Book Description
Nurturing Yourself Through IVF speaks directly to the women whose lives include in vitro fertilization. Leaving out the basics of infertility, the book skips ahead to offer useful resources and specific steps that women can take to put themselves first through this challenging time. Many women find that by the time they reach an IVF cycle, they are tired of waiting, wondering and putting on a brave face for others. Very often, they feel alone and powerless. In this warm, encouraging book, Lynn Daley returns some power to her readers. Drawing on the principles of the mind-body connection and the practical advice of more than one hundred women going through IVF, Daley offers simple, helpful ways to make the most of an IVF cycle.
Customer Reviews:
Made me join a gym!!.......2007-05-20
Good easy read - made me think about me and what I need to do to look after myself during this journey hence why I joined a gym!!
Excellent resource for IVF patients!!!.......2007-03-08
Lynn Daley does an excellent job with this book! Infertility specialists should recommend this book at the first appointment. Lynn has numerous suggestions that are very helpful!
Good Book.......2006-08-20
This book was very helpful. We are starting our first cycle of IVF. It gave a lot of good information on how to relax as much as possible and make time for me. It was very informative.
Average customer rating:
- Not Godwin's best, but...
- A disappointment!
- An interesting character study;not so interesting character.
- well-written but delves too deeply into too many issues
- Wonderful book!
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The Odd Woman: A Novel
Gail Godwin
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0345389913
Release Date: 2005-11-29 |
Book Description
"HER BEST BOOK SO FAR....[It is] one of the most literate, intelligent and powerful novels I have ever read."
--Eugenia Thornton
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Professor Jane Clifford is in her early thirties, smart, and attractive. A popular teacher at a midwestern college, she appears to be going somewhere. But Jane knows better. After a lifetime habit of looking to books for the answers to life's mysteries, she seems to be finding only more questions.
Then her beloved grandmother suddenly dies, and Jane returns home for the funeral, where she is faced with the little dramas and fictions of both the past she has lived and the past she has only been told about. In the midst of it all, she is considering breaking off a long-term, long-distance affair, but like the family stories she tries to make sense of, she cannot seem to find a reason to claim a life of her own....
"PROVOCATIVE...The Odd Woman is an ambitious and intricately developed novel....One of the most realistic, intelligent and skillful character studies of a contemporary woman to date....Godwin is an extraordinarily good writer....She is a shrewd observer of human sensibilities and shortcomings--particularly those of women--and she explores them in depth with sensitivity, wit and an uncanny eye for the truth."
--Chicago Sun-Times
"EXCITING AND AFFIRMATIVE...It is a privilege to watch the unfolding of her impressive talent."
--Minneapolis Tribune
Customer Reviews:
Not Godwin's best, but..........2000-09-17
Father Melancholy's Daughter, its sequel, Evensong, and A Mother and Two Daughters are, for me, vintage Godwin. They set the standard for penetrating characterization and unsettling glimpses into how people really work. I picked up The Odd Woman with high hopes and was not utterly disappointed. Flickers of the good things Godwin will accomplish in later novels are abundant in this rather dense exploration of a "spinster professor's" running inner dialogue. If this is your first go-around with Godwin, however, skip this for the infinitely richer Father Melancholy's Daughter or A Mother and Daughters.
A disappointment!.......1999-05-24
I first read this book when I too was a 30ish, unmarried college professor, like its heroine. Fiction which tackles the concerns of professional women was then, as now, rare. I eagerly sought out this book, and what a disappointment it was! The professional concerns received almost no attention, while the heroine's energies were consumed by ill advised romantic and erotic relationships. So what's new? Poorly conceived and not very well written!
An interesting character study;not so interesting character........1999-04-19
Gail Godwin has written some wonderful books; it was the experiences I've had with Ms. Godwin's books that kept me reading this one. I cared very little for the characters or for the story, but kept reading, looking for one of those gems of revalation that sometimes strike when reading Gail Godwin - even those were lacking. Books must be so well written that the words and sentences themselves keep you turning the page; if the words fail the characters and plot must take over. I could not make myself care what happened to Jane Clifford; a professor of literature who refers to George Eliot by the infrequently used Marian Evens (Mary Anne the name used in standard references and biographical notes). At first, I didn't even know who she was referring to, and in the end I found it to be an annoyance. Jane reminded me of one of those people who feel burdened by their intelligence and remove themselves from the world as we know and enjoy it because they are "just a cut above", yet she mourns her lack of close relationships and sticks, from pride rather than love, to a married man who treats her like the sometime mistress of a married man, and a friend who annoys her by looking for friendship.
