Boys will be Men: Raising our Sons for Courage, Caring and Community

This book should be required reading for the entire population; it is an essential read for any parent or educator. Paul Kivel is an activist, writer and violence prevention educator whose plan for a positive feminist future starts with the boys. This book is a beautiful example of the often overlooked concept that feminism is for the dudes, too. Kivel acknowledges the inherent privileges men have in our society, but also asks them to question and protest the inequality in which those privileges are based. Boys Will be Men is not a traditional parenting book.

Anxious Pleasures: A Novel After Kafka

This novel re-imagines The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka’s story of Gregor Samsa who wakes up one morning as a bug. Samsa’s point of view is crucial to The Metamorphosis, but Lance Olsen focuses on those who witness the inexplicable, unsettling transformation: his sister, his parents, the chief clerk, the servant girl, the cook, the charwoman, and three lodgers. Anxious Pleasures expands the story to these peripheral characters and ones who never even met the new Samsa: a cashier who he casually dated, his sister’s suitor, and the neighbor downstairs.

We, Too, Must Love

We, Too, Must Love is Ann Aldrich’s second book of Kinseyesque reporting on New York City lesbians in the 1950s. At the time of the book’s original publication, in 1958, it was revolutionary. Any public debate or information on lesbians at the time had been strictly in medical and psychological terms. This in-depth look at the lives of lesbians in New York City was both shocking and lifesaving.

Scrappy: A Crafty Zine for Scrappy People, #1: Stitches

A couple of years ago, my grandmother gave me her sewing machine (circa 1940). Have I used it? Hardly. To hem a pair of pants a year or so ago. So I was thrilled when I was chosen to review Scrappy: A Craft Zine for Scrappy People, #1 Stitches. Perhaps it would be just the push I needed to unveil Grandma Betty’s machine and get to creating fabulous, designed-by-moi outfits! Scrappy is an adorable handmade zine that is perfect for the beginner seamstress (or the hibernating one) looking for a little inspirational shove.

Support Zine

“How do you define consent? Have you ever talked about consent with your partner(s) or friends? Do you know people, or have you ever been with people who define consent differently than you do?” Thus begins one of the best zines I have ever read on the subject of healing from sexual abuse. This zine is specifically geared towards friends, lovers and allies of survivors, and is written in an accessible, loving, realistic way, including writing and comics by a dozen or so contributors who are healing from or supporting others with abuse histories (many have experienced both).

We Got Issues!: A Young Woman’s Guide to a Bold, Courageous and Empowered Life

Simone de Beauvoir remarked nearly sixty years ago that in our society woman occupies the negative while man occupies both the positive and neutral positions, and this remains true today. This compilation of interviews, essays and poems highlights the thoughts of young women throughout the country and spotlights voices that are often missing from public debates, allowing us to hear their voices on serious issues.

Apostrophe

Elizabeth Robinson’s new book of poetry, Apostrophe, is startling in a number of respects: more white space than word, more whisper than yawp, poems with one-word titles like “Wind” and “Lost”—and, in fact, titles like “Anemone” repeated twice, as if the author were revising herself or perhaps offering variations on a theme. The language first encountered seems startlingly abstract and enigmatic, although moments of sensational contact invoke Whitman’s advice: “missing me one place, search another,” at the end of “Song of Myself.”

Baghdad Burning II: More Girl Blog From Iraq

Some people are covering the war in the Middle East from a distance. Riverbend is blogging directly from Baghdad. This second print installment of Riverbend’s blog offers her entries from late 2004 to the beginning of 2006. There are humorous moments when she offers a Christmas list requesting blast-proof windows, landmine detectors and running water. Her hilarious version of the 2006 Oscars dubbed the Sayid Awards nominates George W.

The Secret Magdalene

Although the daughter of a privileged affluent Jewish aristocrat, Mariamne is unable to overtly display her love of learning as females do not obtain a formal education. Thus, she secretly studies whatever she, her personal slave, Tata, or her father’s ward, Salome, can borrow books without anyone knowing. After becoming ill, she began hearing voices in her head that she assumed were prophecies even as she fully recovers from her ailment.

We Walk Alone

The 1950s saw a typhoon of publications and studies about homosexuality with a notable absence of studies on lesbian women. First published in 1955, We Walk Alone examines the state of women outside heterodoxy in the era of McCarthyism and Kinsey.

Fierce Attachments: A Memoir

Few books are so gripping that they change your perception of the world around you. Even fewer books make you see your intimate relationships in a whole new light. Because of its bold, honest insights about mothers, daughters and the growing up/growing away process, _Fierce Attachments _made me re-examine my relationship with my own mother.

Making Stuff & Doing Things

Making Stuff & Doing Things is a collection of DIY guides gathered by Kyle Bravo. Based on Bravo’s How2 Zine and the Tree of Knowledge’s collection of DIY articles, this book is a meaty volume. A lot of the stuff you'd expect to find in a DIY guide appears in here, including bookbinding, gardening, silk screening, sewing, making stencils, wheat pasting, composting, dumpster diving, etc.

Convent Chronicles: Women Writing About Women and Reform in the Late Middle Ages

The rights of women in religious communities may have been very limited in the late middle ages, but women did not tread lightly as a result of this. Convent Chronicles explores the voice and actions of religious women during this time. Research within this text supports the fact that women banded together and actively pursued their rights and beliefs.

Defending Our Dreams: Global Feminist Voices for a New Generation

Identifying as a feminist has never been easy, and being a young feminist is even more difficult. Ever present is the threat of being attacked for failing to acknowledge the efforts our foremothers of the second wave, as well as criticism of those who see young feminists as third wave "fuck-me" feminists, asserting a gender-normative femininity at the expense of coalescing to male-dominated notions of sexuality. What does it mean to call yourself, or in this case, your book, the voice of a new feminist generation? What does it mean to attempt to do this on a global scale? Who is included?