The Book Babes

TUNE IN OR LOG ON WEDNESDAY AT 11:30 FOR BOOK BABES RADIO

     Check out the Book Babes November radio show (details below) Wednesday, November 18, at 11:30 a.m. on WMNF-FM 88.5 in Tampa or streaming live on the Internet at wmnf.org. Missed it? All shows are arched at wmnf.org. Just click on Archives and find the Book Babes time slot on Wednesdays at 11:30 a.m. Click and find the list of programs by date.

Read Any All-Female Book Lists Lately?

The Book Babes November Radio Show highlights:

Book News

    The Book Babes discuss Publisher's Weekly's controversial all-male 10 best books of 2009 and invite listeners to join them in compiling their own all-female list of great 2009 books. (Feel free to leave your own choices here on the website and we'll report on the results)

The Book Babes' book picks for November (completely by accident, all by women):

   Margo:

   "A Photographer's Life: 1990-2005," photographs by Annie Leibovitz and Susan Sontag (Random House)

   "Daylight Noir: Raymond Chandler's Imagined City," photographs by Catherine Corman, preface by Jonathan Lethem (ChArta)

    These books, both in paperback; one a doorstopper, one an eye-opener; both (primarily) in black and white showcase the work of two very different approaches to photography.

    Ellen:

    "Lit: A Memoir," by Mary Karr (Harper)

    Poet Mary Karr's follows up "The Liar's Club" with another memorable memoir whose title carries three meanings: lit as in literature, lit as in addicted and lit as in filled with grace.

INTERVIEW: DAVID SCHMAHMANN

     Margo interviews lawyer David Schmahmann and talks about his second novel, "Nibble & Kuhn," a serio-comic send-up of a Boston Brahmin law firm.

  

   

HERE WE GO AGAIN, LADIES

The blogosphere is rife with indignation over Publisher's Weekly's 2009 best book picks. Why? Because the authors of its top ten, apparently picked by staffers who prefer to remain anonymous, are male -- right down to the last man. Women writers were given no place at this table.     

But, strangely enough, there's more to it than just the male names on the books' covers: These "best" books also cover topics that at first blush (I'm female, after all) seem to be designed with men in mind. Pretty understandable, but still. Take "Shop Class as Soulcraft," by Matthew B. Crawford, a well-done meditation on how white-collar workers have become the drones of the 21st economy while much satisfaction lies in working with your hands. The concept is equally applicable to women, of course, but the testosterone ring of the title sends your mind in a certain direction, doesn't it?

Moving on to "Cheever: A Life," by Blake Bailey: As we know, Cheever was a closet homosexual, but his writing -- in typical "I'm in denial and would never tap my foot anywhere" fashion -- was hetero to the max.  Of all the biographies that were released in the past year, I don't doubt that it deserves to stand near the top. But this would be an expected choice in a list that PW touts as full of the unexpected. More exotic by far would have been picking a biography such as "The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels," by Janet Soskice. This critically acclaimed work follows on the heels of other fascinating books that track the genteel Victorian women with a taste for adventure, such as Janet Wallach's "Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell." 

The memoir "Stitches" is a graphic novel by David Small that tracks his terrible childhood. Not a bad choice, but just for the sake of argument, how does it compare to "Lit," the latest book from the madam of dysfunctional family memoirs, Mary Karr?

Karr, of course, has had plenty of plaudits, so I'm glad to see a lesser known writer get the attention. Which brings us to what's really at stake here: In a world of over-supply, such selections help readers sort through the pile as the make-or-break season arrives for book publishers and booksellers. In other words, anyone who's intellectually honest knows you can't really compare different kinds of fruit (or, in this case, books). The best you can do is separate the wheat from the chaff, and even then you'll have an argument. So the practical value of such "best" lists is to spur sales, and -- here's a revelation -- being on them is better than not because the books singled out are more likely to sell.        

I'm past the stage where both genders and every ethnic group needs to be represented when the lists and the prizes are doled out. But blogger Lizzie Skurnick is right when she finds dirt under the carpet of this latest boys' club to which the girls weren't invited. Male bias continues to be an issue when it comes to honoring writers. Men lean toward them, for obvious reasons, but women, too, are often caught in the trap of taking men writers more seriously. It's a bias that comes naturally in a culture that still kowtows to the guys.

I can't t tell PW how to pick its favorite books. But I know I can think for myself and speak out for work that resonates with me and my life as a woman. A modest ambition, this, but the beauty of it is that anyone can do the same. It just takes a little homework.

--Ellen 

       

   

WHOSE LIGHT IN YONDER WINDOW?

Mary Karr is one hell of a writer. As a person, however, she's looking heavenward.

This fact is nowhere in evidence in today's review of her latest memoir, "Lit," by ace reviewer Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times. It may be fair to conclude that Kakutani is one of those readers who Karr refers to when she writes in the book, "You could say I needed God then, which notion would've gagged me like a maggot. But if you're a nonbeliever, replace the word God with truth or mercy..."  

Fascinating, isn't it, that you can discuss sex with the guy next to you on the bus and wear your politics on your sleeve. But religion is so -- well, personal. So hard to approach without sounding like a right-wing fanatic. As one novelist wrote to Karr after learning that she'd become a Roman Catholic: "Not you on the pope's team!"  

To recap: Karr, a poet, is the author of two previous memoirs, "The Liars' Club" and "Cherry." In both, she revealed a storytelling skill and wordsmithery that is nearly unparalleled. It's a joy to read her stories, even if they center on a dysfunctional childhood in which her mother was as reliable as an umbrella in a hundred-mile gale. "Lit" reveals the same writing ability -- glorious lines not to mention insights she picks up along the way. For instance: "What hurts so bad about youth isn't the actual butt whippings the world delivers. It's the stupid hopes playacting like certainties." Or "Pain is required... suffering is optional."

No, what's really different about this memoir is that Karr herself becomes the drunk, the unstable one, downing her son's cough syrup, twirling around road dividers, knowing her husband is in the bed next to her and yet a million miles away. And the only way she finds to escape repeating her mother's story is to make a new deal. It's that simple. She had to give up her own struggle and give it to God.

I'm not trying to proselytize here. I'm just slapping a warning label on Karr's book. This is the recovery narrative told by a writer with great gifts, and I recommend it. But for better or worse, it's not another version of "The Liars' Club." In "Lit," Karr is not done to. She does the misdeeds to others -- her son, Dev, in particular. She is both less forgivable and more forgiven than in her earlier works. If the possibility of redemption is in your playbook, you'll appreciate both the writing and the spirit behind it.       

--Ellen