Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own
Published by Penguin Random House Audio
4/5
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About this audiobook
Whom to marry, and when will it happen-these two questions define every woman's existence.
So begins Spinster, a revelatory and slyly erudite look at the pleasures and possibilities of remaining single. Using her own experiences as a starting point, journalist and cultural critic Kate Bolick invites us into her carefully considered, passionately lived life, weaving together the past and present to examine why she-along with over 100 million American women, whose ranks keep growing-remains unmarried.
This unprecedented demographic shift, Bolick explains, is the logical outcome of hundreds of years of change that has neither been fully understood, nor appreciated. Spinster introduces a cast of pioneering women from the last century whose genius, tenacity, and flair for drama have emboldened Bolick to fashion her life on her own terms: columnist Neith Boyce, essayist Maeve Brennan, social visionary Charlotte Perkins Gilman, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and novelist Edith Wharton. By animating their unconventional ideas and choices, Bolick shows us that contemporary debates about settling down, and having it all, are timeless-the crucible upon which all thoughtful women have tried for centuries to forge a good life.
Intellectually substantial and deeply personal, Spinster is both an unreservedly inquisitive memoir and a broader cultural exploration that asks us to acknowledge the opportunities within ourselves to live authentically. Bolick offers us a way back into our own lives-a chance to see those splendid years when we were young and unencumbered, or middle-aged and finally left to our own devices, for what they really are: unbounded and our own to savor.
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Reviews for Spinster
34 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I actually really, rather genuinely enjoyed this book!
Kate Bolick finds and talks about great female writers that became her mentors: Edna St. Vincent Millay, Charlotte Perkins Gillman, Maeve Brennan and Edith Wharton. I loved hearing about them all, and I also really enjoyed how Bolick was able to weave in some historical, sociological stuff without making it feel forced - she took all of these authors and made them three-dimensional.
The one thing I will say is that this book is not perfect. Often, Bolick can feel a little too white, a little too upper-middle class. A little too privileged. But she challenges her privilege regularly - something that I truly appreciate. And she's aware of it to a point where she refuses to compare a white woman's experience and a black woman's experience of a certain time period, which I was so grateful for.
I learnt a lot, and I feel like it was a really valuable book for me to read. I liked hearing her pick apart how she felt about marriage, being single, being alone, working as a writer, how to make it work, dating, her expectations and society's expectations.
It spoke to me on many levels because I am a young, newly-married woman, wanting to be a writer and constantly scrutinising my own life. But it is no way girly or overtly feminine - she is critical, she is sharp, she is witty. Bolick is honest and her voice is quite compassionate.
I've recommended it to a few of my friends, and now I recommend it to you. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Introspective and honest. This book ponders many of the things I have begun to wonder about myself. It questions the cultural institution of marriage, how female single-ness is viewed, and looks at the gender politics at play. Eloquent and witty, but with a heart that keeps the book from veering too pedantic or cynical. An absolute must read.