well-written but delves too deeply into too many issues.......1998-08-24
This is the first time I've read a book by Gail Godwin. As it relates to real-life issues, it is not action-packed, nor is it fast paced. It is a bit difficult getting through the 423 pages. It is an accurate portrayal of a thirtysomething, single woman struggling with past decisions. Analyzing her present situation, a two-year affair with an older, married man, she looks to her family (mother, grandmother, half-sister, great aunt) for clues on which direction to take. So much research, so much reflecting, etc., are certainly believable but tedious to read. Interesting characters are introduced (the previously mentioned family members, friends, step father, etc.) but some of them seem extraneous to the central story. A little more focus might have made this more compelling. And, frankly, I am not sure that I ever fully cared for the main character enough to care about her decision. Just when I felt a kinship with her, her thoughts took her someplace else and lost me. Her relationship with her grandmother might have been explored in a separate book. Or, even a tale of the three generations of women and their development over a couple of decades. This book included some of that plus outside friendships plus the affair which was just too much for one volume.
Wonderful book!.......1996-06-27
Gail Godwin is one of my favorite authors. Single women will
appreciate this book immensely. Godwin weaves a convincing story
of a 30+ single woman who examines her relationships when her beloved
Grandmother dies. While this story might seem like a familiar
one for readers of southern fiction, Godwin adds new depth by creating the
most convincing portrait I have ever read of the "internal dialogue"
that plagues all of us. Jane Clifford, the book's protagonist, is one of the
most convincing characters I've ever had the pleasure to know! Enjoy!
Customer Reviews:
Eh.......2006-12-15
While this book is an asset in learning about lesbian history it is seriously lacking in connecting ideas and seperating fact from oppinion. While some points are made well there are some that are so far off that they devalue what ever point the author was trying to make.
Wonderful survey of lesbian history.......2005-06-21
I read this book when I was newly out and went through the "read everything remotely queer" stage. This is truly a gem. It is everything a work of history should be: engaging, informative and well-crafted.
I recommend this to GLBTQ folks who are lacking knowledge about our history, as well as people with an interest in women's studies and feminism. Good photos, too.
Empowering and Engaging.......2002-04-24
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers is a fascinating work that traces the cultural history of lesbianism in the United States -- providing a broad and thorough overview of lesbianism's diversity, its relationship to feminism, and its evolving forms of resistance in relationship to the oppressions of the dominant culture. Perhaps what is most impressive about this book is that while it is an impressively researched and intellectually stimulating piece of scholarship, it is also an extremely engaging read. Faderman draws the reader into lesbian cultural history in a way that is never clinical, but compellingly human--under her treatment, the lesbian subculture emerges in all of its varied complexity, its celebratory subversiveness, as a fascinatingly rich and vibrant culture of historical, political, and sexual significance. This book is a marvelous introduction to lesbian culture and history . . . it is entertaining, empowering, and utterly engaging.
An important work.......2001-04-09
Lillian Faderman has written some of the best works on the lesbian experience throughout the ages, and "Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers" is no exception. She covers every facet of the subculture from the turn of the 20th century to the present day with impeccable scholarship, and her writing is engaging and highly readable. She examines everything from 1950's butch/femme, 70's lesbian feminism, and the resurgence of trendy "lipstick lesbians" with equal attention. This book is a must-have for every queer library, and is an important contribution to the cause of lesbian visiblity.
Interesting book.......2000-03-18
I'm taking a class in sexual communities history and this is one of the books I have to read. I've found it to be an excellent supliment for the class. The only thing lacking is that it sometimes will make a really great point, then a few sentences later make a completely off the wall one. Overall a great book, and if you're looking to learn a lot about lesbianism in the US...this is a wonderful book to do so.
