Reading Women

J. Courtney Sullivan “If you could enroll in your favorite Women’s Studies class again ten years after graduation, armed with everything you know about the complexities and compromises of adult life, what would you make of the feminist ideals you once held dear? That’s exactly what Staal endeavors to find out in this brave and compelling book, which is one part memoir, one part astute literary analysis. As she struggles to make sense of love, life, marriage, and motherhood on her own terms, the author traces the history of women’s words over centuries-from Mary Wollstonecraft and Virginia Woolf to Erica Jong and Katie Roiphe. I cherished every page.” Debora Spar, president of Barnard College “A swift, enchanting, and informative sweep through the feminist canon.” Katie Crouch”Reading Women is terrific. Stephanie Staal’s exploration of the great texts of the women who have walked before us is fresh, funny, and a wise reminder that now, more than ever, we need to feed the feminist within.” Booklist, February 15, 2011 “Intimate in its reflections and keenly perceptive on a larger scale, Staal’s erudite literary memoir refreshingly embraces women’s eternal quest for self-knowledge.”

Stephanie Staal is a former features reporter for the Newark Star-Ledger, and has written for Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Self, and the Washington Post. She is the author of The Love They Lost, a journalistic memoir about the long-term effects of parental divorce. A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, she now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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