraordinary black experience of the last 50 years. Davis became a star in the '40s at a Vegas hotel where he could headline but not sleep. In the '70s, he slept in Lincoln's bed in the White House, guest of the president. Even Mr. Wonderful (Davis's first Broadway smash hit) couldn't top that. Photos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Most helpful customer reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
A FASCINATING LOOK AT BEHIND THE SCENES OF STARDOM
By Fiona Jean Mcleod
I really enjoyed this book, I had no idea what the blacks in the US had to go through, having grown up in Australia. Sammy had a big chip on his shoulder which he carried throughout his life but it is understandable when you read what he went through. This isn't just a boring story of a star's life, it is a fascinating look at racism, politics, being rich beyond your dreams and in debt for millions - a great read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Behind the glitz view of SuperStar life
By TwilightStar
Sometimes this book is a little hard to follow. The writers jump into topics suddenly. If you don't know a whole lot about Sammy Davis Jr. you can get mixed up. It is worth reading though. Davis had a hard life and worked very hard at being a star. He had flaws and he admits them. I wish he could have balanced his family and public life better. He thought he had to be spending $$$. drinking, drugging and fooling around with women to keep his image going and it hurt his family. He was very talented a superstar, that is what he should have focused on. Anyone wanting a show business career should take lessons from this book.

Davis did a great deal to help black people and often they misunderstood him and didn't appreciate him. The most shocking thing for me was how after he worked so hard to get JFK elected president JFK just dumped Davis -- uninviting him to the inauguration. I'd never have had anything to do with the Kennedy's after that. Davis was so polite and caring and he really suffered too. Richard Nixon respected Davis and invited him to Washington several times. Who would have thought that?

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
This is the continued biographical story of one of the greatest multitalented artist to ever live
By Gordon W.
In the condition and delivered on time as offered.
This is the continued biographical story of one of the greatest multitalented artist to ever live. The life of Sammy Davis Jr is an inspiration alone; this book and it's predecessor, "Yes, I Can",

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@ Ebook BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch MagazineFrom Miya-Jervis, Lisa (EDT)/ Zeisler, Andi (EDT)

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In the wake of Sassy and as an alternative to the more staid reporting of Ms., Bitch was launched in the mid-nineties as a Xerox-and-staple zine covering the landscape of popular culture from a feminist perspective. Both unabashed in its love for the guilty pleasures of consumer culture and deeply thoughtful about the way the pop landscape reflects and impacts women's lives, Bitch grew to be a popular, full-scale magazine with a readership that stretched worldwide. Today it stands as a touchstone of hip, young feminist thought, looking with both wit and irreverence at the way pop culture informs feminism―and vice versa―and encouraging readers to think critically about the messages lurking behind our favorite television shows, movies, music, books, blogs, and the like. BITCHFest offers an assortment of the most provocative essays, reporting, rants, and raves from the magazine's first ten years, along with new pieces written especially for the collection. Smart, nuanced, cranky, outrageous, and clear-eyed, the anthology covers everything from a 1996 celebration of pre-scandal Martha Stewart to a more recent critical look at the "gayby boom"; from a time line of black women on sitcoms to an analysis of fat suits as the new blackface; from an attempt to fashion a feminist vulgarity to a reclamation of female virginity. It's a recent history of feminist pop-culture critique and an arrow toward feminism's future.

• Sales Rank: #120616 in Books
• Brand: Miya-Jervis, Lisa (EDT)/ Zeisler, Andi (EDT)
• Published on: 2006-08-08
• Released on: 2006-08-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.91" h x 1.06" w x 6.08" l, .94 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