Book Description
`there are half a million more women than men in this unhappy country of ours . . . So many odd women - no making a pair with them.' The idea of the superfluity of unmarried women was one the `New Woman' novels of the 1890s sought to challenge. But in The Odd Women (1893) Gissing satirizes the prevailing literary image of the `New Woman' and makes the point that unmarried women were generally viewed less as noble and romantic figures than as `odd' and marginal in relation to the ideal of womanhood itself. Set in grimy, fog-ridden London, these `odd' women range from the idealistic, financially self-sufficient Mary Barfoot and Rhoda Nunn, who run a school to train young women in office skills for work, to the Madden sisters struggling to subsist in low-paid jobs and experiencing little comfort or pleasure in their lives. Yet it is for the youngest Madden sister's marriage that the novel reserves its most sinister critique. With superb detachment Gissing captures contemporary society's ambivalence towards its own period of transition. The Odd Women is a novel engaged with all the major sexual and social issues of the late-nineteenth century. Judged by contemporary reviewers as equal to Zola and Ibsen, Gissing was seen to have produced an `intensely modern' work and it is perhaps for this reason that the issues it raises remain the subject of contemporary debate. *Introduction *Textual Note *Bibliography *Chronology *Explanatory Notes *Map
Customer Reviews:
An honest portrait of modern and antiquated women.......2004-08-20
Mr. Gissing's tome of feminine insanity: the fickleness,
the crass behavior, and women's inability to balance mind and matter: All encompass how women have not changed through time.
This book is truly remarkable........2004-08-15
If you haven't already, read this book NOW. It is as relevant today as it was the day it was written, the day I first read it as a ninth-grader, and the 5-10 times I've read it since. I have been recommending this remarkable book to serious readers for 25 years and have never heard anything but praise for this incisive social commentary that is as important a work as all the "important" books everybody has heard of (think Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger, Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Theodore Dreiser, etc.) except most people have never heard of it. Read and recommend!
A Story That Speaks to Our Time.......2004-01-16
The other review posted and the editorial reviews do a much better job than I could in summarizing this story. However, I would like to comment on its insight & current applicability.
As mentioned, "The Odd Women" is about the women who don't get married for one reason or another. In the Brittish Victorian era, there was still a strong stigma against such women...that their one true goal & purpose in life is left unfulfilled. You enter into this cultural assumption almost as soon as you pick up the book.
What is new in this book was the very beginnings of the feminist uprising. Women were starting to rebel against such unfortunate and uncontrollable circumstances in their lives. And they began - out of financial considerations - to learn more masculine disciplines in order to make their own way in the world. At first, you think that this is encouraging and will naturally lead to peace & prosperity for the women...after a bit of struggle to raise the glass ceiling enough to get the women in the doorway.
I think where Gissing goes with the novel, however, is spectacular. Rather than showing such ideal outcomes, Gissing shows through Monica's character that the issue of women having careers wasn't just a matter of training. Women did not look to salvation through work. Most secretly longed for marriage while they were being trained, and some couldn't even focus their minds enough to take in the education. As shown through Monica's character, the women still would rather be trapped in loveless marriages than work.
In addition to developing this kink in the feminist plan, Gissing develops Rhoda's character in an even more dynamic manner. His insight into her strict, stiff, uncaring manner was piercing. He showed how her facad was based on her need to prove herself worthy in some manner; and this need rose from her not having received the attentions from a man. By bringing a desirable man into her life, Rhoda's whole philosophical system breaks down. The power struggle between these two is worth reading, even if a little masculine in its outcome.
In this way, Gissing continues to unveil how dependent these women's worlds still were on men. Even if they didn't want to be...even if they didn't have the choice to be, an idealic philosophy alone could not change these women's most secret desires and nature. It's a disturbing realization to behold.
But Gissing isn't degrading women. His insight is penetrating...especially for a man of his times...but he balances out his story well. He shows in a good way how a professor's long-awaited marriage helps him to become a much more fulfilled, well-rounded man. And, though pathetic, Monica's husband is clearly lonely & lost without a woman by his side. Gissing shows the men in this tale to be completely as in need of women (and desirous of companionship with them) as the women are of men.
In this way, Gissing's revelations lead one to somber despair. One realizes that the feminist uprising comes not out of a desire to truly work but out of an economic need and dignity of women for whom things did not work out. The story is not one of an pioneering spirit but rather of resignation to how things don't always work out and how people slip through the cracks.
Thus, while the historical and sociological insight Gissing provides is invaluable, his story has much to say in our times as well...and he says in such a way that I don't think most would have the courage to now.
