Bad Feminist: Book Discussion Series

Slim collection of early personal essays by Gay about Haiti (the indigenous name for which is Ayiti) and Haitian American realities.

"This bestselling collection of essays manages to be both a cultural biography and a deeply personal story of identity. Gay is an unforgettable voice, coming at just the right time." -NPR
"Roxane Gay is the brilliant girl-next-door: your best friend and your sharpest critic. She is by turns provocative, chilling, hilarious; she is also required reading." -People
"Gay is hilarious. But she also confronts more difficult issues of race, sexual assault, body image, and the immigrant experience. She makes herself vulnerable and it's refreshing." -Tanvi Misra, "The Best Book I Read This Year," Atlantic.

"La lucha por los derechos de las mujeres ha tomado el mundo por asalto, pero ¿por qué muchas de sus simpatizantes caen en tantas contradicciones? ¿Por qué parece haber tantas malas feministas? Roxane Gay, profesora universitaria, colaboradora de The New York Times, ensayista y novelista con más de un millón de visitas en su charla TED sobre feminismo, tiene algunas respuestas a esas preguntas. La pluma de Gay, filosa como una catana, explora la cultura pop para extraer verdades incómodas acerca de cómo somos representados en el cine, la televisión y la literatura. Con un estilo a veces ácido y corrosivo, otras íntimo y personal, pero siempre potente y crítico, Roxane atraviesa el entretenimiento masivo: desde Cincuenta sombras de Grey hasta Los juegos del hambre; sin olvidar a Quentin Tarantino y Orange is The New Black, para rescatar valiosas lecciones e incómodas verdades sobre la discriminación, el privilegio y la frustración de querer un mundo más justo. Sus ensayos no exigen la credencial de "feminista" para ser leídos. Son una invitación abierta a analizar el entorno en el que estamos inmersos bajo la promesa de que, después de leerlos, creer firmemente que, como dice la propia Roxane, "tenemos el derecho al mismo respeto". "Es incompatible querer ser independiente y a la vez ansiar que cuiden de ti, ¿que te gusta la música reggaetón pero te revuelva por dentro lo machista de algunas de sus letras?"

"Award-winning author and powerhouse talent Roxane Gay burst onto the scene with An Untamed State and the New York Times best-selling essay collection Bad Feminist (Harper Perennial). Gay returns with Difficult Women, a collection of stories of rare force and beauty, of hardscrabble lives, passionate loves, and quirky and vexed human connection. The women in these stories live lives of privilege and of poverty, are in marriages both loving and haunted by past crimes or emotional blackmail. A pair of sisters, grown now, have been inseparable ever since they were abducted together as children, and must negotiate the elder sister's marriage. A woman married to a twin pretends not to realize when her husband and his brother impersonate each other. A stripper putting herself through college fends off the advances of an overzealous customer. A black engineer moves to Upper Michigan for a job and faces the malign curiosity of her colleagues and the difficulty of leaving her past behind. From a girls' fight club to a wealthy subdivision in Florida where neighbors conform, compete, and spy on each other, Gay delivers a wry, beautiful, haunting vision of modern America reminiscent of Merritt Tierce, Jamie Quatro, and Miranda July."

"A best book of 2017: Time  NPR  People  Elle  The Washington Post  The Los Angeles Times  The Chicago Tribune  Newsday  St. Louis Post-Dispatch  PopSugar  BookRiot  Library Journal  Booklist  Kirkus Reviews  Shelf Awareness   New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as "wildly undisciplined," Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens, and twenties--including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life--and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life. With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and authority that have made her one of the most admired voices of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to be overweight in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen. Hunger is a deeply personal memoir from one of our finest writers, and tells a story that hasn't yet been told but needs to be."

"Once you start this book, you will not be able to put it down. An Untamed State is a novel of hope intermingled with fear, a book about possibilities mixed with horror and despair. It is written at a pace that will match your racing heart, and while you find yourself shocked, amazed, devastated, you also dare to hope for the best, for all involved."--Edwidge Danticat, author of Breath, Eyes, Memory and The Dew Breaker. Roxane Gay is a powerful new literary voice whose short stories and essays have already earned her an enthusiastic audience. In An Untamed State, she delivers an assured debut about a woman kidnapped for ransom, her captivity as her father refuses to pay and her husband fights for her release over thirteen days, and her struggle to come to terms with the ordeal in its aftermath. Mireille Duval Jameson is living a fairy tale. The strong-willed youngest daughter of one of Haiti's richest sons, she has an adoring husband, a precocious infant son, by all appearances a perfect life. The fairy tale ends one day when Mireille is kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of heavily armed men, in front of her father's Port au Prince estate. Held captive by a man who calls himself The Commander, Mireille waits for her father to pay her ransom. As it becomes clear herfather intends to resist the kidnappers, Mireille must endure the torments of a man who resents everything she represents. An Untamed State is a novel of privilege in the face of crushing poverty, and of the lawless anger that corrupt governments produce. It is the story of a willful woman attempting to find her way back to the person she once was, and of how redemption is found in the most unexpected of places. An Untamed State establishes Roxane Gay as a writer of prodigious, arresting talent. "From the astonishing first line to the final scene,An Untamed State is magical and dangerous. I could not put it down. Pay attention to Roxane Gay; she's here to stay."--Tayari Jones, author of Silver Sparrow and Leaving Atlanta "[Haiti's] better scribes, among them Edwidge Danticat, Franketienne, Madison Smartt Bell, Lyonel Trouillot, and Marie Vieux Chavet, have produced some of the best literature in the world. . . . Add to their ranks Roxane Gay, a bright and shining star."--Kyle Minor

