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Essential Books for Women

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Front-Ranger:
Let us gather a shelf full of essential books for today's woman! In my humble estimation, there are two books which every enlightened woman should own: Women Who Run With the Wolves, and The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. The first book, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, retells some folk and fairy tales and uncovers the ancient truths and archtypes within them.

Ellemeno:
Anything and everything by Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Walker, Amy Tan.

delalluvia:
Woman by Natalie Angier

Wonderful book that challenges the dubious conclusions about women being "naturally monogamous" and other tales of "women's nature".  It also makes you smile while reading it, glad to be a woman.

The Descent of Women by Elaine Morgan

Lovely book.  It's the Aquatic Ape theory.  The author builds on an earlier theory, long ignored, that the reason human women are shaped the way they are isn't because attracting male lust was the most important thing women's bodies needed to evolve for.  Note, it's an old theory, it challenges the beliefs of most of the - male - paleoanthropologists/zoologists (the title is a play on Bronowski's The Ascent of Man and in the book she also parallels Desmond Morris' theories but comes to a completely different conclusion), but to date, no one in the scientific community has been able to invalidate this theory.  ;D

When God was a Woman by Merlin Stone

The scholarship is somewhat wonky, but the author gets her point across.  The Divine wasn't always seen as a man, and indeed there is strong evidence that the Ultimate Divine was once considered female.

Bitch by Elizabeth Wurtzel

A collection of essays by the author, praising and dissecting the characters of women - some biblical, the rest real -  the author believes society would consider "difficult" or "bitches".  An excellent read.   

Front-Ranger:
Excellent choices, della and elle! I was going to recommend When God Was a Woman myself. It is essential reading and entertaining as well. More scholarly, but even more essential and insightful, is Leonard Schlain's The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. I simply can not say enuff about this book and its incredible insights. It's on my list of Top Five Books I've ever read in my life.

Check out this link for more info:

http://www.alphabetvsgoddess.com/

Lumière:

Amanda & I have started a collection of very interesting reads..
Check out the Lesbian and/or Feminist Literature and Writing thread in The Culture Tent.

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