“…its woman-centredness also hints at feminism’s dirty secret: that feminists might be feminists because they are supremely interested in themselves, even if that interest is in the shape of self-doubt. While Sheila says that it’s great to be a woman because what a female genius should be hasn’t yet been established, that is also the problem of being a woman.” The London Review of Books addresses the problems of Sheila Heti’s How Should A Person Be?. For another perspective, don’t miss our interview with Heti.
How Should A Feminist Be?
Zeitgeist-y
"We get the book adaptations we deserve... We need to re-tell these stories over and over because each generation sees them in a different way, needs different things from them. We tell these stories again and again, their survival over time proof of their intrinsic value. People are writing new Zeitgeist-y things all the time of course, but we return to classics because the stories have endured for a reason." Sky Friedlander on the "Literary Period Piece."
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Recommend Them One at a Time
In The New York Times, Anne Lamott (of Bird by Bird fame) reveals the one book she’d recommend to President Obama. It might not surprise many readers of her memoir that her choice -- Anti-California: Report from our First Parafascist State -- is a nonfiction book by her father.
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“Lissa” by Michael Bourne
Tin House magazine has posted a short story, "Lissa," by our own Michael Bourne as part of its regular online Flash Fridays feature. Also be sure to catch his Year In Reading entry that posted earlier today.
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Book Decor
Will books in white wrappers become this year's deer head? At The New York Times: Physical books find new life as design objects.
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To Have or Have Not
Read our own Edan Lepucki’s great review of Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids? Then you might want to read Vivian Gornick’s complementary take on the book. In Bookforum, she reads Meghan Daum’s anthology as well as Kate Bolick’s Spinster, placing the two in a broader feminist context.
How and How Not to View Africa
Mama Hope, a group that works with local African organizations "to connect them with the resources required to transform their own communities," has released a great promo featuring four young men who are tired of Hollywood's African stereotypes. Their complaints are reminiscent of those enumerated in Binyavanga Wainaina's classic essay "How to Write about Africa," and also in Laura Seay's great article from last week, "How Not to Write About Africa."