Lady Loud

"Reading - its good for ya". Or so I said in an earlier post. Then I read the tabloid rag Dagbladet and thought "hmf, I was right. I love it!".
In http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/2005/06/20/435158.html they explore female reading throughout the ages, and the conclusion is that women who read was a dangerous thing. Sitting alone reading novels she could fantasize freely, or worse, create her own thoughts on the world. Women were(and are?) conceived more perceptible to new ideas and could easily suffer hysteria from reading to much.
Reading was for women a way to escape mind-control and was therefore conceived by society(men) as utterly harmful. It could lead to ruin between couples. Reading "Madame Bovary" was closely associated with adultery. Moral and marriage was threatened, so women readers were ridiculed and harassed into thinking that reading was harmful to them. And eventually we began believing that it really was harmful to read. In "Gone with the wind" one of the ladies at a barbeque laughs at the thought of reading and prides herself in being illiterate, for it is the mark of a true lady.
Well, those days are over. Women readers are in power these days. Bookclubs prefer female writers because they sell more than male writers. Women buy more books than men. Girls read more and therefore get better grades than boys in school.

Reading really is good for ya;-)

Difficult woman extraordinaire Elizabeth Wurtzel has written the ultimate bitch-book titled "Bitch. In praise of difficult women". It's a wowzer of a book! Trying to read it is a bit like running down hill at top speed and feeling like you're about to trip in your own feet. Sounds scary? Read an excerpt.
Wurtzel is writing like her pen is on fire. It is sometimes hard to keep up with her string of thought, and being slightly eurosentric doesn't make the read any easier. There are lots of references to people and politics in America that I've never heard of, but don't let that scare you away from a good read!
The theme she explores is "difficult women" and what happens to us when we stick our necks out. From biblical Delilah to modern Madonna, Wurtzel races through histories and events at breakneck speed(and knowing her, she probably was doing speed at the time).

The book cover shows Elizabeth naked and giving the finger. It caused an uproar in the U.S. Here, we didn't think twice of it.
I guess being a difficult woman is more difficult in America than anywhere else on this planet. Sigh...

Reading - it's good for ya! A good book takes you to new places. Places you have never been before. Like outer space, faraway countries, other peoples minds or even to another time. How great is that? Books are like travelling, it broadens your mind. Well, maybe not the collective works of Mrs Barbara Cartland will do that for you, but...
Anyway, I simply have to point your attention to Bone. Bone is fun, Bone is great. Everybody should read Bone! Click here to enter the whimsical universe of Bone. If I am ever selected prime minister I promise to introduce an official Bone-day, so that we all can put our feet up and read. Please register your vote now on the right side of this page.
Get a kickstart of the plot and the players here, before you run as fast as your little feet can carry you to the bookstore to buy your first, shiny copy of Bone. It's great!

If you don't think Bone is great, I promise that if I am ever selected prime minister I will have you deported to Greenland(no offence, Greenlenders, but you are awfully remote).