THE LITTLE BOOK OF FEMINIST SAINTS

Name: THE LITTLE BOOK OF FEMINIST SAINTS
Author: Julia Pierpont
ISBN: 978-0-399-59274-4

by Julia Pierpont ; illustrated by Manjit Thapp ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2018

Bold and sassy, Pierpont and Thapp’s “little” collection of secular “saints” stands tall: required reading for any seeking...

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From novelist Pierpont (Among the Ten Thousand Things, 2015) and British illustrator Thapp, an enticing collection of biographical portraits of extraordinary women.

The author models her richly varied collection of 100 “feminist saints” on the “Catholic saint-of-the-day book,” offering one-page inspirational snapshots that aim to capture the spirit of her path-breaking subjects versus history’s fuller remembrance of them. Pierpont’s pithy write-ups are accompanied by Thapp’s funky, wonderfully expressive color illustrations, making for an engaging picture-book experience for adults. From Sappho to Malala to Pussy Riot, Pierpont tracks well over two millennia of women’s achievements ranging from the likes of artists, politicians, and scientists to athletes, screen stars, and comics. Though loosely organized around the calendar year, the portraits may be read consecutively or piecemeal; each offers a glimpse of one of Pierpont’s “matron saints” in her respective element. Thus, March 26 contains a spirited anecdote from Sandra Day O’Connor, “Matron Saint of Justice,” who, in October 1983, wrote to admonish the New York Times, noting that “for over two years now SCOTUS has not consisted of nine men. If you have any contradictory information, I would be grateful if you would forward it as I’m sure the POTUS, the SCOTUS and the undersigned (the FWOTSC) [first woman of the Supreme Court] would be most interested in seeing it.” April 1 is for Wangari Maathai, “Matron Saint of Sustainability,” who started the Green Belt Movement in her native Kenya, planting 50 million trees and training “thirty thousand women in forestry and food processing, allowing them to make their own incomes.” Matthai became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. July 15 features signature quips from powerhouse mother-and-daughter duo Ann and Cecile Richards; says Ann: “I get a lot of cracks about my hair, mostly from men who don’t have any.” Other trailblazers include Virginia Woolf, Billie Jean King, and Ada Lovelace.

Bold and sassy, Pierpont and Thapp’s “little” collection of secular “saints” stands tall: required reading for any seeking to broaden their historical knowledge.

Pub Date: March 6, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-399-59274-4

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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INTO THE WILD

by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...

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The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).

Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor will it to readers of Krakauer's narrative. (4 maps) (First printing of 35,000; author tour)