Greetings from Amazon.com Delivers Women's Studies FEATURED IN THIS E-MAIL: * "Women" by Annie Leibowitz * "Secrets of the Flesh" by Judith Thurman * "Passionate Nomad" by Jane Fletcher Geniesse * "Deadly Persuasion" by Jean Kilbourne * "Desert Flower" by Waris Dirie and Cathleen Miller "Women" by Annie Leibowitz http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375500200/entertainmentsit Each of the extraordinary portraits made by photographer Annie Leibovitz for "Women" stands on its own. Together, these "photographs of people with nothing more in common than that they are women (and living in America at the end of the twentieth century), all--well almost all--fully clothed," writes Susan Sontag in the book's preface, form "an anthology of destinies and disabilities and new possibilities." Leibovitz turns her lens on a wide range of ordinary and extraordinary female subjects: coal miners, socialites, first ladies, artists, domestic-violence victims, an astronaut, a surgeon, a maid. What she creates is a reflection of contemporary American womanhood that mirrors both women's accomplishments and the challenges they still face individually and as a group. "Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette" by Judith Thurman http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/039458872X/entertainmentsit Judith Thurman shrewdly disentangles fact from legend during the course of Colette's long and turbulent life, yet she doesn't question the author's right to mythologize herself. The fictions Colette created about herself were part of a lifelong attempt to make sense, not just of her own experience, but of the "secrets of the flesh" (Andre Gide's phrase in an admiring letter), the bonds that link women to men, parents to children, in an eternal search for love that is also a struggle for dominance. Chronicling Colette's scandalous life--male and female lovers, a stint in vaudeville, an affair with her stepson, a final happy marriage to a younger man--Thurman makes it clear that the writer's adored yet dominating mother and exploitative first husband made it difficult for her to conceive of amorous equality. Yet she nonetheless created a satisfying, creative existence, firmly rooted in the senses and filled with artistic achievement, from the bestselling Claudine novels to the mature insights of "The Vagabond" and "Cheri." Thurman assesses with equal acuity the bleakness of Colette's world-view and a zest for life that it never seemed to dampen. "Passionate Nomad: The Life of Freya Stark" by Jane Fletcher Geniesse http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0394583965/entertainmentsit The tales and travails of Freya Stark, who marched alone into the Middle East from Persia to Yemen, discovering lost cities and creating an anti-Nazi intelligence system along the way, are captured in a compelling biography by Jane Fletcher Geniesse. The author unveils not the fearless wanderer whose mappings and 30 books brought awards from the likes of the Royal Geographical Society and made Stark a darling of British society. Instead, Stark is seen as humble, insecure, and forever caught in the role of perpetual alien. Geniesse's intoxicating documentation of her life not only serves to stir up new interest in Stark's many books; it also ensures that the name Freya Stark will live on long after her obituary is but a scrap of yellowed, crackling newsprint. "Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising" by Jean Kilbourne http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684865998/entertainmentsit Jean Kilbourne first gained prominence in the 1970s as the maker of "Killing Us Softly," a documentary that detailed how the images of women in advertising were destructive for women in real life. In the years since, her thesis hasn't changed much, but the evidence supporting it has accumulated at an overwhelming rate. One of the first points that Kilbourne makes clear in "Deadly Persuasion" is that advertising *does* influence people, which is why newspapers and magazines engage in cutthroat competition to convince corporations to place ads in their publications, on the principle that their readership consists of the most valuable demographic. What appear in those ads, though, are images that equate emotional well-being with material acquisition; encourage women--beginning in their teenage years--to work at preserving the one "right" look; and associate rebellion and independence with the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Kilbourne is militant on these issues, and some readers may find her positions a bit too extreme, as when she lambastes ads that employ surrealism for imitating a drugged state of altered consciousness or when she declares that most sexual imagery in advertising is "pornographic," elaborating in such a way as to denigrate the very idea of casual sex. And, despite several attempts at grim sarcasm, "Deadly Persuasion" is rather humorless; interestingly enough, one of her most extended analyses--on the psychosexual imagery in a particular cigarette brand's ad campaign--duplicates (but is not attributed to) a parody of semiotic analysis that appeared in Spy magazine in the late 1980s. Kilbourne's heart, though, is definitely in the right place, and her demonstration of the extent to which we allow corporations to shape our desires is truly eye-opening. "Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad" by Waris Dirie and Cathleen Miller http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0688172377/entertainmentsit By age 6, Waris Dirie was herding her family's sheep and goats, fending off hyenas and wild dogs as the family carved a path through Africa. She was just twice that age when she ran off into the vast furnace of the Somali desert to escape an arranged marriage to a much older man. Traveling for days without food and water, she made her way to Mogadishu and later to London as a servant to her uncle, the Somalian ambassador. There she wrestled with culture shock and got her first taste of the modeling life that eventually brought her into the public eye. Dirie is resilient, having survived drought, hunger, and the ritual female genital mutilation that marks a step toward womanhood among some traditional Moslems but, argue critics, steals or ruins many girls' lives. "As we traveled throughout Somalia," says Dirie, "we met families and I played with their daughters. When we visited them again, the girls were missing. No one spoke the truth about their absence or even spoke of them at all." As a special ambassador to the United Nations, Dirie has spoken out loudly on this subject and championed environmental causes, too. How much of her sometimes breathless story is gospel truth and how much embellished is hard to say. Like Dirie herself, though, the combination is intriguing, powerful, and unique. ****** Looking for power tools? From screwdrivers to scroll saws, our brand-new Home Improvement Store offers the planet's best selection of tools and more. 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