Girlfriends

Every so often I pick up a book that surprises me. Usually they are a pathetic attempt to be more "with it" when live people are talking. The shocker is when they are of more than passing interest. There are quite a group of these now that have been written by women, many of whom are still alive. This leads to an interesting duality in my list of books to read soon. Also a largely pointless inner debate on whether to post on these works or not. After all, what business does a living lady author have on a cite about dead men? At least deceased authors can be said to fill the first category irregardless of gender. I suppose given the number of nameless authors there could be lots of women authors represented here. Like I said, pointless ponderings.

So the prompt for this spate of naval gazing was reading The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. It was good. I inhaled it today and then started thinking about women's lit in general. There have been other books that fall into the genera that have been interesting or influenced me deeply. Notable examples are YO and Loving in the War Years. I'd have to check the list for others. This has led to an interesting question: is there such a thing as men's lit? If not, why on earth isn't there? And if there is: where are the classes or sections in bookstores? Why the weird one-sided publicity?

I'd like to promise an end to this habit of excessively introspective posts but there will likely be more.