Rebecca Reads

There is something to be said for close, careful reading.
I must have read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar with the rest of my tenth grade class, but I honestly didn’t remember any of it. I decided to read it this month as a part of the Martel-Harper Challenge, for which Yann Martel chooses “book[s] that ha[ve] been [...]

Bhutto’s autobiography, Daughter of Destiny (published in 1988 as Daughter of the East), tells a completely unique story. Bhutto was the first woman prime minister of a Muslim country (Pakistan), and she first went through years of struggle, including years of solitary confinement, before she could be an example of democracy.
Much of her autobiography was [...]

The life of the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith, although short, was full of faith and controversy. In his cultural biography, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, Richard Lyman Bushman approaches Joseph Smith’s life for all it was, without apology.
Bushman does not omit controversy from Joseph’s life; rather, controversy surrounding Joseph is carefully researched in the context [...]

Here’s a semi-political book I read in honor of the U.S. presidential election today. Now, if only women could rule the world!
Why Woman Should Rule the World isn’t just another cliché: rather, in her well-researched social memoir of women, Dee Dee Myers shares what she’s learned about being a woman, both from her experiences as [...]