Early feminist novel by a man.......2000-05-20
"In The Odd Women there is not a single major character whose life is not ruined either by having too little money, or by getting it too late in life, or by the pressure of social conventions which are obviously absurd but which cannot be questioned." --George Orwell
George Gissing was a very odd man himself. Despite the fact that all his novels deal with social issues of the day, notably women, money, and class relations, he was neither a socialist nor a social reformer. He simply described in novels what he knew of degredation, misery, and the tortures "respectable" English society inflicted upon its outcasts and marginal figures. In The Odd Women Gissing chose to focus on the predicament of the extra females of Britain's disproporionate population ratio. These were the "odd" women who would never be matched with a man. Gissing's Madden sisters endured a representative sampling of the a dreary employment opportunities available for genteel but impoverished women in the 1890s. Of the two eldest Madden sisters, Alice was a governess until her health broke down; Virginia was lady's companion (poorly-paid drudge to an elderly tyrant) who has suffered from "mental lassitude" and taken to secret drinking. Another sister, a luckless "hard-featured" girl, is dead before the story begins; she taught in a girl's school until she committed suicide in despair. Monica, the youngest and only good-looking sister, spends twelve to sixteen hours a day on her feet in a large dry-goods shop and lives in an unsanitary dormitory with other shopgirls, some of whom supplement their wages by prostitution. Her sisters fear that Monica's health will also break down under this regime, and that she will lose her looks and her chance of marriage.
Enter Miss Rhoda Nunn and Miss Elinor Barfoot, two enterprising women who have founded a school to teach "odd" women business skills to enable them to compete economically, or at least rise above the general level of ill-paid drudgery. Barfoot and Nunn are early feminists; they wish to live and teach other women to live without feeling diminished by their unmarried status. Monica Madden considers enrolling in their school, but she has managed to meet and attract a man, a middle-aged bachelor named Widdowson, whom she marries instead. The substance of the novel involves the wreck of Monica's life following her disastrous marriage, and Rhoda Nunn's struggle to deal with her relationship with a man she is attracted to, but whom she cannot marry or live with without suffering diminishment and the loss of her role as a teacher and leader.
Gissing's book is a serious and sympathetic treatment of the much-discussed "woman question," and written from a point of view somewhat in advance of his time. The Odd Women has been mostly out of print for the last hundred years, and it is to be hoped that the recent appearance of three new editions heralds a long-delayed recognition of its merits.
Average customer rating:
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Every Woman's Guide to Diabetes: What You Need to Know to Lower Your Risk and Beat the Odds
Stephanie A., M.D. Eisenstat ,
Ellen Barlow , and
David M., M.D. Nathan
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0674023048 |
Book Description
Women have long needed a book devoted to their unique issues with diabetes. This up-to-date and practical guide advocates simple lifestyle changes that can help women reduce their risk of getting diabetes or, if already diagnosed, prevent the disease's most serious complications. Every Woman's Guide to Diabetes translates the latest findings from diabetes research into proven strategies busy women can use to stay healthy and gain control over an often overwhelming disease. The authors discuss the nature of diabetes, helping readers through the complex medical decisions involved in diabetes treatment. They highlight strategies to decrease the emotional stress and social isolation that often accompany diagnosis, and offer everyday techniques for managing blood sugar.
Key features include:
- unique aspects of diabetes for women throughout the life cycle
- timetable of recommended tests and check-ups
- guide to medications with common dosages
- charts to help organize diabetes-care tasks and supplies
- time-management tips for better disease regulation
- guide to contraceptives available to women with diabetes
- review of issues critical to women before, during, and following pregnancy
- advice for overcoming barriers to weight loss and exercise
- plan for intelligent diet trade-offs while still enjoying meals
- practical tips for planning exercise
- strategies to avoid diabetes "burn-out"
Written by two physicians, one of whom is a woman living with diabetes, and an experienced medical writer, Every Woman's Guide to Diabetes recognizes the power that women have in their households to effect lifestyle changes that will benefit themselves and loved ones, including their mothers, daughters, sisters, and partners. This power can reduce the toll of the diabetes epidemic.
