Our Spoons Came from Woolworths

I had read Barbara Comyn's Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead many years ago based on a suggestion at Green Apple Books, and the whimsical title Our Spoons Came from Woolworths caught my attention on a recent bookstore jaunt.  Comyns infuses both works with a sense of outlandishness and eccentricity, and a potent blend of the tragic and the comic.  Our Spoons Came from Woolworths tells the story of a young artist, Sophia Fairclough. who marries an artist named Charles, and becomes pregnant shortly thereafter.  Living a bohemian but spartan life in 1930s London, the young couple must navigate balancing artistic interests with familial responsibility, while living in poverty.  This is a novel that doesn't shy away from a woman's frank perspective on marriage and motherhood.  Fascinating, indeed.

Native American female voices

I recently read Gloria Steinem's memoir My Life on the Road, and in this book, she discusses her friendship with Wilma Mankiller, who was the first female chief of the Cherokee nation, and herself a highly inspirational and courageous person.  Mankiller edited and compiled various contemporary indigenous women's voices in her book entitled Every Day is a Good Day.  She asked women from different Native American backgrounds to comment on a variety of core themes, such as spirituality, sovereignty, love, traditions, and governance.  From ranchers and doctors, lawyers and activists, professors and artists, Mankiller captures a breadth of voices and in doing so, certain themes become illuminated, such as the importance of cultural survival, the emphasis on maintaining knowledge to pass on to future generations, the oppression and silencing of Native American culture, and the importance of sovereignty within indigenous nations.  A fascinating and important book.  I have added more books on Mankiller, in addition to several of the books she lists in her bibliography at the end of Every Day is a Good Day, to my reading list!