Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/24680
book reviews the chapters, and the jargon of an ac- ademic niche occasionally appears. The takedown of “traitorous” for- merly fat celebrities like Ricki Lake and Carnie Wilson feels more self- indulgent than feminist. But usually, the analysis is undeniably feminist, with fatness placed into larger social contexts. The chapter that follows the money from pharmaceutical compa- nies to researchers to the National Institutes of Health is particularly cogent. These 40 essays provoke questions aplenty: Does poverty make people fat, or does fatness impoverish? Would public health benefit more by altering the high-fat and sugar-heavy foodscape that consumers confront, or by fighting the stigmatization of obesity? Does cultural attention to fat women’s struggles, and to their sexu- al attractiveness (see mentions of J.Lo’s butt and fat burlesque), do harm or good or both? Whether you’re interested in women’s physical representation in the media, the de- bate about fitting into airline seats, the intersections of inequalities, or simply the prospect of accepting your body as it is, The Fat Studies Reader has an abundance to offer. JESSICA HOLDEN SHERWOOD, PH.D., is executive officer of Sociologists for Women in Society. LOCKED UP Nikki Keddie My Prison, My Home: One Woman’s Story of Captivity in Iran By Haleh Esfandiari Ecco Books ESFANDIARI’S PROFOUNDLY MOV- ing memoir goes beyond the limited story suggested in its subtitle to interweave a vivid autobiography and a brief history of Iran before and after the 1978–79 revolution. Potential bookmarks I GREAT READS FOR FALL 2009 Sisters: An Anthology Edited by Jan Freeman, Emily Wojcik and Deborah Bull Paris Press Each of Sisters’ 42 contributors— including such literary icons as Dorothy Parker, Simone de Beauvoir and Barbara Kingsolver—explores her identity as a sister. This fusion of fiction, poetry and memoir bubbles with childhood laughter but also sounds notes of pain and loss. When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 to the Present By Gail Collins Little, Brown and Company Combining research and oral history, the New York Times columnist delivers a dy- namic and comprehensive account of five decades of change, showing just how dra- 58 | FALL 2009 matically women have redefined their roles in all aspects of U.S. life. This Is Not How I Thought It Would Be: Remodeling Motherhood to Get the Lives We Want Today By Kristin Maschka The Berkley Publishing Group Most expectant moms imagine life with a baby as an idyll of shared parenting. Maschka offers a realistic look at the assumptions that distort new motherhood and shows how to structure the role to suit yourself. An Angle of Vision: Women Writers on Their Poor and Working-Class Roots Edited by Lorraine M. López The University of Michigan Press One contributor recalls a house adorned with handmade “No Trespassing!” signs and year-round Christmas lights; another remembers her nearly all-white junior high school, where the restroom mirror was one of the few places she saw a black face. Eighteen authors describe the challenges and rewards of an underfunded upbringing. Anna In-Between By Elizabeth Nunez Akashic Books The award-winning author of Prospero’s Daughter has written a novel more intimate than her usual big-picture work; this moving exploration of immigrant identity has a pro- tagonist caught between race, class and a mother’s love. The World Has Curves: The Global Quest for the Perfect Body By Julia Savacool Rodale Veteran magazine editor Savacool addresses www.feminist.org readers should not be put off by fear of a depressing tale of horror; this is, above all, a story of faith—in the human capacity to withstand mis- treatment and in what people work- ing together against tyranny can accomplish. Born to a prominent Iranian agronomist and his Austrian wife, Esfandiari grew up in relative privi- lege. She attended college in Vienna and took a job at a liberal Tehran newspaper. But when the Shah im- posed a new editor, she left her posi- tion as a reporter to work for the Women’s Organization of Iran. Dur- ing the revolution that tore the coun- try apart, her family fled Iran, and she eventually became director of the Middle East program at Washington, D.C.’s Woodrow Wilson Interna- tional Center for Scholars, where she convened discussions on Iran and the Middle East. She also wrote the well- received 1997 book Reconstructed Lives: Women and Iran’s Islamic Revolution.