Book Description
Pulitzer prizewinner Carl Degler has written the first general history of women in America for our generation. The book brings into historical perspective one climactic question: How is woman's right to equality of opportunity going to be reconciled with the demands of the family? The modern family, Degler writes, has been shaped by women's search for greater autonomy within the family. "At Odds" shows how that evolution took place, beginning in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Average customer rating:
- One of my top 3 BC books
- A darkly humourous, truly striking take on cancer
- one of the best books on breast cancer I've read
- Courageous
- Touching and ironically humorous
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The Red Devil : A Memoir About Beating The Odds
Katherine Russell Rich
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0609803247
Release Date: 2000-09-26 |
Amazon.com
Nothing's off limits in Katherine Russell Rich's gutsy account of her breast cancer treatment, from harsh insights about her relationships ("I was a stiff-lipped, bloodless, manners-obsessed WASP. He was Ricky Ricardo in a bad mood") to the wrenching details of her disease's progression to stage 4 status. For example, the tumors break through bone and into her spine, making her bones crack from within: "After months of straining against its leash, the fury of pain broke free and ripped into me as I bent down, slashing through my back, tearing into flesh, pressing without mercy onto bone.... I struggled to make myself stand, and felt--heard--something rip in my back." She holds back nothing--the pain of her tests, the apathy of many of her health providers, the intimate details of relationships, and the necessary wit ("Cancer humor is like the Zen laugh; it's a way of gathering back forces, a means of breathing in absurdity, darkness, and pain and blowing them out in one great joyous guffaw."). You follow her journey from being meek and fearful to the kind of "kick-ass cancer patient" she comes to respect. This is a riveting book that will change your understanding of what it's like to be treated for--and live with--cancer. --Joan Price
Book Description
When Katherine Russell Rich was 32, a newly divorced magazine editor living in New York City, her 10-year ordeal with cancer began. Soon she was bald, scrambled, and living in two worlds simultaneously: the world of the ill, of treatments, exhaustion, and doctors focused on avoiding malpractice suits; and the "normal" world, where dating, career, vacations, and 401(k) plans still mattered. Dazzling in its writing,
The Red Devil is alternately wise and wise-cracking -- it is the story of a woman who has been brought to her knees several times, only to get up and learn to dance.
Customer Reviews:
One of my top 3 BC books.......2007-05-17
This book keeps me sane when I start freaking out about my own lousy diagnosis. I first read about it in OPRAH magazine, and bought it after my Stage 3C diagnosis at age 45. Her strength and honesty, and spectacular fight with cancer have really helped me. When you have an advanced diagnosis, and are facing multiple surgeries, chemo, and rads, you don't want to read about some whiney Stage 1 chick who's getting a lumpectomy and rads.
This author goes through all the horrors of cancer treatment and multiple recurrances, with a sense of humor. I love this book!
A darkly humourous, truly striking take on cancer.......2006-12-01
Katherine Russel Rich's stirring memoir of her struggle with breast cancer takes the reader on a harrowing journey from the end of Rich's marriage in 1988 and her almost immediate discovery that she had cancer, through chemotherapy, to the discovery that her cancer had metastasized into her bones, and finally to her resolute remission and the reconstruction of her life. Rich, who was only 32 and living a fast, glamorous (booze, fatty food, and cigarette filled) life as a magazine editor in New York, was floored by the realization that she had cancer, and at first tried to downplay the terrible physical and psychological effects of her disease and treatment. Yet Rich finds that denial and isolation only make her chemotherapy more painful and exhausting, and that the wry wit she uses to fend off her feelings of hopelessness, victimhood, and dependency can only last so long.
Despite the way the author lays bare her emotions, this book is no made-for-T.V. movie or sappy Hallmark card. Rich is acerbic and analytical, looking back on her experience and pointing out both her triumphs and her failings. At 32 she considered herself far too young to develop cancer, and her doctors felt the same way. Some of the book's most powerful moments are those in which Rich realizes her doctor's failings--discouraging her from having a mammogram or a biopsy, failing to explain her disease in anything but technical jargon, rushing her into procedures without helping her determine what would actually be best for her. It is in these retrospective moments that Rich provides the most scientific, biological information about cancer; this is no textbook, but the explanations of the multicellular manifestations of cancer and the actions of chemotherapy drugs provide a stable background that would benefit anyone faced with Rich's diagnosis. Stronger still is Rich's candid description of the havoc and exhaustion wreaked by her chemotherapy cocktail. She spares no details, using vivid language to evoke her experience.
For me, this book gave cancer a face, one with which I could identify. While Rich's battle with cancer began the year I was born, and she was taking far more risks with her health than I do, I was affected by the testimony of an active, intellectual woman, unsettled and supposedly in the prime of life. Rich's use of dark humor and unflinching self-analysis, and her evasion of stick-sweet platitudes about her victory over the disease, make the book not only instructive, but at times even fun. This is not to say, of course, that cancer is funny--but by remaining human, instead of presenting herself as a heroic martyr, Rich made me like her as a whole person, not just a victim. This understanding allowed me to imagine myself in her place, and to wonder how I would fare, faced with the pain, tiredness, and deadliness of cancer.
