Sunday, December 5, 2010

NY Times Notable Books of 2010 - 50% are by women.

Someone at the NY Times is paying attention to our rants against end of year "lists" that contain few works by women. On this year's NY Times Notable Books of 2010 almost every other author is a woman. So cheers to the feminist who compiled the list. The entire list can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/books/review/100-notable-books-2010.html?pagewanted=2&ref=todayspaper

Here is a sampling of some of the fantastic female authors and their works:

APOLLO’S ANGELS: A History of Ballet. By Jennifer Homans. (Random House, $35.) The question of classical ballet’s very survival lies at the heart of this eloquent, truly definitive history, which traces dance across four centuries of wars and revolutions, both artistic and political.

DOUBLE HAPPINESS: Stories. By Mary-Beth Hughes. (Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic, paper, $14.) Hughes likes to juxtapose her characters’ relative passivity with the knife edge of evil within or, more often, outside them.

LISA ROBERTSON’S MAGENTA SOUL WHIP. By Lisa Robertson. (Coach House, paper, $14.95.) In these intellectual poems, the experimental curtains suddenly part to reveal clear, durable truth.

THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS. By Rebecca Skloot. (Crown, $26.) Skloot untangles the ethical issues in the case of a woman who unknowingly donated cancer cells that have been the basis for a vast amount of research.

SOMETHING RED. By Jennifer Gilmore. (Scribner, $25.) Gilmore’s contemplative second novel explores the lost ideals and lingering illusions of a family once politically committed to bettering the world.



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