In history lessons, whiteness is default. Don't worry, they'll tell you that George Washington Carver and Rosa Parks were black. Why? Because blackness is different, and whiteness is the norm. In The History of White People, author Nell Irvin Painter examines what it has meant to be a white person throughout history. In antiquity, Painter … Continue reading The History of White People: A Review
Faith Erin Hicks's graphic novel, The Adventures of Superhero Girl, unravels its girl-next-door heroine slowly. Superhero Girl isn't any more complex than you or I, but you and I both know that you just can't rush getting to know someone. That's an investment, after all. If Hicks had shown us all of her heroine's flaws … Continue reading The Adventures of Superhero Girl: A Review
Do you remember when you were twelve, and you and your friends really loved that thing, and you had your own code of inside jokes and lingo based on that thing? Reading Daniel M. Lavery's Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters is exactly like that, if books are - … Continue reading Texts from Jane Eyre: A Review
It isn't often that a book I've only just read becomes an instant favorite. I tend to realize just how much I've enjoyed a novel only when I find myself recommending it to friend after friend after friend. It is perhaps because I can't do this with John Darnielle's Wolf in White Van that I … Continue reading Wolf in White Van: A Review
Kate Bolick's Spinster is part memoir, part microhistory. It's an examination of single women's status and reputation throughout history, and the effects of that history on women today, framed with anecdotes from the author's various romances. In Spinster, Bolick studies her - not always conscious - decision to remain unmarried using the lives of other, similar women … Continue reading Spinster: A Review