Today marks the 50th anniversary of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, a book that, as the Times put it, “ignited the contemporary women’s movement in 1963 and as a result permanently transformed the social fabric of the United States and countries around the world.” To celebrate the book’s anniversary, we’ve put together a list of ten essential feminist reads, from fiction and poetry to essays and nonfiction dissections. Read through our picks after the jump — and since there are so many more than ten important feminist texts worthy of pressing into any friend’s hands, add your own favorites to our list in the comments. … Read More
Simone de Beauvoir
The Authors With the Juiciest Love Lives
Today marks the 140th anniversary of the birth of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, the French novelist and performer who was, during her lifetime, hailed as France’s greatest female writer. She also had a particularly exciting love life, and a pretty stupendous life in general, and her sensual semi-autobiographical novels continue to delight readers to this day. To honor Colette’s birthday, we’ve put together a list of a few of the famous authors with the juiciest love lives, to inspire us all to love a little more extravagantly. And hey, Valentine’s Day is coming up. Read about them after the jump, and if we’ve forgotten your favorite tale of literary romance, add it to our list in the comments. … Read More
The Love Stories of 10 Intellectual Power Couples
Unmarried, radical, and leaders of a postwar philosophical movement, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir defined the power couple for a new generation. The early feminist author of The Second Sex and the French existentialist philosopher were partners in work and wisdom, even though they often kept very separate lives. Our friends at Open Culture introduced us to a video that shows footage of the prominent twentieth-century thinkers in a 1968 documentary filmed at Sartre’s Montparnasse apartment. It’s a rare and intimate glimpse into their private lives. The website also quotes Louis Menand in The New Yorker, in an excerpt that defines the essence of Sartre and Beauvoir’s relationship: “They were a powerful couple, with independent lives, who met in cafés, where they wrote their books and saw their friends at separate tables… but who maintained a kind of soul marriage.” With romantic intrigue on the brain, we surveyed history for other famous power couples that embodied the same shared sophistication, cultured appeal, and keen intellect. … Read More
Breakup Letters From Famous Authors
The holidays are a time for joy, love, and family. Unfortunately, they’re also the time of year that a lot of couples break up — whether because of the stress of extended family get-togethers or just the cold feet of winter, we don’t know. But how to part ways in the most eloquent way? Take a few pointers from one of your favorite authors, of course! We’ve collected a few breakup letters from famous lovers and writers to offer you some gentle phrases and piercing metaphors to make the process easier (or harder, if you prefer) on your ex-lover-to-be. We just hope you’re not writing this from prison, à la a certain Mr.… Read More
Awesome Photos of Writers Hanging Out Together
There’s something strangely inspiring about photographs of visionaries in the same room — we don’t know quite what it is, but the idea of (what we imagine to be) a profound meeting of minds captured on film always manages to get us excited. To that end, we put together a collection of some very excellent photographs of awesome musicians hanging out together a couple of months ago, but it’s not just musical types who like to gather in inspiring combinations. Writers, it seems, also enjoy each other’s company (whatever they might say to the contrary). Click through to see our photo roundup of writers hanging out with other writers, with a hat tip to the wonderful Tumblr Awesome People Hanging Out Together for inspiration and a few of the shots. … Read More
10 Legendary Bad Girls of Literature
“Wake me when you cover the Bad GIRLS of Literature,” wrote a commenter who goes by the handle of “Literati” on our recent “10 Legendary Bad Boys of Literature” post. Well, rise and shine, friend, because it’s happening. For this post, we showcase ten fantastic female authors whose careers span 3000 years — from Sappho to Alice Walker — and are just as capable of badass behavior as their male counterparts. We easily could have made this list five times as long, so make your case for any omissions in the comments. … Read More
Strangely Intriguing Photos of Famous Authors Playing Sports
Whether it’s because of the jocks vs. brains dichotomy or the idea that literary folks are fragile artists, we’re always surprised to find out that a renowned author also excelled as an athlete. That, perhaps, is why we were so intrigued when the archivists at How to Be a Retronaut posted a photo of none other than Agatha Christie snuggling up to a surfboard. Out of curiosity, we started Googling to see which of our other favorite authors have been caught on film playing a sport. In the gallery after the jump, you’ll see Jack Kerouac killing it on the football field, Simone de Beauvoir shooting a gun, Norman Mailer arm wrestling Muhammad Ali, and — what we consider to be our prize find — a young Virginia Woolf playing cricket. … Read More
Required Reading: Revisiting Gender Outlaws
Most of us read “serious books” about feminism in high school and college, but how many of us have gone back and read The Second Sex as adults? Stephanie Staal recently revisited the writers that made her start thinking differently about the world when she decided to take a college course on feminist theory at Barnard. She even includes the reading list in her book, Reading Women: How the Great Books of Feminism Changed My Life and will deliver excerpts from it tonight at Book Court in Brooklyn. The following are some of the books Staal explores in her studies, as well as a few others worth considering. … Read More
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