Autumn Reading
After a short hiatus I've decided to return with a new series of books that have been keeping my eyes and mind occupied. These reads are sure to make you fall in love with them!
Le Deuxième Sexe - Simone de Beauvoir (1949)
In her opus, de Beauvoir deconstructs popular first wave feminist ideology in a truly modern fashion for the time. It is often said, and easy to believe, that this book shaped feminist movements for decades to come - dealing with ideas of otherness, inequality, and the very notion of woman in western society. If you aren't fluent in French, the translation by Borde & Chevalier is extremely well done and certainly worth some of your time (The Second Sex).
Empire and Communications - Harold A. Innis (1950)
Predecessor to Marshall McLuhan, Innis is considered to be a pioneer in the field of Canadian communications and media theory. As a distinguished professor at the University of Toronto and Oxford University, Innis dedicated his life to studying how media influences the development and consciousness of people and entire societies within a cultural context. This book is a bit dense however, if this is the sort of thing that interests you Empire and Communications is an absolute must.
The Man Mho Cried I am - John A. Williams (1967)
The man who cried I am serves as a sort of commentary on the strife of the civil rights movement and African American intellectualism throughout the 1960s. Fictional portraits of real figures like Malcom X and James Baldwin are examined in the novel from the perspective of an affluent black American living in Amsterdam who seeks to reconstruct his past and the events that lead him to the present. While the novel is fiction, it delves deep into the very real struggle of race relations in the United States at a time when Jim Crowe was precedent. Considered to be a modern American classic, this book is definitely worth a read, or even two.
Bad Feminist - Roxane Gay (2014)
If you are at all looking to expand your knowledge of modern feminist theory look no further, Bad Feminist has everything you need. A series of short essays and speeches, this collection is both broadly intersectional and deeply personal. Gay combines and demonstrates how things like gender, class, race, and sexuality interact in modern western society through a series of real life situations and experiences that serve as a good introduction for anyone looking to broaden their horizons on these topics. I couldn't recommend reading this book enough, please indulge!
Two Solitudes - Hugh MacLennan (1945)
This novel, which won the Governor Generals Award for English Language Fiction, is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature when it comes to Anglo-Franco relations in Canada. It follows the story of a member of parliament throughout the first half of the twentieth century and how he deals with his heritage and position in society. The term 'two solitudes' ¹ was even popularized by this novel and is still a popular concept in Canadian politics today.
¹This term refers to the historical relationship between English speaking Canada and French speaking Quebec since confederation.