The Big Lie: Motherhood, Feminism, and the Reality of the Biological Clock
Tanya Selvaratnam, 2014
Prometheus Books
370 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781616148454


Summary
A candid assessment of the pros and cons of delayed motherhood.
 
Biology does not bend to feminist ideals and science does not work miracles. That is the message of this eye-opening discussion of the consequences of delayed motherhood. Part personal account, part manifesto, Selvaratnam recounts her emotional journey through multiple miscarriages after the age of 37. Her doctor told her she still "had time," but Selvaratnam found little reliable and often conflicting information about a mature woman's biological ability (or inability) to conceive.

Beyond her personal story, the author speaks to women in similar situations around the country, as well as fertility doctors, adoption counselors, reproductive health professionals, celebrities, feminists, journalists, and sociologists. Through in-depth reporting and her own experience, Selvaratnam urges more widespread education and open discussion about delayed motherhood in the hope that long-lasting solutions can take effect.

The result is a book full of valuable information that will enable women to make smarter choices about their reproductive futures and to strike a more realistic balance between science, society and personal goals. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Sri Lanka
• Raised—Long Beach, California, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., Harvard University
• Currently—Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York, New York


Born in Sri Lanka and raised in Long Beach, CA, Tanya Selvaratnam is a writer, producer, theater artist, and activist. As a producer, recent projects include Mickalene Thomas’s Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman (on HBO); the Rockefeller Foundation-funded MADE HERE; Catherine Gund’s What’s On Your Plate? (Discovery’s Planet Green), and Chiara Clemente’s Beginnings (Sundance Channel, Webby Award).

Since 2008, she has been the Communications and Special Projects Officer for the Rubell Family Collection. As an activist, she has worked with the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Third Wave Foundation, the NGO Forum on Women, and the World Health Organization. She received her graduate and undergraduate degrees in Chinese language and history from Harvard University. (From the author.)

Visit the author's website.
Visit Tanya on Facebook.

Book Reviews
Producer and activist Selvaratnam, a self-defined casualty of the second-wave feminist idea that biology should not define destiny, responds with a provocative mix of solid information and palpable anger.… This wakeup call…is controversial, but few would argue with Selvaratnam’s suggestion that women get the facts before making family-planning decisions.
Publishers Weekly


Set aside the "mommy wars." This work is for the women who have been left out of the discussion until now.… Many will cheer on Selvaratnam’s ultimate points. Sure to invite discussion among feminists.
Library Journal


She’s intelligent (she’s a Harvard grad), passionate (she’s a feminist and activist), and artistic (she’s a documentary and theater producer). And she wants to share her hard-won wisdom so that young women in the future don’t make the same mistakes she did.
Booklist


In The Big Lie: Motherhood, Feminism and the Reality of the Biological Clock Tanya Selvaratnam presents her own story of “heartbreak and self-discovery” relative to her attempts to become a mother at the relatively advanced age of 40 after having experienced three miscarriages. She notes that women tend not to talk among themselves about failed pregnancies, and overall women are not “conditioned to feel the urgency of fertility.… The message repeated throughout this and later chapters is that women need to have much more information about their fertility and its limitations.… [Tanya] is to be applauded by her attempt to see the many dimensions of feminism and motherhood
New York Journal of Books

Discussion Questions
1. Given that infertility treatments are much cheaper outside of the United States, what do you think about the decision of many to pursue IVF and surrogacy in other countries?

2. What role should a doctor or gynecologist play with regard to informing patients about fertility over time? What questions should women ask their doctor?

3. What do you think about the conflict between parenthood and career becoming such a hot topic, as seen with the controversy around Anne-Marie Slaughter’s essay “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” and Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In?

4. Do you feel that feminism contributed to the current bind for women between succeeding at both developing careers and building families? Do you think that feminism can also provide a way forward, and if so, what does that way forward look like? How can we get there?

5. How can we normalize conversations among women about miscarriages, infertility, and reproductive challenges? Does the conversation begin on a macro level (media outlets, celebrities), a micro level (friends, peer groups), or a combination thereof?

