From the Algonquin Hotel to the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, author Brenda Knight takes her readers for a spin through the history of women and books. As Vicki Leon writes in the foreword: “With her new book, Brenda Knight has made it not only legitimate but cool to be book-mad. As a woman with a chronic case of bibliomania, I’m delighted to see we’re out of the closet. Of course, it makes me anxious, too: will there be enough books for everybody, if you know, all those other people become bibliophiles?”
As another confirmed bibliophile as well as a student of women’s accomplishments in the world of writing I thought I knew a great deal about women’s written contributions. However, I learned much more while reading this book and it is particularly satisfying to enjoy all these historical and literary gold nuggets in one place. This book sparkles throughout with literary bon mots and should be in the library of anyone dedicated to books and words.
Knight covers women’s love affair with words from Enheduanna, the sacred poet of Sumeria, to Aphra Behn, England’s first professional woman writer, from Dorothy Wordsworth to Lenore Kandel, word alchemist, and more and more. This book needs to be read several times for the reader to truly appreciate all the contributions of the women reviewed in this book.
The following chapter headings can give you a hint of some of the other areas covered in the book: “First Ladies of Literature: Mothers of Invention”; “Ink in Their Veins: Theories of Relativity”; “Mystics and Madwomen: Subversive Piety”; “Banned, Blacklisted, and Arrested: Daring Dissidents”; “Salonists and Culture Makers: Hermeneutic Circles and Human History”; and “Women Whose Books Are Loved Too Much: Adored Authors.”
Although full of history and other writers’ unique stories, the author’s original voice and wit are ever present; I felt as if I was enjoying a discussion with another word-lover while reading the book. She profiles first novelists, pioneer poets, religious mystics, and dissidents and covers a wide expanse of the world including the Left Bank of Paris and the Ozarks.
Knight includes an excerpt from writer Ellen Glasgow’s autobiography, The Woman Within, where Glasgow describes the lack of support for her writing: “In the end, as in the beginning, Mr. Collier (A noted figure on the American literary scene) gave me no encouragement. ‘The best advice I can give you,’ he said, with charming candor, ‘is to stop writing, and go back to the South and have some babies…The greatest woman is not the woman who has written the finest book, but the woman who has had the finest babies.’”
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