Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women

As we entered our hotel after a day of sightseeing while on vacation in New York City in September 1984, my father lifted me onto his shoulders so I could see what the fuss was all about in the lobby. The lights were bright and there were lots of tall men in suits all around us. With my father’s direction, I could see the backs of the heads of the Democratic presidential and vice-presidential candidates trying to navigate the crowd. I can still picture the back of Geraldine Ferraro’s head; all I remember from that moment was that her hair was blond and in a hairstyle similar to my mother’s.

American Thighs: The Sweet Potato Queens' Guide to Preserving Your Assets

Jill Connor Browne, the self-proclaimed Sweet Potato Queen, is fifty-five and lives in Jackson, Mississippi. Her newest book, American Thighs, is an amusing but lightweight look at aging from an older Southern woman's point of view.

Girl Mary: A Novel

The Mary in _Girl Mary__ is known by many names and revered by many people. Type “Mary” into Google and the first match is a Wikipedia entry for “Mary (mother of Jesus),” her best known role. She is a major player in the spirituality of millions, yet much of her life remains a mystery.

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington

Conant, a former journalist, is a thorough researcher. In this book, she digs into the secret wartime propaganda work that Roald Dahl and his British colleagues were assigned to do to drum up American support for World War II.

Prospect Park West

Brooklyn’s famously high-end and yuppie Park Slope neighborhood is nearly a character itself in Amy Sohn’s Prospect Park West. The book follows the lives of four women living in the neighborhood. There is Melora Leigh, a troubled actress, who joins the neighborhood co-op for good PR. Her time there ties her to Karen Shapiro, an overly protective mother and social climber desperate for a new apartment in the best school district.

American Adulterer

I’ll admit I am neither a friend of celebrity culture or the particular brand of it that centers on the Kennedys. I am, however, interested in sexual politics and thus in the normative institutions of marriage and monogamy and the hardly less institutionalized behaviors of male bonding.

Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels

Romance is a huge market, the most popular kind of fiction—and one of the most maligned.

Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds about Animals and Food

Among radicals and vegan activists, farm sanctuaries are well known as safe havens for animals escaping the cruelties of factory farms and slaughterhouses. Having previously volunteered at a small farm sanctuary in Massachusetts, I am convinced that face time with our four-legged friends is the single most effective way to inform other humans about the individual personalities of animals and convince people of our responsibility to overcome the habits of our speciesist culture.

Blue Rage, Black Redemption

In the midst of our current pop culture’s street gang glamorization and mafia worship, the Nobel Prize-nominated work of late Crips gang founder Stanley “Tookie” Williams is a flash of clarity and a voice of reason. Executed in 2005 for the murder of four people, Williams claimed his innocence until the end. Perhaps even more importantly—and certainly the legacy we hope he is remembered for—Williams was believed to have been reformed as he spent much of his sentence in California’s San Quentin prison writing and working on peace plans for our badly torn nation.