6. How can the media have a discussion about the touchy topics of women who focus primarily on careers and those who prioritize family (and whether that dichotomy even exists) without alienating a large segment of its audience? Is there a middle ground of open, intelligent discourse about the subject, and if so, how should media figures work towards finding a balanced tone that supports women in general rather than creating subsets of women to face off against each other?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)

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Inside the Dream Palace:  The Life and Times of New York's Legendary Chelsea Hotel
Sherill Tippins, 2013
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
496 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780544334472


Summary
The next best thing to having a room key to the Chelsea Hotel during each of its famous—and infamous—decades

The Chelsea Hotel, since its founding by a visionary French architect in 1884, has been an icon of American invention: a cultural dynamo and haven for the counterculture, all in one astonishing building. Sherill Tippins, author of the acclaimed February House, delivers a masterful and endlessly entertaining history of the Chelsea and of the successive generations of artists who have cohabited and created there, among them...

John Sloan, Edgar Lee Masters, Thomas Wolfe, Dylan Thomas, Arthur Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, Sam Shepard, Sid Vicious, and Dee Dee Ramone.

Now as legendary as the artists it has housed and the countless creative collaborations it has sparked, the Chelsea has always stood as a mystery as well: Why and how did this hotel become the largest and longest-lived artists’ community in the known world? Inside the Dream Palace is the intimate and definitive story.

Today the Chelsea stands poised in limbo between two futures: Will this symbol of New York's artistic invention be converted to a profit-driven business catering to the top one percent? Or will the Chelsea be given a rebirth through painstaking effort by the community that loves it? Set against these two competing possibilities, Inside the Dream Palace could not be more fascinating or timely. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Sherill Tippins moved to New York from Austin, Texas, at the age of twenty-two to pursue a career as a screenwriter and author. Ten years later, having settled with her husband and two children in Brooklyn Heights, a quiet neighborhood overlooking Manhattan at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, she began volunteering for a neighborhood meal-delivery program to the elderly and infirm. It was from one of these neighbors that she first heard of the extraordinary experiment in communal living—involving a British poet, a southern novelist, one of the world's great opera composers, and a celebrated stripper—that had taken place sixty years earlier just a few blocks from her home.

Her fascination with the house and its residents prompted her to begin collecting facts and anecdotes about their shared life in Brooklyn, and eventually to recreate their experience in February House, published in 2005.

Tippins' second work, published in 2013, tells the story of a century's worth of creative interaction and raucous living—stretching over the decades from Sarah Bernhardt to O. Henry, from Thomas Wolfe to Jackson Pollock, William Burroughs, Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, and beyond—all set in New York's famous (and infamous) Victorian-era edifice the Chelsea Hotel. (From the publsiher.)

Book Reviews
Tippins’s doorstop-hefty Inside the Dream Palace...aspires to tell the "definitive story" [of the Chelsea Hotel].... Serious about her mission, Tippins delivers a thoughtful, well-paced chronological account of the New York City landmark’s "shabby caravansary." She synthesizes the many books on the subject into a century-long narrative, no mean feat.... One might expect the book’s vitality to grow as it moves toward the present, given the availability of firsthand sources. But Tippins continues to draw primarily from texts rather than people.... More reporting...would have made Inside the Dream Palace a valuable work of history rather than a timely work of historical synthesis.
Ada Calhoun - New York Times


An inspired investigation into the utopian spirit of the Chelsea Hotel.
Elle


Cool hunters will appreciate Sherill Tippins’s Inside the Dream Palace: The Life and Times of New York’s Legendary Chelsea Hotel, a social history of the city’s sanctuary for postwar artists and It girls.
Vogue


In this wide-ranging history, literary biographer Tippins explores the Chelsea Hotel’s role as a refuge for artists and eccentrics for over a century. Built in 1884...the Chelsea immediately became a center of counter-culture in New York City.... A fascinating account of how a single building in New York City nurtured a community of freaks, dreamers, and outcasts whose rejection of the status quo helped to transform it.
Publishers Weekly


This is an exuberant tale of pop history about a New York landmark. While Tippins may be faulted for providing perhaps too much historical context, her spirited writing effectively illustrates the Chelsea as the unforgettable place it was. Recommended to pop culture enthusiasts, architecture specialists, and fans of celebrityhood. —Richard Drezen, Jersey City
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Zealous, big-picture researcher Tippins not only tells compelling tales, she also weaves them into a strikingly fresh, lucid, and socially anchored history of New York’s world-altering art movements. Though its future is uncertain, Tippins ensures that the Chelsea Hotel, dream palace and microcosm, will live on in our collective memory.
Booklist


A revealing biography of the fabled Manhattan hotel, in which generations of artists and writers found a haven.... Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Phil Ochs and Sid Vicious are only a few of the figures populating this entertaining book. A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.

