Rachelle Bergstein

A loving, well-researched tribute to Judy Blume: author, freedom-to-read advocate, mother, wife, and bookstore owner. Told in chronological fashion in 25 engaging chapters, GENIUS addresses second-wave feminism, Judy's own struggles with the cultural expectations around marriage and motherhood, and her writing journey; then, in the 1980s, the rise of book banning, with Judy's books frequently _targeted, and today's right-wing book banning efforts.

Quotes/notes

"In children's books, since they became a thing at the beginning of the twentieth century as a separate market of book publishing, there's always been this battle between what kids want to read and what an adult thinks is good." (Roger Sutton, of The Horn Book, p. 148)

"When we elected Ronald Reagan and the conservatives decided that they would decide not just what their children would read but what all children would read, it went crazy." (Judy Blume in the Guardian, 2014, p. 166)

Authors League letter to the school board in Peoria, IL, in 1984 - signed by Madeleine L'Engle, Natalie Babbit, Uri Shulevitz, William Steig, and more - helped convince the board to reconsider their decision to pull three of Judy Blume's books from the school. (188)

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/11/us/peoria-ill-bans-3-books-from-school-librar...

"It's offensive to me that that book's offensive to you." (elementary school librarian Lauren Harrison, re: the picture book Our Subway Baby)(206)

[Comparing book banning to weeding is a false equivalency; weeding "is about unshelving titles that have been rendered irrelevant by the culture. Banning is about cutting off access to books that are contributing to current cultural conversations in the hopes that these conversations will stop") (208)

"[Books] can take you places that you've never been, can teach you how to do this or that...in those scenarios, why would you not want to read? Because you have to realize that there's something to this reading thing." (school librarian Julia Loving, 209)… (more)

I enjoyed most of this book. The title is misleading. It is more of a history of the diamond industry than it is a biography. The is no information about how diamonds are formed or why they are only found in certain places. It is good overview of the diamond industry but none of the natural history of the mineral itself. I was surprised to learn how prevalent synthetic diamonds are and how afraid of it many of the traditional gem dealers are. The part about the diamond mines in Australia was also of interest. I had no idea that Australia was such a huge producer of gem quality diamonds.

This is a short book. The book was formatted in a larger than normal type with lots of white space between lines. I think the publisher was trying to make this look like it was a more substantial lengthy book than it really was. The copy of the book Brilliance and Fire I have has 375 pages total in it. However, about 100 pages of it is notes and index. That tells me that the book is documented extensively, and along with the formatting led me to the conclusion that some of this was an attempt to make the book seem like it was a more substantial work than the content contains. I do think that there is value in this book, as the tidbits of information about various diamonds, gem dealers, and jewelry designers was very interesting. In short, this is a good lead-in for those who want to know more about the connections between jewelry, culture, and politics, but this is by no means a comprehensive look at either the material or the industry.… (more)

O livro faz um bom trabalho em associar as mudanças sociais e econômicas nos EUA com a moda, porém poderia não limitar-se apenas às mulheres na sua apresentação (inclusive, um dos capítulos mais interessantes é sobre Tony Manero e a moda Disco).

Além disso, para um livro sobre moda e visual, tem apenas pequenas ilustrações de sapatos no início de cada capítulo. Vi-me usando o celular para pesquisar as referências citadas mais vezes do que gostaria.

A tradução também prejudica a experiência por nem sempre clarificar termos culturais específicos e por algumas vezes fazer traduções equivocadas de expressões idiomáticas.… (more)

One thing I was reminded of while reading this book: I really need a new pair of classic black pumps.

First of all, Women from the Ankle Down: The Story of Shoes and How They Define Us by Rachelle Bergstein is really a book about women’s shoes. There are mentions of men’s shoes, but not many — let’s face it, men’s shoes are boring. Most of this book is about women’s shoes and how they evolved and what influenced them.

There is a lot of interesting information in this book about modern shoes. If you’re looking for ancient shoes, for the history of foot-binding, look somewhere else. This little book starts with “Ferragamo and the Wartime Wedge (1900-1938)” and runs through Sex and the City (“Shoes and the Single Girl (1998-2008)”). Lots of detail about how certain styles evolved and how shoes go in and out of style, along with some interesting bits of shoe lore.

I love shoes! Sadly, my work requires mostly sensible shoes now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t drool over the latest styles (although I cannot wait for the hooker-platform fad to pass — can’t happen soon enough). I enjoyed getting a bit of insight into what was fashionable and what was controversial in different generations (who would have thought of ballet flats as rebellious?). I also didn’t know that shoes were actually rationed during the war:

“As it was, the ration stipulated not only how many shoes consumers could buy but also what kind of shoes the footwear industry was permitted to produce going forward…For women, the shoe ration instantly outlawed flourishes which had become the quintessence of a varied shoe collection.”

The American government even limited the colors that could be used in shoe production to 4 — black, white, town brown and army russet. Heel heights were regulated and so were the height of boots.

Bergstein covers the rise of Birkenstocks, the influence of the movies on shoes (and vice versa) and Girl Power, Saturday Night Fever and the battle between Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo. What she doesn’t do is provide a single photograph! Unless photos were added in the finished version (mine was an uncorrected proof), I think it’s a huge gap.… (more)