Elevate Difference

Books

Love Goes to Press: A Comedy in Three Acts

It's impossible to dislike a female protagonist who opines, fifteen miles south of the Italian front in the second-to-last year of World War II, "If there's anything I really loathe, it's a woman protector." Delivered by Annabelle Jones, war correspondent for the San Francisco World, in conversation with Jane Mason, war correspondent for the New York Bulletin, this line refers to one of the many well-meaning men who are the butts of the jokes in the play Love Goes to Press.

Societies of Peace: Matriarchies Past, Present and Future

In a time when it seems we have lost our sense of humane, egalitarian living Societies Of Peace stands out as a guide to what we can learn from matriarchies in order to save ourselves from self-destruction. This book is a collection of the presentations from the two World Congresses on Matriarchial studies.

Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

When she sleeps, her nose scrapes the ceiling of her small cottage. Her breasts hang from a pole over the fireplace, and she has a leg made of iron. She lives alone in a hut on chicken legs, and her gates are topped with human skulls. Passing heroes can flatter her and order her to do their bidding, but heroines must serve her in order to win her favor.

Come Hell or High Water: A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry

Mahatma Gandhi famously urged his followers to “be the change you want to see in the world.” It sounds so simple: Be kind, listen well, mediate conflicts, and treat all living things with respect.

How to Get Divorced by 30: My Misguided Attempt at a Starter Marriage

It’s not like someone would seek out this book looking to find advice on how to damage their marriage, but it definitely piques the curiosity of anyone trying to understand how easily a marriage can go awry. How to Get Divorced by 30 is Sascha Rothchild’s personal tale of her short-lived marriage. Surprisingly, it’s not a man-bashing book picking on her ex-husband (some of his faults are mentioned, but not focused upon).

Delivery

The latest novel from Canadian author Betty Jane Hegerat, Delivery is a story about the bonds that attach mother, daughter, and granddaughter. It’s about the stark choices that women have to make when facing an unanticipated pregnancy and an abrupt mid-life transition.

Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes

While the memoir fad is nothing new, Elizabeth Bard’s new book confirms the emergence of a memoir subgenre to contend with: the memoir with recipes. In May 2009, the New York Times proclaimed these books as the brainchild of the “money-making imagination of the publishing industry.” Certainly, a spate of globe-spanning titles have followed, many born from blogs. However, the story of the American in Paris has long been a favored literary subject. It has sparked writers’ imaginations from Henry James to Anais Nin to Elaine Dundy to David Sedaris.

The Artist in the Office: How to Creatively Survive and Thrive Seven Days a Week

I was looking forward to reviewing The Artist in the Office because it seemed so relevant to the situation many people I know find themselves in, myself included.

Gender Stereotyping: Transnational Legal Perspectives

Gender stereotypes are often studies in contradiction. They can be insidious or glaringly apparent; they are hostile, and occasionally operate out of “benign” sexism. The customs and mores of the society, the media that is consumed in that society, the predominant religion of a culture, and the family unit can all commingle in order to perpetuate gender stereotypes.

Post Black: How a New Generation Is Redefining African American Identity

Post Black reads like a young, or relatively young, African American’s manifesto. Specifically speaking, it brings home points of declaration from the Generation X and Y African American crowd. Ytasha Womack thoroughly, interestingly, and comprehensibly covers the various aspects that make up the Black population in America.

The Last River Child

The Last River Child is the story of a town caught up in a legend: they believe there are children possessed by the spirit of the river meant to bring misfortune to everything around them. Everyone is taught to stay away from the river, but a young girl named Peg feels drawn to the river and refuses to believe the story.

Want to Start a Revolution?: Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle

Can African American liberation be understood without easy binaries: nonviolent civil disobedience vs. armed self-defense, integration vs. Black nationalism, MLK vs. Malcolm X? Can the history of feminism be written without effacing the contributions of Black feminists and other people of color? As Want to Start a Revolution? shows, foregrounding the work of women in Black liberation immediately problematizes these simple classifications.

The War on Welfare: Family, Poverty and Politics in Modern America

In The War on Welfare, Marisa Chappell compiles a comprehensive record of decades of antipoverty and anti-welfare movements and coalitions, the policies and programs they influenced, and the biases that both shaped and undermined their objectives.

Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism

I will say it, here and now: I eat meat. Now that I have announced that, I fear that Melanie Joy will fly through my window to tell me how the meat industry recapitulates Nazism. Okay, I don’t really. But you catch my drift: this woman is serious. As a person with very close vegetarian friends, and who has also purchased, prepared, eaten, and enjoyed seitan, quorn, and tofu, I would say that I have a decent understanding of vegetarianism without actually practicing it. I am not convinced, however, that Joy’s book offers much that is new to the vegetarian rhetoric.

How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly

The title of Connie May Fowler’s novel How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly comes close to saying it all. It is the story of a thirty-five-year-old woman’s inner struggle for independence and self-acceptance, which she slowly succeeds at achieving over the course of one single day—the summer solstice of 2006. The novel takes place in the hot, sticky forests and savannas of northern Florida, and it starts as one imagines the weather might feel.