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Time Out for a Better Marriage: The Husband Guide, Vol. I
Ford Baker, 2012
LifeSystems Press
96 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780615687599


Summary
Do you know any women with struggling husbands?

Husbands looking to step up their game will welcome the arrival of Time Out for a Better Marriage: The Husband Guide Volume I. Therapist Ford Baker, LCSW wrote this concise guide for husbands struggling in their marriage, and it is presented in a straight-talking format that men will relate to, using charts, graphs and problem-solving strategies. It is designed to help men make sense of the difficulties that occur in marriage.

Both spouses share responsibility for marital discord, and there are excellent books that are helpful to women. Not so, for men Time out for a Better Marriage is a starting point and how-to manual for guys feeling overwhelmed in a strained marriage. Many men were not taught effective relationship skills, often leaving them feeling lost or confused. This book helps guys when the marriage begins to falter and the relationship is important enough for them to begin considering a different approach.

In many cases, before a woman gives up on her man, Time out for a Better Marriage is one way to communicate some of what she has been trying to say in a way he may hear it. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, USA
• Education—B.S., Nicholls State University; M.S.W., Louisiana State
   University
• Currently—lives north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana


Ford Baker was born in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana.  His family moved several times while growing up, eventually returning to South Louisiana, where he graduated from Nicholls State University. He attended medical school, leaving during his first year to pursue a different path.

For almost a decade, he worked for the Louisiana State Police as a Forensic Scientist in their crime lab, testifying as an expert witness in state and federal cases involving firearms and tool mark examinations, arson debris and accelerant analysis, and forensic drug analysis.

After leaving the crime lab, Baker attended graduate school at LSU, earned a master's degree in social work and licensure as a licensed clinical social worker.  He has experience in outpatient, inpatient, and residential behavioral health and substance abuse treatment.  Baker has been in private practice for 13 years, specializing in marital therapy and working with clients and families in recovery from substance abuse.  His family enjoys living on the edge of the tranquil Felicianas north of Baton Rouge.

Time Out for a Better Marriage is the first volume of Baker’s new series, The Husband Guide.  (From the author.)

Visit the author's website.

Book Reviews
Just released in October 2013, Baker's book is also beginning to be noticed professionally.  Judith Barnett PhD, a therapist and speaker from Chapel Hill, NC has added Time Out for a Better Marriage to her list of recommended books on her website, http://www.judithbarnett.com

Discussion Questions
1. Do you know any women with husbands who struggle in their relationship? Do you know any men who think their way of being a husband is working and the wife is on the fence, not sure what to do? Do you know of marriages where the husband does not seem to get it? How about women who have tried to explain time, and time again, what they are upset about to no avail? And the husband just wants to get away?

2. Do you know any wives who expect their husbands to read their minds? Do you know any wives who expect their husbands to think like they do? Do wives sometimes expect husbands to have more relationship skills than they actually do? How many wives only want to blame their husbands for the state of the marriage? How fair is that?

3. What is a wife to do when her husband is repeatedly ignoring her complaints?

4. How many women bail on marriages too quickly? Do you know any women who regret getting divorced?

5. Do you know of any good books on marriage for women? How about for men? A book to explain all of this in a way men can relate to, and understand?

6. What evidence does Baker base his book on? What are his credentials? Is this book just one man’s opinion, or does he back it up with credible theory and suggestions?

7. Is this book about bashing men, absolving women of any responsibility for the state of their marriage, or is it about bringing clarity to men in the muddy waters of relationships, a seemingly alien topic for most guys?

8. Is the book full of jargon? Is it written for professionals or for regular folks? Is this a book a husband may actually read?

9. What makes Time Out for a Better Marriage different or better than other books for men on relationships?

10. Is this book just for men or is the information useful to women as well? Even though it is geared toward men, what specifically is helpful for women?

11.What from the book was most helpful for you as a person, or as a spouse?

12. What is The Husband Guide series and where can we find information on the next book?
(Questions provided courtesy of the author.)

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Elizabeth of York:  A Tudor Queen and Her World
Alison Weir, 2013
Random House
608 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345521361


Summary
Many are familiar with the story of the much-married King Henry VIII of England and the celebrated reign of his daughter, Elizabeth I. But it is often forgotten that the life of the first Tudor queen, Elizabeth of York, Henry’s mother and Elizabeth’s grandmother, spanned one of England’s most dramatic and perilous periods.

Now New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir presents the first modern biography of this extraordinary woman, whose very existence united the realm and ensured the survival of the Plantagenet bloodline.