From Publishers Weekly
This often mind-stretching, occasionally predictable and generally entertaining collection of articles from Bitch magazine has something for every feminist, postfeminist and reactionary. Bitch was founded in 1996 in response to "post-feminism" by "freshly minted liberal arts graduates with crappy day jobs and a serious media jones." With refreshing depth, literacy and humor, these essays explore questions surrounding puberty, gender identity, sex, "domestic arrangements," beauty, pop culture and mainstream media, and media literacy/activism. Tammy Oler examines menarche and female puberty in horror films; Gaby Moss analyzes the media's obsession with "mean girls"; and Lisa Jervis gives a rundown of sex scenes and pride in YA lesbian novels. Leigh Shoemaker puts down Camille Paglia's contention that males are superior due to their urinary "arc of transcendence" by evoking the Virgin Mary's breasts squirting milk through the air into Jesus' mouth. Audry Bilger protests the use of "guys" as gender neutral. Conspicuously absent is any discussion of women and aging. Maybe we'll just have to wait for Bitch's 20th anniversary, when its editors will be pushing 50. (Aug. 15)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
"Whenever anyone has called me a bitch, I have taken it as a compliment," writes comedian Margaret Cho in the foreword to this anthology from the self-proclaimed Queen Bee of Grrrl Zines. Positioned as an antidote to the patronizing pages of Cosmopolitan and Vogue, Bitch revels in its power to provoke as it ponders the landscape of popular culture from a feminist perspective. In honor of the magazine's tenth anniversary, founding editors Jervis and Zeisler have amassed essays (including some specifically commissioned for the collection) on a bounty of brazen topics, from the ramifications of sexual abuse and rape to the lesbian tendencies of Japanese macaques. Its writers are no wallflowers: Leigh Shoemaker's "stand-up" discussion of female urination, for example, adds new meaning to the expression, "Looking out for #1." From transsexuality to body image to gender-bending "slash fiction" that amorously pairs the likes of Captain Kirk and Spock, there's plenty here to amuse and enlighten the target audience--and plenty to rattle the cages of card-carrying macho men and women who might find the racy rants a bit over the top. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

“We love Bitch and think BITCHfest is an essential component of any feminist's library.” ―Guerrilla Girls

“As delicious as a day spent with your funniest, smartest friend, this collection is also a call to action, inspiring readers to fight the fear of female power. As the many writers in here show, few wrongs are righted without a bitchfest first.” ―Cristina Page, author of How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics and the War on Sex

“In a society as celebrity-obsessed and fad-saturated as ours, we ignore pop culture at our peril. Hurray for the women of Bitch, who raised their banner of intelligence right at the intersection of pop culture and feminism. They've done so with humor, vision, fire, and guts, as this book of selections from their first decade proves. Read it, learn from it, enjoy it, argue with it, revel in it.” ―Robin Morgan

“With humor and insight Lisa Jervis, Andi Zeisler, and their contributors explore what it means to be female, a feminist, a lover of pop culture, and that other thing that rhymes with rich but is so much more fun.” ―Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture

“Bitch is my favorite magazine. It makes feminism fun, relevant and approachable--it's like the Marlo Thomas of our time.” ―Joel Stein, columnist, Los Angeles Times

“We were working at Ms. magazine in 1996 when a xeroxed pamphlet arrived at the office bearing the name Bitch. We opened the zine and found what we'd been fearing didn't exist: feminist writing that was funny, engaged with pop culture, and yet intellectually rigorous. Eureka! BITCHfest is the greatest hits, and reading them is like hanging out with the smartest people you know.” ―Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, co-authors of Manifesta

“Essential reading for the modern woman.” ―Margaret Cho

“This often mind-stretching, occasionally predictable and generally entertaining collection of articles from Bitch magazine has something for every feminist, postfeminist and reactionary. Bitch was founded in 1996 in response to ‘post-feminism' by ‘freshly minted liberal arts graduates with crappy day jobs and a serious media jones.' With refreshing depth, literacy and humor, these essays explore questions surrounding puberty, gender identity, sex, ‘domestic arrangements,' beauty, pop culture and mainstream media, and media literacy/activism. Tammy Oler examines menarche and female puberty in horror films; Gaby Moss analyzes the media's obsession with ‘mean girls'; and Lisa Jervis gives a rundown of sex scenes and pride in YA lesbian novels. Leigh Shoemaker puts down Camille Paglia's contention that males are superior due to their urinary ‘arc of transcendence' by evoking the Virgin Mary's breasts squirting milk through the air into Jesus' mouth. Audry Bilger protests the use of ‘guys' as gender neutral. Conspicuously absent is any discussion of women and aging. Maybe we'll just have to wait for Bitch's 20th anniversary, when its editors will be pushing 50.” ―Publishers Weekly

