Review: Damon Galgut- In a Strange Room
Damon Galgut’s novel, In a Strange Room, did not win the Man Booker Prize last October. It lacked the novelty of Emma Donoghue’s powerhouse, Room, the historical significance of Andrea Levy’s...
Category: Read
Review: Su Tong – Madwoman on the Bridge
Su Tong, Madwoman on the Bridge, Transworld Publishers, 2008. Su Tong is a Chinese author who has gained international recognition for his work, recently being nominated for the Man Booker...
Review: Adam Kotsko’s Awkwardness
Adam Kostko, Awkwardness, O books, 2010 It's a sign of a good piece of cultural criticism that it makes you re-evaluate a piece of art you'd previously discarded as uninteresting or even unpleasant....
Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean
Alex von Tunzelmann, Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean , Henry Holt and Co, 2011. Americans remain fascinated by the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the fall of 1962, American...
Judy Chicago and Frances Borzello go Face-to-Face with Frida Kahlo
Judy Chicago and Frances Borzello, Frida Kahlo: Face to Face, Prestel Publishing, 2010 The name “Frida Kahlo” tends to provoke a passionate response among art fans and feminists alike. At...
Feminism, Socialism and the Meat Market: An Interview With Laurie Penny
Laurie Penny is an English journalist who came into the public eye last year with her gripping coverage of the student protests and occupations. She writes a column for the New Statesman, as well...
Review – Attending Madness in the Australian colonial asylum
Lee-Ann Monk, Attending Madness: at work in the Australian colonial asylum, Rudopi, 2008. In Attending Madness (Rodopi, 2008), Lee-Ann Monk explores the lives and identities of asylum attendants...
In Defense of Literature?
Gregory Jusdanis, Fiction Agonistes: In Defense of Literature. Stanford UP, 2010. Is literature dead or dying? What comes after the book? Are people still interested in stories? These are just some...
Review: Karen Joy Fowler – What I Didn’t See
If there is one thing that is obvious from Karen Joy Fowler’s work to date, it is that she likes books. The Jane Austen Book Club, for which she is chiefly known (it spent quite some time on the...
Transgender History, Present and Future
Susan Stryker, Transgender History, Seal Press, 2008. Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman, eds. Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, Seal Press, 2010. The feminist press Seal has carved out a...