Her birth was greeted with as much pomp and ceremony as that of a male heir. The first child of King Edward IV, Elizabeth enjoyed all the glittering trappings of royalty. But after the death of her father; the disappearance and probable murder of her brothers—the Princes in the Tower; and the usurpation of the throne by her calculating uncle Richard III, Elizabeth found her world turned upside-down: She and her siblings were declared bastards.

As Richard’s wife, Anne Neville, was dying, there were murmurs that the king sought to marry his niece Elizabeth, knowing that most people believed her to be England’s rightful queen. Weir addresses Elizabeth’s possible role in this and her covert support for Henry Tudor, the exiled pretender who defeated Richard at the Battle of Bosworth and was crowned Henry VII, first sovereign of the House of Tudor.

Elizabeth’s subsequent marriage to Henry united the houses of York and Lancaster and signaled the end of the Wars of the Roses. For centuries historians have asserted that, as queen, she was kept under Henry’s firm grasp, but Weir shows that Elizabeth proved to be a model consort—pious and generous—who enjoyed the confidence of her husband, exerted a tangible and beneficial influence, and was revered by her son, the future King Henry VIII.

Drawing from a rich trove of historical records, Weir gives a long overdue and much-deserved look at this unforgettable princess whose line descends to today’s British monarch—a woman who overcame tragedy and danger to become one of England’s most beloved consorts. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1951
• Where—Westminster, England, UK
• Education—North Western Polytechnic
• Currently—lives in Surrey, England


Alison Weir is a British writer of histories and historical novels, mostly in the form of biographies about British royalty. Her works on the Tudor period have made her a best-selling author—and the highest-selling female historian in the United Kingdom.

Weir has written biographies of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Katherine Swynford, and the Princes in the Tower. Other focuses have included Henry VIII of England and his wives and children, Mary Boleyn, Elizabeth I, and Mary, Queen of Scots, and most recently Elizabeth of York (Henry VIII's mother). She has published historical overviews of the Wars of the Roses and royal weddings, as well as historical fiction novels on Lady Jane Grey, Elizabeth I, and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Early life
Weir became interested in the field of history at the age of fourteen after reading a book about Catherine of Aragon. She was educated at City of London School for Girls and North Western Polytechnic and hoped to become a history teacher. But disillusioned with what she referred to as "trendy teaching methods," she abandoned teaching as a career.

In 1972 she married Rankin Weir in 1972 with whom she had two children in the early 1980s. Weir worked as a civil servant, and later as a housewife and mother to her children. Between 1991 and 1997, she ran a school for children with learning disabilities.

Nonfiction
In the 1970s, Weir spent four years researching and writing a nonfiction biography of the six wives of Henry VIII. Her work, deemed too long by publishers, was consequently rejected. A revised version of this biography would later be published in 1991 as The Six Wives of Henry VIII. In 1981, she wrote a book on Jane Seymour, which was again rejected by publishers—this time because it was too short.

Finally, in 1989, Weir became a published author with the publication of Britain's Royal Families, a compilation of genealogical information about the British Royal Family. She had spent the previous 22 years revising the book (eight times), finally deciding it might be "of interest to others." After organizing it into chronological order, The Bodley Head agreed to publish it.

It wasn't until the late 1990s, however, that Weir would begin writing full-time. While running the school for children with learning disabilities, she published the non-fiction works The Princes in the Tower (1992), Lancaster and York: The Wars of the Roses (1995), and Children of England: The Heirs of King Henry VIII (1996).

Eventually writing books as a full-time job, she produced Elizabeth the Queen (1998) (published in America as The Life of Elizabeth I), Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England (1999), Henry VIII: The King and His Court (2001), Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley (2003), and Isabella: She-Wolf of France, Queen of England (2005). Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and His Scandalous Duchess followed in 2007, The Lady in The Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn in 2009, and Traitors of the Tower in 2010. In 2011, she completed The Ring and the Crown: A History of Royal Weddings and Mary Boleyn: The Mistress of Kings, the first full non-fiction biography of Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne Boleyn. In 2013, Weir published an historical biography of Henry VIII's mother, Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World.

Many of Weir's works deal with the Tudor period, which she considers...

the most dramatic period in our history, with vivid, strong personalities... The Tudor period is the first one for which we have a rich visual record, with the growth of portraiture, and detailed sources on the private lives of kings and queens. This was an age that witnessed a growth in diplomacy and the spread of the printed word.