Two of her experiences bear important messages for society: First, Rich found herself increasingly isolated once she began telling people she had cancer. Even though she continued working, she had very little contact with coworkers or former friends--only few, including her ex-husband, persevered with her. This isolation made her disease even more unbearable, and slowed her recovery, even dulling her will to live. Second, Rich did not make a full recovery. After being told she was "cured," her cancer reappeared, this time spread through seven sites in her bones. This not-quite success story shows us that cancer remains a mortal threat, and, conversely, that small victories--like Rich's survival beyond the single year projected for her--matter.
one of the best books on breast cancer I've read.......2005-01-19
I would recommend this book to anyone with breast cancer who enjoys reading other's story of breast cancer. It is well written, easy to read and hard to put down. If you don't like reading books that show the darker side of breast cancer and all that entails, then don't buy this book. Not only does this book show you the dark, miserable, lonely side of dealing with breast cancer, but gives you many examples of miracles, hope, humor and I laughed out loud at the ms patient who decided to join the breast cancer support group. Hilarous. I loved it because of the truthful way she portrayed this disease and it's impact on the woman, her mate, her family, work and work relationships, oncologists, the medical system in general etc. She has a wonderfully delightful way of writing her story. Would read anything else she publishes based on that fact alone.
Courageous.......2001-01-20
For a cancer survivor to record the whole nasty experience and not succumb to the fear that the words she writes will be her last is so courageous and selfless. They don't have to share, but they do. My mother-in-law is in her second remission from ovarian cancer. As a family member who so dearly loves her and wishes this evil cancer would be silenced, Kathy's novel is refreshing. I agree with the fact a cancer patient has to keep her head in the game. Trusting one doctor is foolish when you're gambling with your life. It's better to ask, then lose time. Loved it.
Touching and ironically humorous.......2000-11-27
I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in May of 2000; I am seventeen years old. Although this memoir deals with breast cancer, I still found it extremely helpful, funny, comforting, sad, etc. It illustrates the experience of cancer as not only harrowing, but as a learning experience. Ms. Rich attacks her disease with truth and strength. I recommend this book to ANYONE, involved with cancer or not.
Book Description
We all know what a "good mother" looks like on television and in the popular imagination: typically she is white, heterosexual, and married, and devotes herself full-time to child care. But increasing numbers of women who mother today do not fit this narrow traditional image,and their different experiences of mothering are often maligned, misunderstood, or ignored.This compelling book presents the stories of diverse mothers whose life circumstances place
them outside the mainstream. Filled with the voices of the women themselves, chapters explore the lives of mothers of exceptional children and biracial children; mothers who seek closeness and connection with their adolescentchildren; mothers with HIV/AIDS; immigrant,
homeless, single, lesbian, adoptive, and teen mothers; African American mothers living in poverty; and mothers in prison. Their vivid, heartfelt accounts demonstrate the unique strengths of women struggling to overcome personal and societal barriers and take us beyond labeling entire groups of mothers as normal or deviant, "good" or "bad."
Customer Reviews:
AN EXCEPTIONAL LOOK AT MOTHERING.......1999-09-26
This is a stunning volume of maternal voices that are usually ignored. We hear from poor mothers, mothers of color, homeless and incarcerated mothers, single, lesbian, adoptive and teen mothers. These mothers, taken together are the true face of American motherhood. I really love this book.
Truth telling and conversation empower all mothers........1999-08-03
I am a big fan of Mothering Against The Odds, and anyone undaunted by the stellar line up of scholars, academicians and therapists - mothers all - will be richly rewarded. I was worried that this would be an academic workout of a read, but was drawn from page to page, spellbound by the stories of mothers, each searching for her truth and resisting further marginalization in doing so. The book feels like a conversation among friends in a way that includes the reader as a mother resistor, empowering her with the light of truth telling and consoling each of us not only with the sameness and horror of our collective shadows, but the power to resist more marginalization. This is a perfect Mother's Day or any day present for every mother in all of our lives. It was a real gift to me, both elevating the conversations with mother friends held out of the coach's or teacher's or doctor's auditory range and validating them, as well as welcoming me into a thoughtful group of mothers, adding a new layer of oomph to my own resistance. There were many chapters I approached with the expectation that I would be a reader experiencing an "other," and instead I was moved by a deep seeded commonality. Knowing what I know about real dialogue with pediatricians, (all of my children's, but especially my son's) coaches, school administrators, teachers, (especially the teachers of my adolescent children) - even as a privileged mother in a conventional heterosexual family, I feel more sameness than difference with the "special" categories of mothers in each chapter of your volume. All mothers do experience marginalization, a relegation to the sidelines of our growing children's lives with the concomitant shame undermining our pride when loving involvement persists. A careful reading of this volume also invokes shame that comes with significant enlightenment for any way that I may have contributed