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Reading Lolita in Tehran

We all have dreams - things we fantasize about doing and generally never get around to. Reading Lolita in Tehran is the story of Azar Nafisi's dream and of the nightmare that made it come true.
For two years before Azar Nafisi left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; several had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments.
Their stories intertwined with those they were reading - Pride and Prejudice, Washington Square, Daisy Miller and Lolita - their Lolita, as they imagined her in Tehran.
Azar Nafisi's account flashes back to the early days of the revolution, when she first started teaching at the University of Tehran amid the swirl of protests and demonstrations. In those frenetic days, the students took control of the university, expelled faculty members and purged the curriculum. When a radical Islamist in Azar Nafisi's class questioned her decision to teach The Great Gatsby, which he saw as an immoral work that preached falsehoods of the Great Satan, Azar Nafisi decided to let him put Gatsby on trial and stood as the sole witness for the defense.
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
ISBN: 081297106X

Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation

While the fathers were off founding the country, what were the women doing? Running their husband's businesses, raising their children plus providing political information and advice. At least that's what Abigail Adams did for John, starting when he went off to the Continental Congress, which eventually declared the independence of the American colonies from the British. While the men were writing the rebellious words, the women were living the revolution, with the Redcoats on their doorsteps. John's advice to Abigail as the soldiers approached Braintree: if necessary fly to the woods with our children. That was it, she was on her own, as she was for most of the next ten years while Adams represented the newly independent nation abroad.
Abigail Adams is the best known of the women who influenced the founders, but there are many more, starting with Martha Washington, who once referred to herself as a prisoner of state for the constraints placed on her as the first First Lady. Martha Washington was the one charged with balancing the demands of a Republic of the common man on the one hand, while insisting on some modicum of courtliness and protocol so that the former colonies would be taken seriously by Europe. Martha Washington also took political heat in the press from the president's political opponents when he was too popular to criticize.
And there are women like Esther Reed, married to the president of Pennsylvania, who, with Benjamin Franklin's daughter Sarah Bache, organized a drive to raise money for Washington's troops at Valley Forge. In 1780 the women raised more than three hundred thousand dollars. Esther Reed wrote a famous patriotic broadside titled The Sentiments of an American Woman, calling on women to wear simpler clothing and hairstyles in order to save money to contribute to the cause. It worked! The women who ran the boarding houses of Philadelphia where the men stayed while writing the now sacred documents of America had their quite considerable say about the affairs of state as well.
This will be the story of some of those women, as learned through their seldom seen letters and diaries, and the letters from the men to them. It will be a story of the beginnings of the nation as viewed from the distaff side.
Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts
ISBN: 0060090251

Feminine Mystique

Here, reissued, is the book that jump-started the modern women's movement, filled with ideas and inspiration as vital to women today as when it first appeared. More than three decades later, the issues raised by Betty Friedan still strike at the core of the challenges women face at home and in the workplace.
As women continue to struggle for equality, to keep their hard-won gains, and to find fulfillment in careers, marriage, and family, The Feminine Mystique remains a profound consciousness-raising work. This edition features a new introduction, Metamorphosis: Two Generations Later, which addresses the complex issues women face today, such as family leave, health insurance, welfare reform, and sexual discrimination and harassment in the military. Betty Friedan also relates some of feminism's hard-won victories: the shrinking wage gap between men and women, increased visibility of women in sports, and new flexibility for working parents.
Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan by Anna Quindlen
ISBN: 0393322572

Hot Bodies, Cool Styles

Style guru Ted Polhemus shows how the global wave of enthusiasm for new body decoration is rooted in our past and examines its future direction. Color photography by young photography duo UZi Part B illustrates what's happening today - people creating their own style from a mixture of techniques.
The book is structured as follows: general introduction; then Ted analyses specific forms, the painted body, the tattooed, scarred, ornamented and hairy body. The final three chapters explore and define the main trends, the exotic body (Far East and tribal); artificial/natural (cosmetic looks, plastic surgery) and, finally, the DIY body (creating one's own style).
Betti Marenko provides a practical advice section for anyone considering having a tattoo or piercing.
Hot Bodies, Cool Styles: New Techniques in Self-adornment by Ted Polhemus
ISBN: 0500285004

Child of Our Time

In 2005 the children from the BBC's groundbreaking Child of Our Time television series reach an important milestone as they turn five years old. Now familiar to millions of viewers who have watched their progress from birth, they have become an invaluable source of inspiration to thousands of parents who are themselves bringing up young children.
"Child of Our Time" is about those critical first five years of a child's life. It covers all the principal issues raised in the series and a great deal more besides. Society is changing so fast that childhood is not the same now as it was a generation ago, and parents face choices and problems very different from those of their parents or grandparents. Tessa Livingstone, who has worked on the series since its inception and is a mother of two, has brought together a wealth of expert knowledge. The result is an indispensable source of solid information and reassuring guidance to help everyone achieve what is every parent's wish: the best for their child.
Why are children happy? How can we encourage good relationships? How confident is your child? Such fundamental questions are discussed at every stage of development, together with issues such as personality, siblings, love, learning, anger, friendship, gender, self-awareness, success, ambition and empathy. Interspersed with the text are games, fun tests and questionnaires to help parents see themselves and their children as individuals with unique needs and gifts. It will help them cope with the many issues over which they have little control, and guide them through those where they can influence and affect their young child's life for the better.
Dr Tessa Livingstone is an executive producer for the BBC. She trained as a psychologist, neuroscientist and journalist. Livingstone is also the mother of two teenagers. Tessa Livingstone has worked on the Child of Our Time series since its inception.
Child of Our Time by Tessa Livingstone
ISBN: 0593054008