Fiction
Weir wrote historical novels while a teenager, and her novel in the genre of historical fiction, Innocent Traitor, based on the life of Lady Jane Grey, was published in 2006. When researching Eleanor of Aquitaine, Weir realized that it would "be very liberating to write a novel in which I could write what I wanted while keeping to the facts." She decided to make Jane Grey her focus because she "didn't have a very long life and there wasn't a great deal of material."

Weir said she found the transition to fiction easy:

Every book is a learning curve, and you have to keep an open mind. I am sometimes asked to cut back on the historical facts in my novels, and there have been disagreements over whether they obstruct the narrative, but I do hold out for the history whenever I can.

Her second novel, The Lady Elizabeth (2008) deals with the life of Queen Elizabeth I before her ascent to the throne. Her third novel, The Captive Queen (2010) is about Eleanor of Aquitaine, also the focus of a non-fiction biography Weir had written in 1999.

Writing style
Weir's writings have been catagorized as "popular history," a genre that has attracted criticism from academia. According to one source on sound academic writing, it's purpose is...

to inform and entertain a large general audience. In popular history, dramatic storytelling often prevails over analysis, style over substance, simplicity over complexity, and grand generalization over careful qualification. (Hamilton College)

Weir, however, argues that...

History is not the sole preserve of academics, although I have the utmost respect for those historians who undertake new research and contribute something new to our knowledge. History belongs to us all, and it can be accessed by us all. And if writing it in a way that is accessible and entertaining, as well as conscientiously researched, can be described as popular, then, yes, I am a popular historian, and am proud and happy to be one.

Kathryn Hughes, writing in The Guardian, said of Weir's popular historian label, "To describe her as a popular historian would be to state a literal truth—her chunky explorations of Britain’s early modern past sell in the kind of multiples that others can only dream of."

Reviews of Weir's works have been mixed.

• The Independent said of The Lady in the Tower that "it is testament to Weir's artfulness and elegance as a writer that The Lady in the Tower remains fresh and suspenseful, even though the reader knows what's coming."
• On the other hand, Diarmaid MacCulloch, in a review of Henry VIII: King and Court, called it "a great pudding of a book, which will do no harm to those who choose to read it. Detail is here in plenty, but Tudor England is more than royal wardrobe lists, palaces and sexual intrigue."
• The Globe and Mail, reviewing the novel, The Captive Queen, said that she had "skillfully imagined royal lives" in previous works, "but her style here is marred by less than subtle characterizations and some seriously cheesy writing"
• Roger Boyle in The New York Times said of Elizabeth of York, "Weir tells Elizabeth's story well…she is a meticulous scholar. The everyday minutiae of life are painstakingly described…Most important, Weir sincerely admires her subject, doing honor to an almost forgotten queen."

Personal life
Weir now lives in Surrey with her husband and two sons. She has called "Mrs Ellen," a fictional character from her novel about Jane Grey, most like her own personality and commented that, "As I was writing the book, my maternal side was projected into this character."

Weir is a supporter of the renovation of Northampton Castle, proclaiming the estate a "historic site of prime importance. It would be tragic if it were to be lost forever. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 12/09/2013.)

Book Reviews
Weir tells Elizabeth's story well…she is a meticulous scholar. The everyday minutiae of life are painstakingly described…Most important, Weir sincerely admires her subject, doing honor to an almost forgotten queen.
Roger Boylan - New York Times Book Review


[A]s a royal princess, Elizabeth was a pawn in the dynastic ambitions of England’s rulers: her father, Edward IV; her uncle, Richard III; her mother-in-law, Margaret Beaufort; and her husband, Henry VII.... Elizabeth’s life...[is] portrayed in great detail, from marriage ceremonies and royal itineraries to the food, books, gifts, and clothing of her day. Weir argues her positions clearly...balancing the scholarly with emphases on Elizabeth’s emotional and psychological life.
Publishers Weekly


We know all about Henry VIII's famous wives and daughters. But what about his mother, who legitimized the new Tudor dynasty as the only living descendant of Yorkist King Edward IV? The popular Weir...takes on Elizabeth of York in what appears to be the only biography currently available for lay readers.
Library Journal


[A] serious work definitely not aimed at a bodice-ripper audience. This Tudor Elizabeth (1466–1503) lived a century before her much better-known granddaughter, but she was important: the daughter, wife and mother of kings, including Henry VIII.... Weir portrays Elizabeth as a passive observer or victim and often ignores her entirely as she delivers an intensely researched... history of Britain during the turbulent last half of the 15th century.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.

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