"The world building of Wakanda continues in a love story where tenderness is matched only by brutality! You know them now as the Midnight Angels, but in this story they are just Ayo and Aneka, young women recruited to become Dora Milaje, an elite task force trained to protect the crown of Wakanda at all costs. Their first assignment will be to protect Queen Shuri... but what happens when your nation needs your hearts and minds, but you already gave them to each other? Meanwhile, former king T'Challa lies with bedfellows so dark, disgrace is inevitable. Plus, explore the true origins of the People's mysterious leader, Zenzi. Black Panther thinks he knows who Zenzi is and how she got her powers - but he only knows part of the story!"

"What inspires you? That's the simple, but profound question posed to 46 renowned authors in LIGHT THE DARK, each one revealing what gets them started and what keeps them going with the creative work they love. Collects the best of The Atlantic's much-acclaimed 'By Heart' series and adds brand new pieces from writers like Marilynne Robinson and Junot Diaz. Contributors include Neil Gaiman, Roxane Gay, Elizabeth Gilbert, Mary Gaitskill, Nell Zink, Michael Chabon and many more."

"Thirty-six major contemporary writers examine life in a deeply divided America--including Anthony Doerr, Ann Patchett, Roxane Gay, Rebecca Solnit, Hector Tobar, Joyce Carol Oates, Edwidge Danticat, Richard Russo, Eula Bliss, Karen Russell, and many more.
America is broken. You don't need a fistful of statistics to know this. Visit any city, and evidence of our shattered social compact will present itself. From Appalachia to the Rust Belt and down to rural Texas, the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest stretches to unimaginable chasms. Whether the cause of this inequality is systemic injustice, the entrenchment of racism in our culture, the long war on drugs, or immigration policies, it endangers not only the American Dream but our very lives. In Tales of Two Americas, some of the literary world's most exciting writers look beyond numbers and wages to convey what it feels like to live in this divided nation. Their extraordinarily powerful stories, essays, and poems demonstrate how boundaries break down when experiences are shared, and that in sharing our stories we can help to alleviate a suffering that touches so many people."

"Michelle Obama is unlike any other First Lady in American History. From her first moments on the public stage, she has challenged traditional American notions about what it means to be beautiful, to be strong, to be fashion-conscious, to be healthy, to be First Mom, to be a caretaker and hostess, and to be partner to the most powerful man in the world. As Hillary Clinton has said, admiringly about Michelle Obama, our soon to be ex-First Lady exemplifies "the ideal concept of American womanhood." What is remarkable is that, at 52, she is just getting started. While many books have looked at Michelle Obama from a fashion perspective, no book has fully explored what Michelle Obama means to our culture. The Meaning of Michelle does just that, while offering a parting gift to a landmark moment in American history. This collection presents a chorus of diverse voices with smart, engaging perspectives on Michelle Obama. Contributors include Ava DuVernay, Benilde Little, Damon Young, Alicia Hall Moran and Jason Moran, Brittney Cooper, Ylonda Gault Caviness, Chirlane McCray, Cathi Hanauer, Tiffany Dufu, Tanisha Forde, Marcus Samuelsson, Sarah Lewis, Phillipa Soo, Rebecca Carroll, and Roxane Gay."

"Combining classic stories with never-before-published work, The Mammoth Book of Tales from the Road travels along exotic as well as familiar pathways, covering territory from the erotic and romantic, to the chilling, adventurous, and humorous. From trails carved through dense jungle to six-lane superhighways, these travelers' tales comprise cops and robbers barrelling down mean streets, summer roadtrip vacations gone wildly wrong, sentimental journeys made in hope and despair, wandering wise men, and post-apocalyptic road warriors. Created by master anthologist Maxim Jakubowski, this Mammoth collection features a mixture of legendary road stories plus a selection of brand-new, especially commissioned pieces. Includes excerpts from classics such as Kerouac's On the Road, Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, and James Ellroy's Killer on the Road. There are also complete reprints of favorite stories such as John Hughes's "Vacation '58" and hidden gems by the likes of Ed McBain, Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Brian W. Aldiss, J. G. Ballard, Lee Child, and Michael Dibden. The Mammoth Book of Tales from the Road also picks up new works from contemporary authors such as Alex Garland, Thomas S. Roche, Matt Thorne, Stella Duffy, and many others."