Arc and Hue

It is deeply satisfying to encounter poetry like Tara Betts’. The widely published poet, author, and Rutgers University creative writing professor bears witness to the true grit of life, including poverty and appearance-based assumptions and experiences that categorize one as other, even among an already marginalized population.

That's Why We Don't Eat Animals: A Book About Vegans, Vegetarians, and All Living Things

If you are planning on raising a vegetarian child who will be well-prepared to explain his or her beliefs to inquiring peers, teachers, and friends’ parents, That's Why We Don't Eat Animals is a great start. Did you know that turkeys blush? Or that newborn quail start walking the moment they are hatched from their eggs?

Acts of Narrative Resistance: Women's Autobiographical Writings in the Americas

Laura Beard’s study of women’s autobiography in its many forms, Acts of Narrative Resistance, is quite unique. There has to my knowledge never been a thorough single author study written which connected and compared such a variety of autobiographical texts from the Americas in Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

From the Hilltop

After I read this collection of a dozen stunning stories, I sadly realized that I could count on one hand the number of Native American authors with whom I am familiar. I might pride myself on my awareness that Native Americans live diverse ways of life, just as other ethnic groups, and that the indigenous peoples of the Americas are incredibly diverse in their traditions.

Waking Up in the Land of Glitter: A Crafty Chica Novel

Waking Up in the Land of Glitter is Kathy Cano-Murillo's first foray into the world of novel writing. The author, known to her crafting disciples as "Crafty Chica," already has a well-established fan base because of her popular crafting books, web series, nationally syndicated newspaper column, instructional craft cruise to Mexico, and product line.

Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town

"Anybody that’s ever lived on earth knows that the earth is the geography of our being." - Charles Olson Dogtown is a rocky 3,000-acre swath occupying the interior centre of Cape Ann Peninsula in the northeast corner of Massachusetts. Gloucester, renowned as a fishing village, is located on Cape Ann (the fishermen of The Perfect Storm worked out of Gloucester).

French Feasts: 299 Traditional Recipes for Family Meals & Gatherings

In my humble opinion, French food is where it’s at. This is a cuisine responsible for the five mother sauces, a cuisine that wholeheartedly embraces flaky pastry, a cuisine that loves cream, cheese, and butter! Needless to say, I was incredibly excited to review French Feasts, and when it arrived, I was shocked to find a massive tome of a cookbook on my front porch. This is a serious book, so large it comes with a built-in bookmark.

Homophobias: Lust and Loathing Across Time and Space

Homosexuality seems to always be a topic of interest for researchers, at least in this day and age. Perhaps it is most interesting because sexuality is one of the most private aspects of a person’s life, and nothing seems to generate interest in quite the way that something so mysterious and private can. Homophobia, like homosexuality, varies in degrees of presence, and is often intertwined with the complexities of the cultural, economic, and political workings of the environment it finds itself situated.

Love the Questions: University Education and Enlightenment

In Love the Questions, Ian Angus attempts to document the evolution of the university as a social institution, the problems presented by recent shifts in the structure and funding of the modern university, and possible solutions that will allow for modernization without the loss of the university’s most vital traditional roles.

Tune Him In, Turn Him On: Using Intuition to Find and Keep the Man of Your Dreams

Relationship advice can be a tricky and sensitive topic at times. Over time you learn not to take it from anyone except a small number of entrusted friends. In Servet Hasan's Tune Him In, Turn Him On, the author takes a new approach to dating men: actively developing and applying your intuition.

The Lotus Eaters

When I read a book that keeps me enthralled to the final page, that is so absorbing I have to tear myself away from it, I find myself amazed (and envious) that anyone can be so gifted. That’s how I felt after reading The Lotus Eaters. Having attended my share of writing seminars, I realize you can’t really soar as a writer until you have truly mastered the craft; however, some writers seem to have talent that defies reason.

American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century

Occasionally, in 'getting to know you' circles, the question of what period you would have most liked to have lived in is brought to the table. Granted, for many, these are not quite as appealing as banally declaring mint chocolate chip is the finest of the flavors, in your humble opinion, but I think the prior question may be more telling about a person. Christine Stansell’s newly revised American Moderns has changed my response to this telling question.

Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women

Sapphistries is an epic journey through real and fictional love between women. It is so epic that the author, Leila J. Rupp, had to coin a new term to describe this type of book. It is not just a history; it is an interweaving of prehistoric musings, fictional accounts that draw on suppositions of what it must have been like in times when no evidence was left of when and where these kinds of love was forbidden, right up to the modern day.

Justice for Girls?: Stability and Change in the Youth Justice Systems of the United States and Canada

In Justice for Girls?, Canadian researchers Jane B. Sprott and Anthony N. Doob provide a comprehensive and concise overview on girls and juvenile delinquency in these two North American countries. Sprott and Doob address the misconception, fueled by media reports and newspaper articles circulating in the U.S. and Canada, that girls are committing more crimes, and more violent crimes.

Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway

Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway is kind of like Cherie Currie’s re-working of her first autobiography originally published in the 1980s and entitled Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story.
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