Author Topic: Essential Books for Women  (Read 17056 times)

Offline Front-Ranger

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Essential Books for Women
« on: December 09, 2008, 01:08:15 pm »
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.
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Offline Ellemeno

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Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #1 on: December 10, 2008, 01:52:38 am »
Anything and everything by Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Walker, Amy Tan.

Offline delalluvia

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Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #2 on: December 10, 2008, 01:50:26 pm »
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.   
« Last Edit: December 10, 2008, 04:19:58 pm by delalluvia »

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Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #3 on: December 10, 2008, 06:13:01 pm »
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/
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Offline Lumière

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Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #4 on: December 10, 2008, 06:51:12 pm »

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.





Offline Lynne

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Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #5 on: December 10, 2008, 08:28:36 pm »
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.

When I first saw the title of this thread, this is the book I thought about!


I found the first part of this book fascinating, as a female raised in the the Southeast US...no exposure to any ideas except a patriarchal God.  It caught my eye when I was in my early twenties and at the time I felt like it lifted the lid off the box I'd been living in.  Exposure to religions that pre-dated the Judeo-Christian tradition was really intriguing.

The second part seemed to include more arcane archaeology than I could appreciate - I got a bit lost in the history and geography and didn't enjoy that as much.

http://www.amazon.com/When-God-Woman-Merlin-Stone/dp/015696158X
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Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #6 on: December 10, 2008, 11:12:47 pm »
Tell us more about your experience reading it, Lynne!

Here is a quote from The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain, Chapter 19, Yin/Yang (!)

Quote
Due to the reductionism inherent in their written form, alphabet cultures have lacked unity. Fractured lands, fractious governments, and schismatic religions have mirrored their written languages, which have splintered into hundreds of different vernaculars and written forms. War and strife associated with intransigent political and religious ideologies have been their lot. Rarely would a single government be able to rule them all.

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Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #7 on: December 10, 2008, 11:36:28 pm »
'Nother important book, though dated, is Moon, Moon by Anne Kent Rush. A compendium of all things about the moon, feminism, rituals, and the goddess. Published in 1976. I bought a copy for myself, and one for my sister. We both still have our copies!


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Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #8 on: December 11, 2008, 03:18:12 pm »
Moving right along, I also recommend The Once and Future Goddess: A Sweeping Visual Chronicle of the Sacred Female by Elinor Gadon.

This is a fairly comprehensive look at prepatriarchial spirituality.

http://www.amazon.com/Once-Future-Goddess-Chronicle-Reemergence/dp/0062503545/ref=pd_sim_b_4
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Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #9 on: December 11, 2008, 03:21:53 pm »
When I first saw the title of this thread, this is the book I thought about!

http://www.amazon.com/When-God-Woman-Merlin-Stone/dp/015696158X

Here's that lovely snakegoddess!!

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