Mailbox Monday #1

It has possibly been years since I did my last Mailbox Monday but I realized I missed sharing the excitement about the new books coming in and seeing what else was out there. So here we are, trying to get back on the bandwagon!

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists. It is hosted weekly over at Mailbox Monday and every Friday they do a round-up of some of their favourite, shared reads!

I have received quite a few e-books through NetGallet this week that I'm super excited about!

Revelations by Mary Sharratt (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 4/27/2021)

A fifteenth-century Eat, Pray, Love, Revelations illuminates the intersecting lives of two female mystics who changed history—Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich.

Bishop’s Lynn, England, 1413. At the age of forty, Margery Kempe has nearly died giving birth to her fourteenth child. Fearing that another pregnancy might kill her, she makes a vow of celibacy, but she can’t trust her husband to keep his end of the bargain. Desperate for counsel, she visits the famous anchoress Dame Julian of Norwich.

Pouring out her heart, Margery confesses that she has been haunted by visceral religious visions. Julian then offers up a confession of her own: she has written a secret, radical book about her own visions, Revelations of Divine Love. Nearing the end of her life and fearing Church authorities, Julian entrusts her precious book to Margery, who sets off the adventure of a lifetime to secretly spread Julian's words.

Mary Sharratt vividly brings the medieval past to life as Margery blazes her trail across Europe and the Near East, finding her unique spiritual path and vocation. It's not in a cloistered cell like Julian, but in the full bustle of worldly existence with all its wonders and perils.

As a Medievalist I am, of course, majorly interested in this book! Although Margery Kempe and I haven't always seen eye to eye, she and Julian of Norwich were impressive women. I can't wait to see what Sharratt does with them! 

The Impossible Resurrection of Grief by Octavia Cade (Stelliform Press, 5/20/2021)

IN A DYING WORLD, GRIEF HAS A LIFE OF ITS OWN...

With the collapse of ecosystems and the extinction of species comes the Grief: an unstoppable melancholia that ends in suicide. When Ruby’s friend, mourning the loss of the Great Barrier Reef, succumbs to the Grief, the letters she leaves behind reveal the hidden world of the resurrected dead. The Tasmanian tiger, brought back from extinction in an isolated facility, is only the first... but rebirth is not always biological, and it comes with a price. As a scientist, Ruby resists the Grief by focusing her research on resilient jellyfish, but she can’t avoid choosing which side she’s on. How can she fight against the dead and the forces behind them when doing so risks her home, her life, and the entire biosphere?

Globally we're currently going through major grief as we continue to lose lives to COVID-19. I have the distinct feeling, however, that Cade will give me something to root and hope for nonetheless.

Greek Mythology:The Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes Handbook by Liv Albert (Adams Media, 30/3/2021)

Finally sort out who’s who in Greek mythology—from gods, goddesses, heroes, monsters, and everyone in between!

Greek mythology continues to appear in popular movies and books today but have you ever wondered about where these characters started out? Discover the origins of your favorite characters from Greek mythology with this collection of profiles to tell you who’s who in classical lore!

In Greek Mythology, you will discover the backstories of the heroes, villains, gods, and goddesses that enjoy popularity in today’s shows and films. With comprehensive entries that outline each character’s name, roles, related symbols, and foundational myths, you can get to know the roots of these personas and better understand the stories they inspire today. With this character-focused, handy reference, you will never be confused about Ancient Greece!

What can I say, I'm a sucker for Greek mythology! So far I've enjoyed Albert's Handbook although I'm hardly a lay audience as I've been steeped in Greek mythology since I was a child. A major Highlight so far are the illustrations, they're gorgeous!

Women's Liberation! Feminist Writings that Inspired a Revolution & Still Can, ed. by Alix Kates Shuman & Honor Moore (Library of America, 2/16/2021)

Two pioneering feminists present a groundbreaking collection recovering a generation's revolutionary insights for today

When Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique in 1963, the book exploded into women’s consciousness. Before the decade was out, what had begun as a campaign for women’s civil rights transformed into a diverse and revolutionary movement for freedom and social justice that challenged many aspects of everyday life long accepted as fixed: work, birth control and abortion, childcare and housework, gender, class, and race, art and literature, sexuality and identity, rape and domestic violence, sexual harassment, pornography, and more. This was the women’s liberation movement, and writing—powerful, personal, and prophetic—was its beating heart. 

Fifty years on, in the age of #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, this visionary and radical writing is as relevant and urgently needed as ever, ready to inspire a new generation of feminists. Activists and writers Alix Kates Shulman and Honor Moore have gathered an unprecedented collection of works—many long out-of-print and hard to find—that catalyzed and propelled the women’s liberation movement. Ranging from Friedan’s Feminine Mystique to Backlash, Susan Faludi’s Reagan-era requiem, and framed by Shulman and Moore with an introduction and headnotes that provide historical and personal context, the anthology reveals the crucial role of Black feminists and other women of color in a decades long mass movement that not only brought about fundamental changes in American life—changes too often taken for granted today—but envisioned a thoroughgoing revolution in society and consciousness still to be achieved.

Although I'd argue I'm as steeped in feminist thought as in Greek mythology I have to honestly admit that I'm not as familiar with the "source texts" as I should be. So I was very happy to still receive access to Women's Liberation! despite it already being past its pub date.

So those were the books I was super excited to receive this week!