circle of wisdom and joy
book reviews
by byron ballard

Less than a hundred years ago, women in the United States achieved the right to vote. We honor the ratification of the 19th Amendment with "Women's Equality Day". We certainly have come a long way in a culture that still has conflicting views of the Second Sex. The 1940s saw women in factory jobs, replacing the men who had gone to war. The 1960's saw the Women's Liberation movement birthed from the other struggles for civil rights. The turn of the century saw women in positions of authority in the government, home, church, and workplace. Unequal still in so many areas but striving, always striving. American women are, with some notable exceptions of race and class, among the luckiest women in recorded history. And as we learn to celebrate our woman-ness and pass that celebration on to our daughters (and sons), delicious new books about every aspect of being a woman arrive daily at your local bookstore. This column will explore the juicy new ones and will also dig into some slightly older but influential works.

Let's start with a new book so compelling I read it straight through in a couple of days. The design on the dust jacket is fairly repellent but Last of the Amazons by Stephen Pressfield is a well-written tale, a work of fictionalized history that drops the reader into the primitive Greek world of Theseus at the time the Amazon nations lay siege to Athens. The peoples of tal Kyrte are matrilineal, matrifocal nomadic tribes and their lives are richly detailed for us. And the ending is remarkably moving. Just throw the dust jacket away.

The Frailty Myth by Colette Dowling is a well-researched text about the realities behind the notion that women are the physically weaker sex. From childbirth to service in the armed forces to professional athletics, we see this notion exploded time and time again. This one is now out in paperback and I highly recommend it.

I'm a sucker for women's studies and archaeology so when a friend gave me Warrior Women: An Archaeologist's Search for History's Hidden Heroines for my birthday, I was in heaven. This little book by Jeannine Davis-Kimball (with Mona Behan) is a marvelous adventure through time and space. We learn about the nomadic Kurgans and their powerful priestesses and women warriors in Kazakhstan. We learn the secret of the mummified Caucasian priestesses from ancient China and look for cultural clues in the mythic tales of ancient Ireland. Like Gimbutas before her, Davis-Kimball brings a fresh eye to archaeology and we are all rewarded by what she sees. Good photos, too.

It used to be that women approached menopause with the same lack of information that they approached menarche. The Feminist movement and the swelling tide of Baby-boomers combine to give this generation as much info as we want about "the Change". As a mid-40's woman myself, I'm sampling these offerings fairly regularly. Dr. Christiane Northrop is worth her weight in emeralds, in my opinion. Her book on menopause and perimenopause is full and details and symptoms and hard, working knowledge of women's guts, both physiologically and psychologically. It's called The Wisdom of Menopause and it will be the home reference for women and their midwives for years to come.

There are two books by Dr. John Lee that are short but straight to the point. In What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Perimenopause, we get to explore what makes our biological clocks tick and why the American medical establishment may not give you all the answers you need to make informed decisions about your hormone-wacky body. His big answer is phyto-estrogens (which may not work for everyone) but his explanations are thorough and understandable. The other book is predictably What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause which goes into more depth about the changing hormonal balance (or lack thereof) experienced by women in their mother/warrior years.

Happy reading!