Elevate Difference

Books

The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial

No regular news consumer could avoid being informed of the failings of the educational system in the U.S. Every medium, new and old, is filled with the details of this country’s abysmal international rankings, the breakdown of school discipline, the costs of teaching to the test, the soaring dropout rate and the dearth of funding that leads school systems to abandon arts programs and other educational necessities. What is often left unexamined is one of the primary causes of many of these problems: de facto segregation by race and class.

Natural Great Perfection: Dzogchen Teachings & Vajra Songs

Natural Great Perfection is a collection of stories, songs, commentary, and history, mostly as told to Lama Surya Das by Nyoshul Khenpo.

Success and Solitude: Feminist Organizations Fifty Years After The Feminine Mystique

Much ado has been made over the fact that an increasing number of women do not identify themselves with the feminist movement, but there has been little consensus over why this is so. Why, in an era where girls grow up being told “you can be anything you want to be,” do many women reject affiliation with feminism?

Red Lights: The Lives of Sex Workers in Postsocialist China

On one occasion, gangsters walked into the bar, grabbed me by the arm, and started dragging me up the stairs toward a private room intended for hostesses’ sexual encounters with clients. The women were also sometimes raped there by gangsters. I quickly realized what was going on—that I was in real danger... Whereas safety was a major issue, hygiene was another. Living in a filthy karaoke bar room without bathing facilities, I had lice in my hair and over my whole body.

The Adventures of Cancer Bitch

Laying it out there with stunning realness, incorporating funny yet saddening as well as humorous but serious moments, S. L. Wisenberg presents blog entries of her journey through breast cancer discovery, surgery, and recovery in The Adventures of Cancer Bitch.

Promised Virgins: A Novel of Jihad

Promised Virgins echoes of stories already told; they howl and yowl in your ear as Jeffrey Fleishman whispers and intimates, ever beseeching that you withstand his narrative a moment longer. Fleishman relies on the threads of past to weave his story, devices used before by film writers and the novelists who inspired them.

The Rights of Women: The Authoritative ACLU Guide to Women’s Rights

The authors claim at the beginning of this book, “The law now can be used to advance women’s opportunities, rather than restricting them as it did in the past.” Yet for many of us (myself included), the law often seems like a daunting wall instead of a useful tool.

Beyond the Station Lies the Sea

Cosmos and Niner are homeless. Niner, who has been given this name because he is nine-years-old, was thrown out by a violent stepfather. After that, Niner used to sneak into his house at night to eat the dinner his mother left on the table for him. When his mother was taken away in an ambulance, the house was locked up and he couldn’t get in anymore. Cosmos, an adult, has been homeless for a long time, and has teamed up with Niner on the streets. More than anything, Cosmos and Niner want to go to the seaside, where they can live without the worries that plague them in the city.

Now Silence: A Novel of World War II

Usually novels about World War II occur in Nazi Germany, Poland, or some other place in Europe. Tori Warner Shepard, however, places her story in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Many of the men from this area had to go through the Bataan Death March in the Philippines. Soon after, they were transferred to a prison camp in Japan. Shepard's focus is on the women who wait for their men to return from war.

Just Like Family: Inside the Lives of Nannies, the Parents They Work for, and the Children They Love

Like Tasha Blaine, I once took a job working as a nanny. Also like the author, I thought it would be a relatively easy gig that would allow me the freedom to write while working in a nice, supportive environment.

Getting Naked Again: Dating, Romance, Sex, and Love When You've Been Divorced, Widowed, Dumped, or Distracted

This self-help book did not exactly have me at hello. In fact, I found it hard to keep reading after getting to an anecdote on the very first page where a recently divorced fifty-six-year-old woman meekly accepts a calf feel from a male colleague, and later winds up outside of his hotel room in her cotton PJ’s nervously wondering if she should knock on his door for more. Now, if a colleague started feeling up your leg at a conference, wouldn’t you be offended in the same way the German Chancellor was when she shrugged off former President Bush’s impromptu back massage?

Woman Into Wolf: A TrueCrimeTale

I haven’t read a true crime story in a long time, and I was really looking forward to it. I was mildly disappointed, then, to learn that Woman Into Wolf “combines the events of several real cases, but other than Digger, who was a real dog, and the Bird Lady, who was a real person, characters must be considered inventions of the author.” It’s not true crime, I don’t think, if it’s been made up, even if the events purportedly did happen.

April and Oliver

Tess Callahan’s debut novel, April and Oliver, begins with the death of April’s beloved younger brother, Buddy, in a car accident on a snowy winter afternoon. As Buddy takes his last breaths, he recalls a childhood memory of being lost in the woods with April and her friend, Oliver, and the reassurance of holding both of their hands.

Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men

Most of the attention Dr. Leonard Sax gets is for his advocacy of single sex education for boys. In his first book, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences, Sax described the developmental and biological differences between the sexes and how contemporary early education puts boys at a disadvantage.

