By Nava Atlas | On June 30, 2020 | Updated July 2, 2024 | Comments (0)
Nina Shengold’s Reservoir Year: A Walker’s Book of Days takes its place in the tradition of deeply felt nature writing, the kind that heightens observation of the world while delving into questions of self.
Literary Ladies Guide rarely features books that aren’t by classic (that is, departed) women authors or directly related to them (fictional homages, biographies, etc.).
But when I opened Reservoir Year (Syracuse University Press, 2020), I at once imagined it as a descendant of the works of several classic authors whose profound affinity to the natural world became central to their art. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On June 15, 2020 | Updated June 25, 2026 | Comments (0)
Jubilee by Margaret Walker (1966), the only novel by this esteemed American author, poet, and educator, was the culmination of some twenty-five years of research and writing.
The story of Vyry, an enslaved woman, is based on the real-life experiences of Walker’s great-grandmother. Walker received the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship for this book, and its completion served as her Ph.D. from the University of Iowa.
Covering the antebellum years, Civil War, and Reconstruction periods, the narrative moves from a Georgia plantation to Alabama, following Vyry’s life and loves. Jubilee received much praise for its realistic depictions of daily life in the era of slavery and its aftermath.
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By Nava Atlas | On May 29, 2020 | Updated September 2, 2022 | Comments (0)
The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West, published in 1930, is a novel that critiques the aristocracy of the early 20th century. The work was very much a reflection of the world that Vita grew up in.
As the only child of the aristocratic Victoria and Lionel Edward Sackville-West, a Baron, she had all the duties of a male heir, yet as a female, she wasn’t able to inherit Knole, the castle in which the small family lived.
In The Edwardians, the country estate of Knole castle becomes the fictional Chevron. Within the fictional framework, Vita reproduces in exquisite detail its physical features. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On April 28, 2020 | Updated August 30, 2022 | Comments (3)
Little Birds was Anaïs Nin’s second volume of erotic short stories, following Delta of Venus. Originally written as a way to make quick money, she sold them at a rate of a dollar per page to an anonymous client in the 1940s.
Little Birds was published in 1979, two years after Nin’s death. This collection of thirteen stories, perhaps more accurately termed vignette, cover a range of sexual topics from the female perspective.
Some of the characters from Delta of Venus make an appearance in these pages. The publisher describes the work: Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On April 23, 2020 | Updated August 29, 2022 | Comments (0)
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933) is actually Gertrude Stein‘s own memoir. Gertrude Stein Has Arrived by Roy Morris, Jr. chronicles the return of the delightfully perplexing literary figure to her American homeland in 1934.
With Alice in tow, Stein conducted an epic lecture tour to promote what would be her most commercially successful book.
Gertrude appropriated the supposed persona of her longtime companion, Alice B. Toklas, to tell her own tale. Famously, Alice is quoted as saying:
“About six weeks ago Gertrude Stein said, ‘It does not look to me as if you were ever going to write that autobiography. You know what I am going to do? I am going to write it for you. I am going to write it as simply as Defoe did the autobiography of Robinson Crusoe.’ And she has, and this is it.” Read More→
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