Uncoded Woman

Anne-Marie Oomen’s first book of poetry, Uncoded Woman, is a narrative collection centering around a displaced Southern woman finding meaning and direction in a resort town on Lake Michigan. The “uncoding” in the title refers to a persistent theme throughout the book. The prologue very simply defines the International Code of Signals—the maritime form of communication that involves flags and pennants with shapes.

A Simple Distance

"All this speaking for others had me losing my own voice," states Jean, the conflicted lesbian attorney with mommy issues in A Simple Distance, K. E. Silva's luscious, tropical/San Francisco novel. In less than 200 rich and delicious pages, Silva layers a bold and romantic tale of family betrayal, lust, politics and the ever-poignant quest for a place one can call home. Cracked like a coconut, Jean is hard and coarse on the outside, wrapped snugly in her thick skin. Though hidden inside, her sweetness and urge for lasting love and social justice push through her rough exterior.

Dark Designs and Visual Culture

Michele Wallace is best known for her controversial, groundbreaking book, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman. Published in 1979 when Wallace was twenty-six years old, it defined her as an outspoken feminist who was unafraid to examine the misogynistic elements of the Black Power and Civil Rights movements of the sixties, and explored how sexism as well as racism damaged the psyches of Black women. Not surprisingly, Wallace’s fearlessness came with a painful price. Although the book garnered her immediate fame and recognition in feminist and intellectual circles (so hot was the buzz about Macho that her face made the cover of Ms. shortly before the book was published), Wallace received an intense level of criticism from all sides that she was not prepared to face.

Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics

In Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics, Jennifer Baumgardner, co-author of third wave bestsellers Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future and _[Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374528659?ie=UTF8&tag=feminrevie-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=03745286

Elusive Equality: Gender, Citizenship, and the Limits of Democracy in Czechoslovakia, 1918-1950

Melissa Feinberg’s must-read new book, Elusive Equality, chronicles in rich and sometimes dramatic detail the fascinating, though frequently distressing, events that marked Czech feminists’ struggle to implement the radical ideas of equality on which the Czechoslovak Republic was founded after the end of World War I.

The Logan Topographies

Alena Hairston’s book of poetry, The Logan Topographies, embraces rural life in the coalmining town of Logan just as Faulkner encompassed Yoknapatawpha Country, or Welty composed Morgana. Like her predecessors, Hairston is inspired by the foibles of small town life. It is through Hairston’s feminine viewpoint that the reader is first introduced to Logan: Pregnant belly of coneflower and larkspur. coalcaves of lupine and barberry.

Cry Rape: The True Story of One Woman’s Harrowing Quest for Justice

Justice and rape have a horrible history of rarely being bedfellows. This is one of the best chronicles of how torturous the justice system can be to women who have been forced into sexual acts against their will. Equally inspiring is the fact that it was written by a man, Bill Lueders, who is a news editor for Isthmus, Madison, Wisconsin's newsweekly.

The End of Mr. Y

The End of Mr. Y is a science fiction fantasy story. Ariel Manto is a doctoral student writing about a mysterious author, T.E. Lumas. His final book, The End of Mr. Y has never been read by anyone alive because whoever reads the book disappears.

The Year of Endless Sorrows

I loved this book. And that is all the more impressive because I wasn't expecting to. Adam Rapp is an accomplished playwright with a growing reputation. But playwrights do not always make good novelists. However, The Year of Endless Sorrows demonstrates that he is just as formidable as a novelist as he is a playwright. This is a novel that should be read. A thinly disguised autobiography, The Year of Endless Sorrows tells the tale of a young man who comes to New York City in the early 1990s to become a writer.

The Resurrection Trade

The Resurrection Trade is a collection of poems that details early anatomical research performed on female corpses from the point of view of the author, Leslie Adrienne Miller, who also provides glimpses of her own life as a daughter, a wife and a mother.

She's Such a Geek: Women Write about Science, Technology, and Other Nerdy Stuff

A collection of essays by women geeks? What can self-professed geeks share with the rest of women about what it means to be female? A heck of a lot, whether you measure it in decimal or binary.

Women and Sports in the United States

As the rather generic title would suggest, this collection is intended as an introduction to a broad field, perhaps a reader useful for a college-level Exercise Science or Physical Education seminar. There are nods to some of the pioneers of sport, essays on gender and athleticism—most of them more journalistic than scholarly—an all too brief treatment of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of A League of Their Own fame. There is a rehash of Brandi Chastain’s exuberant celebration after the 1999 Women’s World Cup and the sexualizing of athletes’ bodies in the media.

Applicant

Applicant is the story of one man’s journey into an Ivy League recycling bin and the humorous and cringe-inducing files he finds there. While searching through a bin for magazines, Jesse Reklaw happens upon the discarded confidential Ph.D applicant files for the biology department of an Ivy League school between the years 1965 – 1975.

Grit and Tender Membrane

Both a teacher and an inspiration to women worldwide, Barrow received a Leeway grant to tour via motorcycle, tell her stories and hold workshops for other female survivors of sexual abuse. She advocates poetry as a way to express difficult moments, get her metaphorical demons out and as a means of catharsis and rebirth.