I have been thinking a lot about the course of women's lives as I have thought about the path of my own life. Capturing a moment here in middle age, with small children, professional interests, moral and spiritual questions, I am embarking on a quest to read as many biographies, autobiographies and memoirs by and about women as I can this year (2015, I'm getting a head start). I am taking recommendations from trusted sources, And will be posting something, though not a summary, or review, about each book I read.
The first thing I noticed when researching this project is that 19 out of 20 biographies are written about men, and many of the biographies written about women are about celebrities, or about the wives of famous men. Many of the memoirs are intended to be inspirational in some way.
My interests tend toward the political (social change movements), and the mundane (the profound experiences embedded in every human life), and I would like to get some kind of breadth of experience represented in the reading.
I am hopeful that this reading period will guide me in navigating the second half of my life and the many roles and aspirations imbedded within it. Perhaps by reading this blog, you can get the cliff notes version. (Like when I drafted off the most organized mother when it came to choosing a kindergarten for my son.) But user warning, this blog is likely to raise more questions than it answers.
The first book queued up, thanks to Shane Hoffman, is Hammer! Making movies out of sex and life
by Barbara Hammer.
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