FABClub (Female Authors Book Club) discussion

We can use this thread to nominate books for May/June. All nominations will go into a poll and we can vote for our next read.

I think it would be great to revisit Margaret Atwood as she is one of my personal favorite female authors. Another wonderful woman we have yet to cover is bell hooks.

I am ashamed to say I never read bell hooks. Margaret Atwood has been on my list of authors I want to re-visit in a more disciplined (chronological) way. I have loved some of her stuff, while others have left me cold. Oryx and Crake has been on my to-read list forever. Also Connie Willis or Kage Baker or Ammonite or Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen

Sarah Waters! Fingersmith in particular, by Waters. She's been called the female Dickens, though that's not giving her enough credit. Haunting, dark, chilling, beautiful, romantic, mysterious, dangerous, frightening; Fingersmith has it all.

What do you think of Toni Morrison? the book combines the topics of gender, race and religion! I haven't read anything by her yet, so I don't know more to tell you but I think this particular book could be interesting!

Some more possibilities:
The Drowning Girl
Ancient, Ancient
Rituals
Up Against It
(Some of the most recent Tiptree winners.)

I would like to suggest my book, Surviving Heartbreak Valley by Linda Fay Walls.

I would really love to be challenged by a book that wasn't written by an American or British author! any suggestions?

What sort of books are you looking for? Fiction, memoir, fantasy, mystery?

Margaret Atwood is Canadian ;)
You could also check out Nalo Hopkinson, Carmen Aguirre, Helen Oyeyemi, Marjane Satrapi.
Maybe we should nominate some international women for our read following this one!

Doris Lessing (at least she started out as non-British)
Liza Marklund
Isabel Allende
There is a group called Global Book Selections that might help you pick some authors.

Are we also going to do another memoir? If so I would like to nominate Reading Lolita in Tehran. (Although I might have to force myself to actually read Lolita first!)

I am on board with Reading Lolita in Tehran, I started it ages ago and need to get back into it!

In an excerpt from her new memoir, Surviving Heartbreak Valley, Humanitarian Award winner and an Advocate for Domestic Violence, whose horrific loss grew national attention in the 1990's and was a catalysis, a turning point in the awareness of domestic violence Linda Walls holds nothing back giving a gripping account of her life and struggle to survive.

November 22, 1990, 11:52 a.m.

I had it all – the Love of my four children-

I know what LOVE Is!

I know what it feels like to love- to give and receive as pure as the air blows freely.

I know what it feels to cry with no tears. To feel the agony of hurt with no care given for my hurt.

I know how it feels to cry for the death of one in the fear of losing a sick child. To watch your child – so weak, in so much pain- and to hear this child say, “Mommy I don’t want to live with this pain anymore.” I know how it feels to think, “God please let my baby live, please let him get better, please don’t let him die.” I know how it feels to think of my three children at home hurting, because their brother is in so much pain, so sick. I know how it feels to watch three big brown eyed scared little girls tell their brother that they love him, that he will get better. I know how it feels to think, “I don’t want to live if he dies, to see yourself screaming out of control from the hurt and pain of the possibilities that my baby is lying here dying in so much pain.” I know how it feels to promise my child that he would live a happy life.



I know how it feels to leave my kids safely at home, and to return an hour later to the bright lights of fire, and siren lights surrounding my house. I know how it feels to look at my house seeing body bags coming from my children’s window, knowing it’s my children in those bags. I know how it feels to be held back away from my dying baby – not to be allowed to get close enough to her to call her name, Justina! I know how it feels to watch my baby be taken to a hospital and not be allowed to accompany her. I know how it feels to be taken to a hospital to be put in an emergency room with people ready to dope you up- so that you don’t feel nothing- I know how it feels to say, “No- there’s nothing wrong with me! It’s my kids that need Help!” I know how it feels to be told that you were brought to the hospital where your three dead children were, while your baby lay dying alone in an emergency room across the river. I know how it feels to be taken to the morgue to identify your three children, and want to be there with them to kiss, hug, and cry goodbye, but know that you haven’t the time. That time was of essence to make it to the bed side of my dying baby- to hope- maybe your presence will give her the will, and the strength to live. I know how it feels to know that my baby died before I could reach her, hold her, and kiss her goodbye. Why? Because others thought I should be sedated, others thought it was more important that I identify my children bodies, than my wants, my needs to have reached my baby before she died.



Yes, I know how it feels to cry from the possibilities of one child dying, but to arrive and be face with the reality of losing all four of my children to death at one time. I know how it feels to know that I must cry, and grieve the loss of my children in a control way, because the doctors were on hand to dope the feelings of my loss away.



I know how it feels to know that I had no control. My children were all dead. There’s nothing I could do about it. Yes, I know how it feels to be surrounded with the deaths of all of my children at one time, and to watch everyone cry in pain for the loss of my children.

Yes I know what love is!

November 22, 1990

Lost without you!

Life is what you make of it! You might not always have control of everything that happens in your life. But you have to make the best of it. Smile and live for the love of living. Make the best out of everything. Make good out of everything – give LOVE!

Who Fears Death looks really interesting!