books

Inga Muscio’s Rose: Love in Violent Times is a heart-wrenching journey, with ups and downs, depressing moments mirrored by inspirational ones. It is beautiful, and though it largely continues with Muscio's usual themes of feminism and antiracism, I would file this book under “ecofeminism” as well.

Muscio’s latest, published last year, picks up where her classic Cunt: A Declaration of Independence left off. Rose is divided into two sections: Violence and Love. It's written in Muscio’s standard conversational yet highly informed tone, touching on history, culture, and anecdotes from her own life, seamlessly sewing it all together in a beautiful, diverse patchwork quilt. “Violence” talks about violence in our culture, engrained as it is, and speaks much about rape and safety. 

As a teacher to high school children, whenever we discussed social justice in the worlds of books we read, one question that would repeatedly come up was, “How do we understand privilege, if you say it is all around us—how can we work with the 'lowest' common denominator if there will always be more walls and more marginalization?”; and I remember not being to answer that question most of the time. By the end of the year, as a class, what we could loftily conclude was where our own privileges and marginalizations lay; given that we did all that we could to “not speak for others.” Of course, we should have realized that growing up in Bombay meant we were speaking for others; coming of age in the decades of neoliberal economic policies in the cultural capital of the country does that to a generation of people—by being the very people who later India Shining addresses, we yield that kind of power. The privilege to voice someone else’s story, and to use our particular frame to view their lives.

Trans icon Kate Bornstein's memoir, A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The true story of a nice Jewish boy who joins the Church of Scientology and leaves twelve years later to become the lovely lady she is today, shines a bright, unflinching light on self-image, gender, and life on the far edge of the fringe.

Hello good readers of Bitch blogs! Starting this week for the next twelve weeks, I’ll be blogging at Bitch about Indian feminist books and films and I might quite possibly “ruin” India for many of you (it’s a superpower of mine, I’m often told) and I’m hoping in turn you’ll “ruin” my impression of north-Atlantic feminisms (which in my experience have not been of the most dedicated listeners). Apart from the sense of accomplishment I get while rupturing romanticized versions of India—because really, who wouldn’t be happy to break bubbles like: “What do you mean there are no tigers on the street? So this tattoo really means "my father is over there" in Sanskrit? Why can’t I like, go to tribal camp?”—I also hope that this break in lines of thought and action will make us talk and listen to one another.

If you've learrned anything from zombie flicks, you know that when the end is near, it's time to prepare.  And it's probably a good time to catch up on all of that reading you've been putting off.

Below, you'll find a reading list to prepare you for the genderpocalypse.

Female characters are not permitted to laugh in books presented at the Tehran International Book Fair, which opened this week. What would Jane Eyre say?

Some will say that there are technical considerations—the quality of rendering, the beauty of the language, or the composition of the scene make a difference between obscene and not, porn and art.

Personally, whether it's prize-winning literature, a cheesy film, or a fashion spread, my impulse to name the obscene, to pick up a black marker or start scribbling protests in the margins, depends a lot on who wrote, or painted, or filmed it. After all, you don't want your vision of the world hijacked by just anyone, even for a moment or an hour or a few hundred pages. Do you?

We're very excited to announce the newest book available at BitchMart! Jennifer's Journal: The Life of a SubUrban Girl Vol. 1 is the first comic book in a series that chronicles the life of author and illustrator Jennifer Cruté. In this self-published debut, Cruté shares stories about her childhood, family, interpretations of popular culture, and her spirituality with honesty and humor. This book is not to be missed!

Order your copy of Jennifer's Journal: The Life of a SubUrban Girl Vol. 1 now! And while you're at it, check out the rest of the incredible books available at BitchMart. Support independent feminist media and do a favor for your bedside table. Don't forget—every order at BitchMart comes with a free Bitch tattoo!

A new wave of children's books depicts families who encourage their kids to be who they are.

The Vanishers is four-time novelist and Believer founding editor Heidi Julavits's new work, and it has a really, really bright cover. It's a good book, for the most part, and an interesting book, and I promise I'll talk about it in an interesting way for the rest of this post, but first I have to talk about the cover. Remember folks, never judge a book by its cover! Except I feel like this one, with its masses of blinding and hyperdetailed flowers crowding the dust jacket and threatening to take over the text of the title itself, captures pretty well what's going on between those pieces of cardboard, which is: a LOT.