My life in books

I enjoy reading essays about politics, life, culture, current events and other such things from a feminist or a socialist perspective (or if I'm lucky, both together). In fact, it's probably from such American essayists that I get most of my ideas about what life in the US is probably like for real people (as opposed to the people in American-made films and TV shows, which would be my other source of information on life in America).

Three collections of essays with somewhat different perspectives that I've read recently are:

Don’t Think, Smile! – Notes on a Decade of Denial, Ellen Willis
Virginity or Death, Katha Pollitt
On Sex, Motherhood, Porn and Apple Pie, Susie Bright

Willis' collection of essays touch on a number of social, political and cultural issues and events from the 90s in America, from free speech to racism, the ideology behind The Bell curve to the million Man March, from the authoriarianism of the right to the complicity of the left. The seven essays collected here form a very thoughtful review of crucial social and political themes in the last decade of the 20th century, it's well worth reading.

Pollitt has assembled five years' of columns for The Nation in this collection, which touches on just about everything that's happened in those years, from the furor over the death of Terry Schiavo to the erosion of abortion access to the American response to the 9/11 attacks to war in Iraq to the growth of the anti-science movement among the right, and on and on. Short and pithy, each essay gave me insight and the pleasure of reading a fearless, intelligent and witty analysis of events and issues as they unfolded.

Bright is a fearless analyst of contemporary sexual mores, and recounts with humour and intelligence her own journey toward an erotics of feminism. This collection of essays continues to challenge mainstream American (and North American) ideas about sex, women, pronographyrelationships, mothering, and other such topics, and includes a great recipe for apple pie.

All three essayists offer food for thought on the American condition , and I'm richer in knowledge and insight for having read these three books.