to shoving "other" mothers into the shadows. With the wisdom of this volume, I can see myself as a confident mother resistor and truth teller and not simply the persistent nuisance I fear some of my children's teachers and many of their friends' parents perceive me to be. Each chapter carries a strong message for each of us, not for "others." I am empowered by the bravery of teen mothers resisting the mold with which their welfare workers try to choke them. As a consummate letter writer, many of them unsent, I am empowered by Dr. Cynthia Garcia Coll and her colleagues' account of an incarcerated letter writing mother who stayed connected with her child and her own truth in writing letters that likely never reached him. I am emboldened by Miriam Greenspan's conviction born of many mothers' experience: "ours is...an emotion phobic culture," as I recall the pathologizing of my emotionally attuned children by well intentioned teachers when my children's' fears and sensibilities did not mesh with convention. I am liberated by Dr. Janet Surrey and her colleagues' careful unfolding of the adoptive experience and the enlivening picture of adoption "as much a recovery from loss as it is loss itself." I love the conviction presented as part of Dr. Laura Benkov's description of families headed by lesbians and gay men, but also as a truth woven throughout the volume, that "it is the quality of our relationships rather than the structure of our families that matters most in human development." And the most chilling truth of all, from Dr. Phoebe Kazdin Schnitzer, apropos single mothers, but easily applied to the actual story of any mother, and in fact, the shadow side of this volume: "This is marginalization up close - moving from stereotypes to inhibited interactions." And when each of us settles down and recalls the ways in which our mothering life has been constricted by cultural norms, or when each of us joins in our own rich conversations with other mothers or the rich conversational markers throughout the volume, it is a dark reality that confronts us, both more and less frightening because it is a shared one.
Stimulating,eye-opening views of women's lives as motherss.......1999-07-10
I was pleased when I encountered Mothering Against the Odds as I was selecting course books for my undergraduate class. And, my pleasure increased when I realized how stimulated my students were with reading and discussing it. They could see in a new way the full meaning of marginalization and resistance through the development of the "liberatory voice." The authors' lucid definition of marginalization and the sociopolitical act of resistance served as a guiding analytical principle for the reading and discussion about women's lives as mothers. The diversity presented was eye-opening. The new ways in which the students could encounter their own mothers was quite moving. The opportunity this reading gave these women to voice their recognition of margenalization in their own lives and their desire to engage in the social task of re-valuing motherhood and acts of mothering was unique. After this successful academic experience, I featured Mothering Against the Odds as a Book of the Month on the Wise Woman Productions website. In response several of our members requested a discussion group to consider the many provocative issues raised by the book.
Engrossing, thought-provoking account of mothering today........1999-06-17
The lives of the women we meet in Mothering Against the Odds provide the reader with a new awareness of the complexities of child-rearing in the United States today. The editors of this volume, clinicians, researchers, educators, theoreticians and writers, were initially drawn together by their common interest in establishing a community where they could share their experiences in parenting. Their own sense of personal and intellectual isolation as mothers spurred them to examine the multiplicity of mother-roles faced by all women; the resulting volume is the work of eighteen writers and scholars. Garcia Coll, et al frame their discussion of mothering in a format of personal narratives which reveal the individual challenges faced by those who mother at the so-called margins of society. The editors' choice of these narratives of women mothering came from their awareness that the diverse experiences shaping mothers' experiences are untreated in contemporary discussion of society's problems. The chapters illustrate a variety of mothering experiences: stories of women with biracial and exceptional children, mothers with HIV/AIDS; immigrant, homeless, single, adoptive, incarcerated, and teen mothers. Three conversations with the editors are interspersed within the text which highlight themes emerging from the individual stories of mothering. Each chapter stands alone as moving account of a mother's struggles and triumphs in a particular instance; all the chapters are tied together by the common thread of the voice of the mother's experience in each instance. The reader is left with a sense of the formidable tasks faced by those who are so often invisible in our society and yet who are coping and contributing successfully in many ways that leave one humbled. The voices of these mothers are the voices and lives that sociologists, psychologists, and of course educational policy makers, need to consider as they pursue ways to improve the lives of our children and of our families. While this is an academic book it also is a highly accessible and readable book for all those who have an interest in children, women and families. Above all, the stories told here represent lives of triumph, lives of women quietly confronting many problems usually hidden from the public view. And the editors state their intent to continue their study of mothering and the varied contexts women live in; we certainly hope they will. While the reader is left with many troubling questions, we also hope that through a consideration of the dignity of the lives of these women we can bring about change. Mothering Against the Odds is a must read for all those concerned with issues related to families today.
