DescriptionIn these stories of her mother, her Aunt Bet, and other women who influenced her, author and storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham reveals the complexity of Southern women in the days before feminism entered the common vocabulary. A legacy of independent women permeates these recollections: women who managed households, who became entrepreneurs, and who managed public facilities. The women she remembers may have been fair, but they certainly were not weak.
DescriptionBorn into a family with a strong, radical dissenting tradition in which enterprise and public service were combined, Tony Benn was taught to believe that the greatest sins in life was to waste time and money. Life in his Victorian?Edwardian family home in…
DescriptionFive stories from influential women writers of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. New Zealand-born Katherine Mansfield settled in England where she wrote a series of short stories that are widely recognized as among the finest of the 20th century for their economy, clarity, sensitivity and effect. "The Garden Party" is one of her most famous, while "Daughters of the Late Colonel" shows a wonderful sense of wit. Kate Chopin, writing in the last years of the 19th century, broke new ground with her daring view of women as individuals with human needs. "Lilacs" and "Ma'ame Pelagie" are sympathetic portraits of women with differing dilemmas. Woolf's "A Mark on the Wall" shows, in short story form, the turmoil within the stillness which became such a mark of her later novels.
DescriptionWork, love, family, sex, and politics - all of these topics have been grist for the mills of some of this century's finest women writers. On this recording a remarkable company of women deliver individual perspectives on feminine passions. Reading from their own work are Gloria Steinem ( Revolution from Within ), Carrie Fisher ( Surrender the Pink ), Amy Tan ( The Kitchen God's Wife ), Blanche Wiesen Cook ( Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. I ), and Erica Jong ( Fear of Fifty and Becoming Light ). Oscar-winner Meryl Streep reads selections from Sara Maitland, Virginia Woolf, and Katherine Mansfield.
DescriptionWhen Rich graduated from Radcliffe College in 1951, her first book was chosen by W.H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. But her carefully crafted, mainstream poetry soon changed as the wife and mother developed into a feminist and lesbian. Since 1973, when Rich published Diving into the Wreck, she has been widely lionized and admired by women who are inspired by her work. She lives in California.
DescriptionIn Victorian times, an unmarried woman of good breeding didn't have much choice of vocation. Agnes Grey, a single woman, becomes a governess because it is one of the few respectable occupations open to her. Ill treated by her employers, she finds that the only person who treats her well is the curate, Mr. Weston. Told in a simple, realistic style, and drawing on Anne Brontë's own experiences as governess at Thorp Green Hall near York, this first novel by Anne Brontë depicts the small humiliations and inhumanity a governess was forced to endure, and in so doing is a powerful indictment of Victorian society.
DescriptionFirst published in 1816 and generally considered Jane Austen's finest work, Emma is a humorous portrayal of a heroine whose injudicious interferences in the life of a young parlour-boarder in a neighboring village often lead to substantial mortification. Austen brings to life a myriad of engaging characters as she presents a mixture of social classes as she did in Pride and Prejudice . Her two greatest comic characters are part of Emma's machinations: the eccentric Mr. Woodhouse and the quintessential bore, Miss Bates. Delightfully funny, Emma displays the shrewd wit and delicate irony which made Jane Austen a master of the English novel. Although Austen thought that only she would like her witty, fanciful, self-deluded heroine, Emma has gained the affection of generations of readers.
DescriptionAmerica's Women tells the story of more than four centuries of history. It features a stunning array of personalities, from the women peering worriedly over the side of the Mayflower to feminists having a grand old time protesting beauty pageants and bridal fairs. Courageous, silly, funny, and heartbreaking, these women shaped the nation and our vision of what it means to be female in America. Told chronologically through the compelling stories of individual lives that, linked together, provide a complete picture of the American woman's experience, America's Women is both a great read and a landmark work of history.
DescriptionFour decades after the sexual revolution, nothing has worked out the way it was supposed to. The sexes are circling each other as uneasily and comically as ever, and now the New York Times columnist who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for incisive com…
