March is Women’s History Month! Are you looking to add some books to your TBR pile this month? Check out these Agate titles written by female authors!
Even the Terrible Things Seem Beautiful to Me Now
What it means when your father dies. How it feels when summer comes. What it’s like to live in a great but troubled American city. The value of wearing sunscreen. These are just a few of the topics that Mary Schmich addresses in this second, expanded edition of Even the Terrible Things Seem Beautiful to Me Now, a collection of her columns from the Chicago Tribune, including the 10 that won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for commentary.
Schmich is the rare newspaper columnist whose writing resonates long after it’s published and far beyond the place she lives. Her writing ranges as widely as life itself. It can be slyly humorous, deeply moving, or tough. She addresses subjects as varied as family love, sexual harassment, long friendships, poverty, and Chicago violence. In a hectic age, her writing lifts us, calms us, and helps us understand.
The Leopold and Loeb Files
In 1924, University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were young, rich, and looking for a thrill. The crime that came next—the brutal, cold-blood murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks—would come to captivate the country and unfold into what many dubbed the crime of the century. As the decades passed, the mythology surrounding the unlikely killers continued to capture the interest of new generations, spawning numerous books, fictionalizations, and dramatizations.
In The Leopold and Loeb Files, author Nina Barrett returns to the primary sources—confessions, interrogation transcripts, psychological reports, and more—the kind of rare, pre-computer court documents that were usually destroyed as a matter of course. Until now, these documents have not been part of the murder’s central narrative. This first-of-its-kind approach allows readers to view the case through a keyhole and look past all of the stories that have been spun in the last 90 years to focus on the heart of the crime.
This comprehensive, ephemera-driven history allows the reader to act as a fly on the wall and speaks powerfully to the unsolved mysteries of this distinct crime, in which the guilt of the perpetrators is unambiguous but almost everything else is open to interpretation.
Porto
Discover the culinary heart of Northern Portugal through the stories, food, and history of Bolhão. Bolhão Market’s century-old walls are crumbling as its vendors and visitors wait for the restoration that will return it to its former glory. Though the deteriorating conditions have forced many vendors to leave, there are fishwives still singing their seductive pregão, bakers still hawking crusty broa baked in wood burning ovens, and butchers still offering up favos de mel for the city’s signature tripe stew. Bolhão still pulses with knowledge earned over generations and the rich culinary heritage of the region.
This book is about those vendors who remain, and their stories are for those who want to know what to do, see, and eat when they visit the North. Porto, nestled between the sea and the esteemed Douro Valley, is the heart of one of Europe’s premier—though often overlooked—food destinations. The people of Bolhão embody the spirit and tradition of this enchanting city. Your next culinary adventure starts here!
Vote Her In
Yes. She. Can. Vote Her In addresses the unrealized dream of millions of American women: electing our first woman president. It makes the case for the urgency of women attaining equal executive power at all levels, including the presidency, and offers a comprehensive strategy for every woman to be a part of this campaign—the most important of our lifetimes.
Women are wildly underrepresented at every level of the US government: federal, state, and local. Research has shown that women in executive government positions are far more likely than men to commit to policies that benefit women, girls, and other marginalized groups, so after centuries of underrepresentation, it’s clear: our best bet for creating a system that is more fair, balanced, and just for everyone is electing our first Madam President—as soon as we can.
Wading Home
When Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans, chef and widower Simon Fortier knows how he plans to face the storm—riding it out inside his long-time home in the city’s Treme neighborhood, just as he has through so many storms before. But when the levees break and the city is torn apart, Simon disappears. His son, Julian, a celebrated jazz trumpeter, rushes home to a New Orleans he left years before to search for his father. As Julian crisscrosses the city, fearing the worst, he reconnects with Sylvia, Simon’s companion of many years; Parmenter, his father’s erstwhile business partner and one of the most successful restaurateurs in New Orleans; and Velmyra, the woman Julian left behind when he moved to New York.
Julian’s search for Simon deepens as he finds himself drawn into the troubled history of Silver Creek, the extravagantly beautiful piece of land where his father grew up, and closer once again to Velmyra. As he tries to come to grips with his father’s likely fate, Julian slowly gains a deeper, richer understanding of his father and the city he loved so much, while unraveling the mysteries of Silver Creek
Red Velvet Underground
Part memoir, part cookbook, and all rock and roll, Red Velvet Underground tells the story of how musician Freda Love Smith’s indie-rock past grew into her family- and food-centric present. Smith, born in Nashville and raised in Indiana, is best known as the drummer and co-founder of bands such as the Boston-based Blake Babies, Antenna, and the Mysteries of Life. Red Velvet Underground is loosely framed around cooking lessons Smith gave to her eldest son, Jonah, before he left for college. Smith compares her son’s experiences to her own—meeting Juliana Hatfield and starting the Blake Babies, touring in Evan Dando’s hand-me-down station wagon, and crashing with Henry Rollins, who introduced the band to local California fare—all while plumbing the deeper meanings behind the role of food, cooking, and family.
Interspersed throughout these stories are flexitarian recipes—mostly, but not exclusively, vegetarian—such as red pepper-cashew spread, spinach and brazil nut pesto, and vegan strawberry-cream scones. Throughout the book, Smith reveals how food, in addition to music, has evolved into an important means for creativity and improvisation. Red Velvet Underground is an engaging exploration of the ways food and music have informed identity through every stage of one woman’s life.