Make Mine a Double: Why Women Like Us Like to Drink

by Gina Barreca (Editor), Kristen Dombek (Contributor), Maggie Mitchell (Contributor)

Make Mine a Double pours together a collection of witty, intelligent, and provocative pieces about women and their beverages of choice. Edited by humorist and academic mahatma Gina Barreca, the twenty-eight original essays here come from a diverse community of voices from ages twenty-one to seventy-nine, including such luminaries as Fay Weldon, Wendy Liebman, Amy Bloom, Liza Donnelly, Nicole Hollander, Beth Jones, Dawn Lundy Martin, and many others.

Equal parts paean to spirits, an open discussion of drinking (or not drinking), and a call to feminists everywhere to say "salut," Make Mine a Double shimmers with thoughtfulness, humor, and self-examination. These tales of women's complex relationships with alcohol are the story of every woman's effort to find her independence and sense of belonging, be it at a college party, a high-powered cocktail party, or on a stool at the neighborhood watering hole.

Barreca and the writers have agreed that all their profits from the book will be donated to Windham Hospital's "Gina's Friends" fund, which aids women in need.

Genres: Nonfiction

186 pages, Hardcover

First published August 30, 2011

About the author

Dr. Gina Barreca, author of the new book If You Lean In, Will Men Just Look Down Your Blouse? Questions and Thoughts for Loud, Smart Women in Turbulent Times is also the author of It's Not That I'm Bitter: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World. Gina has appeared on 20/20, The Today Show, CNN, the BBC, Dr. Phil, NPR and Oprah to discuss gender, power, politics, and humor. Her earlier books include the bestselling They Used to Call Me Snow White But I Drifted: Women's Strategic Use of Humor and Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Coeducation in the Ivy League in addition to the six other books she's written and the sixteen she's edited. Gina has been called “smart and funny” by People magazine and “Very, very funny. For a woman,” by Dave Barry. She was deemed a “feminist humor maven” by Ms. Magazine and Wally Lamb said “Barreca’s prose, in equal measures, is hilarious and humane.” Gina, whose weekly columns from The Hartford Courant are now distributed internationally by The Tribune Media Company, is a Professor of English at the University of Connecticut, where she’s won the university’s highest award for teaching.

Her B.A. is from Dartmouth College, where she was the first woman to be named Alumni Scholar, her M.A. is from Cambridge University, where she was a Reynold’s Fellow, and her Ph.D. is from the City University of New York, where she lived close to a good delicatessen. A member of the Friars’ Club and the first female graduate of Dartmouth College invited to have her personal papers requested by the Rauner Special Collections Library, Gina can be found in the Library of Congress or in the make-up aisle of Walgreens. She grew up in Brooklyn and Long Island but now lives with her husband in Storrs, CT. Go figure.

Reviews

[Janet Gardner · Rating 4 out of 5]

The editor of this anthology was a friend of mine years ago, but we had lost touch. Then I ran into her at the Cape Cod Writers Conference (she was on faculty, I a student), and we had a lovely reunion. Of course, I had to buy her latest book. The essays, all written by women, explore the complicated relationship that so many women have to alcohol. “Why”--Barreca asks in the introduction--“does a man with a drink always think he looks like Sean Connery from Dr. No, whereas a woman with a drink fears she looks like Elizabeth Taylor from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

Like any anthology, some of the selections are better than others, but overall I quite enjoyed this one. Some of the contributors are luminaries (Fay Weldon, Amy Bloom), though many are simply darn fine writers of lesser reputation. Subjects include leaving behind a teetotalling fundamentalist family, getting roaring drunk in a karaoke bar in rural Japan, negotiating drinking and motherhood, learning how to handle a martini glass (and the martini in it), and choosing not to drink.

[Susie Spizzirro · Rating 4 out of 5]

A woderful book.I really enjoyed. I would recommend to any woman needing a smile or a drink. I rnjoyed the reference to Carry Nation since my sister has a cabin on Lake Herrington off Carry Nation Ln. Her house still sits in the middle of a big farm. Maybe we should all go to the Book of Job.:) I liked.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting combination of authors and great essays. I have bragging rights that my niece wrote one of them.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of essays / short stories / poems / memoir by writers about the role that drinking takes in our lives.

[dsneaks · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received Make mine a double: Why Women Like Us Like to Drink By Gina Barreca from Goodreads first reads giveaway. This book is a collection of essays written by different people on the subject matter of drinking alcohol. There were some essays in here that I thought were really good other just couldn't catch my interest. Each essay offers its own thing tho, some have different types of alcohol and talks about them another has a recipe for a meal and a drink. These essays all talk about how alcohol has affected their lives, from growing up with alcohol in their lives, to their hard teen years to bonding over drinking while being a new mother and it being an only way to calm down and relax from the new crying baby. In general it was an okay book. It had it moments and essays which I liked a lot and found to be very humorous.

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received this book from an Early Reviwers batch. I have to say that I didn't like this book at all, and that makes me a little sad, because upon requesting it, it looked like it would be a fun and fast read. I found myself having a very difficult time trying to get through it. I think that my age has a lot to do with the fact that I didn't enjoy this book very much. I think this book was meant for an older generation and I'm sure that adults much older than me would love it. On the upside, since I don't drink alcohol, I did learn a lot about different types of drinks and what they "mean."

[Jenni V. · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading the description of this book, I had very high hopes because I really liked the premise of exploring the double standard between the appearance of a man with a drink in his hand and the appearance of a woman, especially a mom, doing the same thing. The essays were uneven, with unfortunately more misses than hits. It was the kind of book that seemed to take much longer to read than it actually did.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

I thought the title and premise was interesting, thus, entering the giveaway. The book is a collection of essays centered around women and alcohol. Like with many collections, there were good essays and some not so good. Overall, an interesting read.

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book through goodreads first reads contest.
It was a rather interesting book. I'm not much of a drinker myself but I could understand why the author loves bars. I especially liked the section where she discussed different kinds of drinks and how they relate to life and it made me giggle to myself.

[Brenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't read all the essays in this book, just the ones whose titles caught my eye. Most seemed sad or bitter to me. But I really liked the one called "The Good, The Bad, and the Bubbly" by Pamela Katz. It worth finding the book at the library just for that one, I think.

[Joanne]

Heard you on the radio and would love to read this.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun read! I read a couple essays each night before bed. Lighthearted.