"The late Judith Kitchen, editor of the perennially popular anthologies Short Takes, In Short, and In Brief, was greatly influential in recognizing and establishing flash creative nonfiction as a form in its own right. In Brief Encounters, she and writer/editor/actor Dinah Lenney expand this vibrant field with nearly eighty new selections: shorts--as these sharply focused pieces have come to be known-- representing an impressive range of voices, perspectives, sensibilities, and forms. Brief Encounters features the work of the emerging and the established--including Stuart Dybek, Roxanne Gay, Eduardo Galeano, Leslie Jamison, and Julian Barnes--arranged by theme to explore the human condition in ways intimate, idiosyncratic, funny, sad, provocative, lyrical, unflinching. From the rant to the rave, the meditation to the polemic, the confession to the valediction, this collection of shorts--this celebration of true and vivid prose--will enlarge your world."

"Waveform: Twenty-First-Century Essays by Women celebrates the role of women essayists in contemporary literature. Historically, women have been instrumental in moving the essay to center stage, and Waveform continues this rich tradition, further expanding the dynamic genre's boundaries and testing its edges. With thirty essays by thirty distinguished and diverse women writers, this carefully constructed anthology incorporates works ranging from the traditional to the experimental. Waveform champions the diversity of women's approaches to the structure of the essay--today a site of invention and innovation, with experiments in collage, fragments, segmentation, braids, triptychs, and diptychs. Focused on these explorations of form, Waveform is not wed to a fixed theme or even to women's experiences per se. It is not driven by subject matter but highlights the writers' interaction with all manner of subject and circumstance through style, voice, tone, and structure. This anthology presents some of the women who are shaping the essay today, mapping an ever-changing landscape. It is designed to place essays recently written by women such as Roxane Gay, Cheryl Strayed, Margo Jefferson, Jaquira Diaz, and Eula Biss into the hands of those who have been waiting patiently for something they could equally claim as their own."

"Who reads poetry? We know that poets do, but what about the rest of us?  When and why do we turn to verse?  Seeking the answer, Poetry magazine since 2005 has published a column called "The View From Here," which has invited readers "from outside the world of poetry" to describe what has drawn them to poetry. Over the years, the incredibly diverse set of contributors have included philosophers, journalists, musicians, and artists, as well as doctors and soldiers, an iron-worker, an anthropologist, and an economist. This collection brings together fifty compelling pieces, which are in turns surprising, provocative, touching, and funny.   In one essay, musician Neko Case calls poetry "a delicate, pretty lady with a candy exoskeleton on the outside of her crepe-paper dress." In another, anthropologist Helen Fisher turns to poetry while researching the effects of love on the brain, "As other anthropologists have studied fossils, arrowheads, or pot shards to understand human thought, I studied poetry. . . . I wasn't disappointed: everywhere poets have described the emotional fallout produced by the brain's eruptions." Even film critic Roger Ebert memorized the poetry of e. e. cummings, and the rapper Rhymefest attests here to the self-actualizing power of poems: "Words can create worlds, and I've discovered that poetry can not only be read but also lived out. My life is a poem." Music critic Alex Ross tells us that he keeps a paperback of The Palm at the End of the Mind by Wallace Stevens on his desk next to other, more utilitarian books like a German dictionary, a King James Bible, and a Macintosh troubleshooting manual.   Who Reads Poetry offers a truly unique and broad selection of perspectives and reflections, proving that poetry can be read by everyone. No matter what you're seeking, you can find it within the lines of a poem."

"Even as toweringly successful women from Gloria Steinem to Beyoncé; embrace the word "feminism," the word "ambition," for many, remains loaded with ambivalence. Women who are naturally driven and goal-oriented shy away from it. They're loath to see themselves--or be seen by others--as aggressive or, worst of all, as a bitch. Double Bind could not come at a more urgent time, a necessary collection that explodes this conflict, examining the concept of female ambition from every angle in essays full of insight, wisdom, humor, and rage.Perceptively identifying a paradox at the very heart of feminism, editor Robin Romm has marshaled a stunning constellation of thinkers to examine their relationships with ambition with candor, intimacy, and wit. Roxane Gay discusses how race informs and feeds her ambition. Theresa Rebeck takes on Hollywood and confronts her own unquenchable thirst to overcome its sexism. Francine Prose considers the origins of the stigma; Nadia Manzoor discusses its cultural weight. Women who work in fields long-dominated by men--from butchery to tech to dogsledding--weigh in on what it takes to crack that ever-present glass ceiling, and the sometimes unexpected costs of shattering it. The eternally complex questions of aspiration and identity can be made even more treacherous at the dawn of motherhood; Allison Barrett Carter attempts leaning in at home, while Sarah Ruhl tries to uphold her feminist vision within motherhood's infinite daily compromises.Taken together, these essays show women from a range of backgrounds and at all stages of their lives and careers grappling with aspiration, failure, achievement, guilt, and, yes, success. Forthright and empowering, Double Bind breaks a long silence, reclaiming "ambition" from the roster of dirty words at last."