The Marriage Portrait, Maggie O’Farrell
I have been reading some really amazing books as of late. The Marriage Portrait, shortlisted for the Women’s Prize, offers a retelling of the story of the life of Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara, a real-life woman in sixteenth-century Italy who marries her sister’s would-be husband after her untimely death, only to be faced with her own. The book itself does not present the reader with any suspense-filled cliffhangers; rather, in a style I am coming to recognize as O’Farrell’s own, there is a historical note in the beginning telling the reader that Lucrezia died after less than one year of marriage to her husband, and though the official cause was recorded as putrid fever, it was well-known that she was murdered by her husband. Thus the reader is left wondering, and hoping (at least I was), that O’Farrell can recreate a story in which Lucrezia lives, however impossible it may seem. O’Farrell’s last book, Hamnet, was similarly striking, winning the Women’s Prize, and I do not wonder as to why: her style of prose, along with her ability to recreate stories and people we thought were long disappeared, make for enjoyable reading.
Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, Caroline Criado Perez
Invisible Women is sure to make most of its readers angry, even if you are aware of how the world has been designed for men and not women. At least it pissed me off a great deal lol 😉 Name just about anything, and Criado Perez has seen it and thought about it. From car seats and belts to machinery and tools (think at the gym or even for pumping breast milk) to technology such as smartwatches that don’t include period trackers—and that’s not even mentioning medical bias or the fact that no women were included in medical trials until the 1990s or the education system itself which ensures that bias is continued in perpetuity—Criado Perez deftly explains through anecdotes and data—or rather, the lack of it—not only how the world has been designed by men and for men, because that is abundantly clear to anyone with eyes, but also how this and the lack of data regarding 51% of the world’s population harms both women and men. And if the book is not enough to really get your gears grinding, Criado Perez has a podcast as well (of the same name) which dives deeper into some of the topics mentioned in her book. I enjoyed both immensely.