Book Description
When Beating the Odds: Raising Academically Successful African American Males appeared in 1998, it was hailed as "a crucial book" (Baltimore Sun) and "undoubtedly one of the most important tools the African American parent can possess" (Kweisi Mfume, President NAACP). Now, in response to enormous demand, the authors turn their attention to African American young women. Statistics indicate that African American females, as a group, fare poorly in the United States. Many live in single-parent households-either as the single-parent mother or as the daughter. Many face severe economic hurdles. Yet despite these obstacles, some are performing at exceptional levels academically. Based on interviews with many of these successful young women and their families, Overcoming the Odds provides a wealth of information about how and why they have succeeded--what motivates them, how their backgrounds and family relationships have shaped them, even how it feels to be a high academic achiever. They also discuss the challenges of moving into African American womanhood, from maintaining self-esteem to making the right choices about their professional and personal lives. Most important, the book offers specific and inspiring examples of the practices, attitudes, and parenting strategies that have enabled these women to persevere and triumph. For parents, educators, policy makers, and indeed all those concerned about the education of young African American women, Overcoming the Odds is an invaluable guidebook on creating the conditions that lead to academic-and lifelong-success.
Customer Reviews:
Reporting a Sucess Story.......2005-01-24
The previous commentator confuses reporting a success story with self promotion. In addition, she suggests that other students are treated as an after thought. Yet the aggregate data suggests otherwise, as the general average SAT, graduation rate, acceptance rate to premier graduate schools, etc. by "all" students has risen dramatically at UMBC in the past ten years.
Dr. Hrabowski hardly needs to do any career saving moves. To the contrary, the Baltimore community is doing everything it can to keep the voracious head hunters at bay as many other universities have been trying to lure him away.
I also know Dr, Hrabowski personally and have witnessed him interact with inner city kids and truly inspire them to greater heights. Never have I heard him suggest that others are not able. On the other hand, he is a realist and certainly is aware that life's circumstances have prepared some to be more successful than others.
IMHO, Ms. Grayson's book review is at heart an ad hominine attack on one of the leading educators in the nation. She obviously does have an axe to grind.
Concept good, author ..........2003-09-06
While I agree that there is a need for this type of work, and I commend the Author on his efforts to improve educational standards within the home, I'm not sure if I approve of the real reasons that this book was written: 1. Gratuitous self-promotion/$$$, 2. gratuitous promotion of his university, 3. gratuitous promotion of his university's scholarship program, 4. face-saving career move.
As a former student at his university, I witnessed firsthand the divide between the two groups, which is further escalated by preferential treatment. What people may not know is that the Author clearly favors these scholarship students and many questionable measures are taken throughout the university to make sure that they succeed. These same options are not offered to the rest of the university population, which is generally treated as if they are just "taking up space" and are eventually "disposed" of somehow by the "powers that be." These scholarship students are his lifeblood, and not promoting this program could cost him his career. It really has nothing to do with "home" and I feel that the Author should state his true elitist feelings.
If anyone thinks that I have an ax to grind, I'll end this philosophically - How can one be objective, when the other is being subjective? Taking into account that the Author does not hold the belief that all people are "able," (he told me in front of a group of students that it will likely take me several years to graduate) why does he choose to mislead people and write about a concept in which his beliefs are not collected (success starts at home, all children have ability)?
Customer Reviews:
She's done better jobs of writing before..........2000-07-03
I had to force my way through this mystery. For books which are read for enjoyment and entertainment, that should not be the case. I've read her books before, and usually they are more tightly written, concise, with a plausible plot. This was not the case in this book, and it felt as though the inclusion of different family members was merely done as afterthoughts to connect to previous books. Very disconnected job... Karen Sadler, Science Education, University of Pittsburgh
Not one of her best............2000-01-13
This is not one of Charlotte Macleod's best outings--things get a little toooo contrived, and there's hardly any Kelling family in the story (except some juicy stories from Jem)--but it's still a good way to spend a rainy (or snowy) afternoon.
A tiresome way to spend an evening........1999-05-19
Crushingly dull. The characters are bland and too poorly drawn even to be irritating. The plot is pedestrian, with details that are neither relevant nor even entertaining. Luckily the heroine's husband is absent in this book, so we are spared the embarrasment of being invited to share their (probably) tedious bedroom. Disagree with me if you like - just don't ask me to read any more Charlotte McLeod.
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