Black feminist organizations are an appropriate place to begin chronicling the history of African American women’s social clubs. Though clubs have been in existence since the nineteenth century, the author focuses her study on five... Read More

“Novels mediate between subject and object, the perceiver and the things perceived, the hard facts of the world and the contingencies of the language we use to describe them,” writes the author in his introduction to this trenchant... Read More

Childhood carries with it plenty of feelings of being different. When another reason comes along for peers to make fun of each other or try to find fault, it takes sensitive parents to help overcome the sadness of being singled out. In... Read More

American poetry is always the better for the likes of poets such as this one, late of “the wilds of eastern California,” as he called it. Born in San Bernardino, Barnes grew up in small towns among the San Bernardino Mountains and... Read More

In her preface, the author warns her readers not to expect what she calls a “typical cookbook.” In fact, she professes a loathing for the kitchen and a late start in the preparation of the Chinese cuisine that is the book’s... Read More

“I went from Bibles, Christian T-shirts, and youth group activities to pink hair, Doc Martens, and punk rock in a matter of a few months. My dad didn’t know what happened,” says the twenty-two-year-old co-author, reflecting back on... Read More

The extent of most Americans’ knowledge of Swedish food probably consists of Swedish meatballs and a vague conception of a smörgàsbord. Swedish meatballs with gravy are here, of course, along with an explanation of smörgàsbord,... Read More

The author, a novelist, wrote these sparkling, discursive essays during Japan’s brutal World War II occupation of Shanghai. Readers are likely to consider her a carefree commentator, writing about home, siblings, fathers (and their... Read More