Mating Ritual of the North American WASP

spoiler alert At its core, Mating Rituals of the North American WASP is wholly typical. Girl goes to Vegas. Girl gets drunk. Girl wakes up to find she married some stranger. Girl flees back to New York. Boy calls her up to tell her that, yes, they’re legally married. In time, Boy and Girl fall in love and decide to stay married. Mix in a secondary cliché plot: if they stay married, they get money.

The Good Fairies of New York

Having recently moved to New York City, one of my first excursions was to the Strand Bookstore. Late one evening in May, I walked into the shop and, feeling slightly overwhelmed but giddy with excitement, I ventured into the maze of tables and shelves surfeit with books. Within ten minutes, I happened upon a book entitled The Good Fairies of New York. The title caught my attention: fairies? New York?

Laura Rider's Masterpiece

Jane Hamilton's latest novel has a delightful premise. Laura and Charlie Rider own a Midwestern landscape business, for which Laura writes a newsletter. Charlie is a fantastic lover, a man whose equal doses of femininity and masculinity make his understanding of women profound. Laura suffers from “sexual fatigue,” and after twelve years of marriage, she has decided to stop sleeping with Charlie. Jenna Faroli, the host of Milwaukee Public Radio's Jenna Faroli Show, has recently moved to Laura and Charlie's town of Hartley. Laura has always greatly admired Jenna.

Been Here a Thousand Years

Been Here a Thousand Years, Mariolina Venezia’s novel that sweeps across Italy’s history from 1861 to 1989, with certain ideas and images already floating in the periphery: Berlusconi’s wife explaining the reasons for their divorce, my own memories of whistles and blatant gazes from men during a visit to Florence, high fashion seemingly making women into glorified clothes hangers.

Race, Space, and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society

Institutional racism: we all know it exists, yet many deny it does. In this book, Sherene Razack, author of Looking White People in the Eye, edits a set of deeply disturbing accounts of racially-motivated public policies and resultant public consciousness in North America.

Pygmy

Chuck Palahniuk has a following online; it’s even called The Cult. The fandom is well deserved. When a book evokes such emotion in the reader that you might just faint from graphic truth (such as in his novel Haunted), you have got to love it!

Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World

From 1922 through 1925, Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle was widely considered to be the best female swimmer in the world, and had no trouble competing, and winning, against men either. In 1926, at the age of nineteen, she became the first woman to swim the English Channel, shattering the previous record by two full hours. Young Woman and the Sea is the story of Trudy Ederle told by sportswriter Glenn Stout, but it is more than a biography.

Life Lived in Reverse

Who says a woman can’t do anything she puts her mind to? Lucille M. Griswold’s memoir, Life Lived in Reverse, is written proof that dreams are attainable. This small volume is structured so that each chapter resembles a standalone essay. I found myself thinking of them as life lessons.

Emily's Ghost: A Novel of the Brontë Sisters

Denise Giardiana creates a gentle and yet realistically harsh world with her newest novel, Emily's Ghost. In the same tradition as Jane Austen, George Elliot, and the Brontë sisters, Giardiana weaves a revealing story of Emily Brontë, author of Wuthering Heights. Emily is portrayed as both intelligent and independent.

My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike

My Sister, My Love is Joyce Carol Oates’ thirty-fifth novel in forty-five years.

Twisted Triangle: A Famous Crime Writer, a Lesbian Love Affair, and the FBI Husband’s Violent Revenge

“Stranger than fiction” is the most accurate way to describe the premise for this book about married FBI agents. The wife has a lesbian affair with a crime novel author, and the husband kidnaps and later tries to kill his wife. And yet, it’s a true story!

Sex Expression and American Women Writers, 1860-1940

The intriguing title of this book, Sex Expression and American Women Writers, may lead many to wonder what exactly the author means by “sex expression”? Luckily, Dale Bauer makes this clear in the introductory chapter to her study, and I will enlighten those of you who might not be able to immediately get the book. Sex expression is a clever way of defining the act of writing (or not) about questions relating to sexuality, a term not coined by Bauer.

Everything Changes: The Insider's Guide to Cancer in Your 20's and 30's

When I read the title of this book, it piqued my interest instantly. Let's face it: there is a lot out there about people over forty and their struggle with cancer, and even quite a bit about children with cancer. In fact, when I think of cancer, I usually picture someone the age of my parents and grandparents, or the boys and girls in ads for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. I don't picture myself or my fiancé, sisters, or friends.

The Girls

The Girls is a modern chick lit version of The Women by Clare Boothe Luce. This book, like that classic play, is made especially interesting because boys are talked about, but not featured as active characters!

Erased: Missing Women, Murdered Wives

When a crime is committed, the public wants to know why.

A Reliable Wife

A Reliable Wife begins with anticipation. First, there’s the anticipation of Ralph Truitt, the businessman who owns all the large assets of the town, Truitt, which is named for his family. Ralph Truitt waits on the train platform for a train which is late arriving.
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