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Literary Figures

Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies by Elizabeth Winkler

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Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies by Elizabeth Winkler
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The myths of Shakespeare are so deeply ingrained that I didn’t realize how many of the things I "know" may not be correct. Winkler makes an excellent case that the Shakespeare we read may not be the Shakespeare of Avon, and she makes it very clear that not every anti-Stratsfordian is a crank. I am not convinced but I am intrigued, and I will keep digging for myself. To me, that makes this book successful–I am hooked and I want to know more.

Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies by Elizabeth Winkler, (List Price: 29.99, Simon & Schuster, 9781982171261, May 2023)

Reviewed by Tracy Bailey, Oxford Exchange in Tampa, Florida

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Also a Poet by Ada Calhoun

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Also a Poet by June Gervais
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Calhoun had a complicated relationship with her famous art critic father Peter Schjeldahl. This book started as an attempt to write a biography of poet Frank O’Hara that her father never finished. Having inherited his obsession with the poet, the author wrestles with creating a narrative with answers when obstacles (time, fire, other people) keep them hidden. I felt the frustration of her and her subjects as it infected me with its incessant whispers of almosts and near misses. Ultimately, the author gifts us with wise lessons of kindness and acceptance. An extraordinary, raw read!

Also a Poet by June Gervais, (List Price: $27, Grove Press Books, 9780802159786, June 2022)

Reviewed by Kelly Justice, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit

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Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit
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A Fall Read This Next! Selection

Jumping off from a mention in a 1946 essay by George Orwell about fruit trees and roses he had planted ten years earlier, Solnit begins a meandering path through a garden of antifascism, art, and the ways in which they intertwined in Orwell’s life. In the span of about 270 pages, coal mining and climate change, mass rose production in Columbia and the invisibility of capitalism’s machinations, Orwell’s involvement in the Spanish Civil War, and his ancestral connection to the slave trade are all explored deftly and, in the ususal Solnit style, with lines beautifully drawn to our current condition. Whether you are deeply interested in Orwell and his milieu or just a fan of Solnit’s incisive writing, you will find this biography/essay collection bears flowers scented with hope, resistance, and pleasure.

Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit, (List Price: $28, Viking, 9780593083369, October 2021)

Reviewed by Hannah DeCamp, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia


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Books Promiscuously Read by Heather Cass White

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Books Promiscuously Read
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Because I work in the book world, sometimes I forget that not every person is a reading-obsessed nerd. This book put into words what I’ve never been able to: reading takes you to another place. Reading changes your entire world in a literal way and in figurative ways. I loved reading quotes from my favorite writers about how reading transformed their worlds.

Books Promiscuously Read by Heather Cass White, (List Price: 25, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 9780374115265, July 2021)

Reviewed by Sissy Gardner, Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee

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