“‘Whenever anyone has called me a bitch, I have taken it as a compliment,' writes comedian Margaret Cho in the foreword to this anthology from the self-proclaimed Queen Bee of Grrrl Zines. Positioned as an antidote to the patronizing pages of Cosmopolitan and Vogue, Bitch revels in its power to provoke as it ponders the landscape of popular culture from a feminist perspective. In honor of the magazine's tenth anniversary, founding editors Jervis and Zeisler have amassed essays (including some specifically commissioned for the collection) on a bounty of brazen topics, from the ramifications of sexual abuse and rape to the lesbian tendencies of Japanese macaques. Its writers are no wallflowers: Leigh Shoemaker's ‘stand-up' discussion of female urination, for example, adds new meaning to the expression, ‘Looking out for #1.' From transsexuality to body image to gender-bending ‘slash fiction' that amorously pairs the likes of Captain Kirk and Spock, there's plenty here to amuse and enlighten the target audience--and plenty to rattle the cages of card-carrying macho men and women who might find the racy rants a bit over the top.” ―Booklist

“This work represents an alternating mix of the most hilarious, alarming, and unexpected essays from Bitch magazine's first ten years. Over three-quarters of the works come from the last five years and, with the exception of an approving pre-scandal profile of Martha Stewart, retain cultural currency. About-Face founder Kathy Bruin journals on the eve of her celebrated 1998 ‘Don't Feed the Models' postering campaign. Keely Savoie presents a brilliant journalistic brief on the 400-plus animal species documented in homosexual relationships. Shauna Swartz turns out an indelible account of the severe life of reality porn actresses. BITCHfest writers, a mix of thought leaders and unknown activists, share a talent for asking thorny questions: how can Westerners distinguish between American cosmetic labiaplasty and African genital mutilation? Why can't female Cosmo readers admit they're attracted to, rather than jealous of, waifs on the glossy covers? Readers new to this feminist quarterly will find the articles, almost without exception, original, intelligent, and well written. This compilation has staying power. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries.” ―Library Journal

“Feminist-energized pop-culture essays that appeal to a wide array of tastes and reading preferences as they celebrate Bitch's tenth anniversary. Margaret Cho doesn't mind being called a bitch, she quips in the introduction: ‘I have taken it as a compliment.' So have many of the 43 writers assembled here, all equally frustrated by the force-feeding of mass-media values and the lack of motivational role models. Jervis and Zeisler founded the 'zine to eschew the complacent postfeminist viewpoint. Among the inspiring and the outspoken are features on young-adult novelist Norma Klein (‘Stormin' Norma'); ‘the trials of female adolescence' via horror film (‘Bloodletting'); the empowering androgyny of '80s music videos (‘Amazon Women on the Moon'); the atrocity of rape (‘The Collapsible Woman'); and current hot topics gay parenting (‘Queer and Pleasant Danger') and cosmetic reconstruction (‘Plastic Passion,' ‘Vulva Goldmine'). Many of these pieces are spirited with a unique feminine bravado, but the editors don't leave out the male point of view; there are terrific essays on the emasculating effects of male bonding (‘Holy Fratrimony') and the notion of the fading usefulness of men (‘Dead Man Walking'). Less engrossing offerings include discourses on speech tics (‘The, Like, Downfall of the English Language,' ‘On Language'), the art of peeing (‘Urinalysis'), ‘humilitainment' (‘XXX Offender') and the ‘tragedy' of lesbians who sexually desire men (‘What Happens to a Dyke Deferred?'). Pieces that make room for humor are stronger than the indignant, alarmist entries; some of the strongest works get right to the awful truth: Martha Stewart is man-less because ‘she doesn't seem to exude that warmth andcaring nature men enjoy' (‘The Paradox of Martha Stewart'); both Jane Magazine (‘Pratt-fall') and Carnie Wilson (‘Your Stomach's the Size . . . ') should just go away. By volume's end, alas, feminism fatigue definitely sets in and deep, anti-conspiratorially cleansing breaths are in order for all warrior princesses. Smartly written, socio-cultural vignettes that speak to everyone, loud and clear.” ―Kirkus Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful.
Essential reading for young feminists
By Amazonian
What a remarkably smart and satisfying collection of cultural criticism! Whether you're into gender theory, feminist historicism, questions of identity, or simply the deeper consequences of pop cultural phenomena, this book has it all. I studied gender and sexuality in college, and while I love reading more serious philosophers such as Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and even Freud, sometimes I wish there were something appropriate for beach reading that is as intellectually gratifying. Each article in this anthology runs approximately 5 or 6 pages, and touches upon so many key themes in gender/sexuality studies that it leaves me feeling buzzed! The scope and breadth of the articles truly offer a representative vista of contemporary feminism. If you're looking for something lighter than Lacan but heavier than the NOW (National Organization for Women) newsletter, this is the answer. I would strongly recommend it to men too, since any critical view of women inevitably touches upon the tensions between genders and various sexualities. There are more than a few articles that discuss masculinity and identity, including a few that I got my boyfriend to read, simply because they were *that* good, and he enjoyed them too.

