The Golden Notebook

The landmark novel of the Sixties – a powerful account of a woman searching for her personal, political and professional identity while facing rejection and betrayal.

A genre-defying memoir in which Lara Feigel experiments with sexual, intellectual and political freedom while reading and pursuing Doris Lessing How might we live more freely, and will we be happier or lonelier if we do? Re-reading The Golden Notebook in her thirties, shortly after Doris Lessing's death, Lara Feigel discovered that Lessing spoke directly to her as a woman, a writer, and a mother in a way that no other novelist had done. At a time when she was dissatisfied with the conventions of her own life, Feigel was enticed by Lessing's vision of freedom. Free Woman is essential reading for anyone whose life has been changed by books or has questioned the structures by which they live. Feigel tells Lessing's own story, veering between admiration and fury at the choices Lessing made. At the same time, she scrutinises motherhood, marriage and sexual relationships with an unusually acute gaze. And in the process she conducts a dazzling investigation into the joys and costs of sexual, psychological, intellectual and political freedom. This is a genre-defying book: at once a meditation on life and literature and a daring act of self-exposure.

The fifth and final book in the Nobel Prize for Literature winner’s ‘Children of Violence’ series tracing the life of Martha Quest from her childhood in colonial Africa to old age in post-nuclear Britain.

A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS ORIGINAL Mavis Gallant is a contemporary legend, a frequent contributor to The New Yorkerfor close to fifty years who has, in the words of The New York Times, "radically reshaped the short story for decade after decade." Michael Ondaatje's new selection of Gallant's work gathers some of the most memorable of her stories set in Europe and Paris, where Gallant has long lived. Mysterious, funny, insightful, and heartbreaking, these are tales of expatriates and exiles, wise children and straying saints. Together they compose a secret history, at once intimate and panoramic, of modern times.

Unlock the more straightforward side of The Golden Notebook with this concise and insightful summary and analysis! This engaging summary presents an analysis of The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, which tells the story of Anna Wulf, who is struggling with writer’s block following the publication of her debut and only novel dealing with her experiences living in Africa. She attempts to organise her thoughts in a series of notebooks, each of which represents a different part of her life, before pulling together the various threads of her existence in the golden notebook of the title. The Golden Notebook is among Doris Lessing’s most acclaimed works, and in 2005 was named by TIME magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923. Find out everything you need to know about The Golden Notebook in a fraction of the time! This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you: • A complete plot summary • Character studies • Key themes and symbols • Questions for further reflection Why choose BrightSummaries.com? Available in print and digital format, our publications are designed to accompany you on your reading journey. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time. See the very best of literature in a whole new light with BrightSummaries.com!

The author, a poet, recounts her difficult childhood growing up in a Texas oil town.

In her 1985 CBC Massey Lectures Doris Lessing addresses the question of personal freedom and individual responsibility in a world increasingly prone to political rhetoric, mass emotions, and inherited structures of unquestioned belief. The Nobel Prize-winning author of more than thirty books, Doris Lessing is one of our most challenging and important writers.

From the author of the acclaimed Against Love comes a pointed, audacious, and witty examination of the state of the female psyche in the post-post-feminist world of the twenty-first century. Women remain caught between feminism and femininity, between self-affirmation and an endless quest for self-improvement, between playing an injured party and claiming independence. Rather than blaming the usual suspects—men, the media—Kipnis takes a hard look at culprits closer to home, namely women themselves. Kipnis serves up the gory details of the mutual displeasure between men and women in painfully hilarious detail. Is anatomy destiny after all? An ambitious and original reassessment of feminism and women’s ambivalence about it, The Female Thing breathes provocative new life into that age-old question.