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful.
Viva la revolucion!
By Edward Aycock
Presenting...

"Bitch" magazine - insightful, educational, hilarious - has been exploring "feminist response to pop culture" for the past decade and, at long last, several essays from the magazine have been collected into a book. The advent of "Bitchfest" is a blessing: the earliest issues of "Bitch" are nigh impossible to find anywhere due to the magazine's non-glamorous beginnings at a copy shop in the Bay Area (no glossy, Midtown Manhattan celebrity-laden launch for Bitch -- and we're all the better for it). I'm glad to finally have the opportunity to read some of the earliest essays.

Plus, you also get ...

How cool is it that some of my favorite essays are together at last? From Lori Tharp's well thought out rant on the absence of black characters from contemporary sitcoms to the snarky and oh-so-funny "Ten Things to Hate About JANE" (a dead-on critique of JANE magazine), each essay proves how all-pervasive pop culture has become, and why feminist thought can not afford to ignore it.

Buy now and we'll send you ...

"Bitchfest" also succeeds as a critical history of the feminist movement - one of the most incisive pieces in the book discusses the disconnect that occured when the feminist movement (at various times in its history) refused to single any one person out to be the "spokesperson" (for lack of a better word) for the movement. The result? The media anointed their own person, leading to infighting and yes, even pettiness that showcases the frustrations that can arise while trying to promote an egalitarian movement in a sensationalistic, media-controlled world.

But wait - there's more!

As an added bonus, there are a handful of articles that appear in this book for the very first time, in addition to introductory essays at the beginning of each section. It's nice to know that the editors cared enough to actually give the readers something extra rather than just throwing a handful of pre-published essays into a book and sending it to the printers.

Sure I don't always agree with "Bitchfest" but nobody ever said I had to. This book is wonderful and truly proves how unique and necessary "Bitch" magazine is (and will hopefully continue to be) during these crazy times.

Order yours today, it'll make a great present!

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Buy this book
By J. Aragon
Disclaimer-I subscribe to Bitch Magazine and have for a number of years. I love it! When I saw this book at the university bookstore, I bought it and savored reading through the book.

What I really like about Bitch Magazine, more so than Bust, is that the articles are more theoretical and erudite. I don't consider them dry, but I am WS educator and view BM as more a cutting edge zine that demonstrates the various feminist strands that exist today in the 3rd Wave, No Wave era of the feminist movement.

Buy this book! Subscribe to the zine for thoughtful, well-written articles about all sorts of issues.

After that plug, let me just say that I don't always agree with the essays. Some will definitely leave you with that sense that you want to grab a coffee with a friend and hammer out some of your thoughts.

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