TEN-CENT TOUR OF WOMEN’S STUDIES: So in my misspent youth, I read more feminist books than you can shake a stick (or a yonic symbol) at. Some of them are worth reading in their own right; some may appeal to readers who would not run across these books in their ordinary course of life. So here are my capsule reviews, in case anyone is interested, of all the feminist books I can remember. Grain of salt provided free with purchases above $10. Assume all books rated NC-17.

Allison, Dorothy. Bastard Out of Carolina; Skin: Talking About Sex, Class, and Literature; Trash; Two or Three Things I Know for Sure. Allison was one of my writing-inspirations in high school. (I have an autographed copy of Skin, which is not the same as having an autographed skin.) Skin is a collection of essays of varying quality. She’s best when she’s describing her childhood as “poor white trash,” the way that childhood continues to affect her, and the way other people exoticize or misinterpret her experiences. Skin is worth reading if you want a sex-lib feminist take on rural white poverty, child abuse, and reconciling identity politics with a love of literature. If you think Skin is terrific, you will probably also enjoy Two or Three Things, which is one of those slim but pricey books that feels stitched-together to please fans of an author with a distinctive voice. I don’t remember Bastard hardly at all, so won’t comment, except to say that even when I was a huge Allison fan I saw no need to re-read it. Trash, however, is excellent–really ferocious, heartbreaking, bare-knuckled short stories hitting many of the same themes as Skin, but with the added clarity and impact of fiction. (Yes, I think fiction is often more clear and hard-hitting than non-fiction.) Trash is well worth your time.

Bright, Susie. Sexwise. Fluffy and unfair (to her opponents) “sex-positive” essay collection. Whatever.

Carter, Angela. The Bloody Chamber; Heroes and Villains; Love; The Magic Toyshop; Nights at the Circus; Shadow Dance; Wise Children. Carter is a fantastic author who never wrote a fantastic book. Her books are sloppy and scattershot, but full of swift surrealist imagery. She convinced me (mostly via Heroes and Villains) that gender roles are good, which I don’t think was her intention! Nights at the Circus and Wise Children are fun romps; Children also has a sweet, poignant undercurrent. Children is about love of life; “legitimacy” (legitimate children vs. “illegitimate” children; legitimate theater vs. vaudeville); men’s escape from the family; familial jealousy; and artistic creation. Heroes and Villains is a post-apocalyptic tale of a barbarian guy and a citified gal; it’s quick and it has excellent dialogue (Carter has a real feel for the interplay between spoken and unspoken thoughts). The Bloody Chamber is a collection of reworked fairy tales–lush writing, somewhat Tanith-Lee-esque but smarter. TBC includes “The Tiger Bride,” which used to be my favorite short story. (I’m not sure what that would be now–possibly something by Mishima.) If you read those and like them, definitely check out the others I listed–none of them rise to the level of great literature, but all have scattered insights and passages of excellent writing, and all are good solid reads.

Dworkin, Andrea. Intercourse; Right Wing Women; Woman Hating. I read Dworkin after I’d already stopped considering myself a feminist. She achieves some spectacular one-liners and harsh insights, but ultimately she’s a lot like Nietzsche–what she says is likely to be true, but it’s not the whole truth. She’s better at finding the corrupt or self-serving reasons behind seemingly innocuous behavior than she is at sussing out the good or hopeful aspects of human life. Right Wing Women is expectedly simplistic, showing a lot of the flaws of feminism I discuss here; Woman Hating shares that problem (high heels = footbinding? Even for a writer who achieves many of her best effects through theatrical/allegorical exaggeration, this is too much) and also suffers when Dworkin tries to describe what sex would be like without patriarchy. (It would be like water, sort of.) Intercourse is by far the best of these three; it’s Dworkin’s reading of literature from Tolstoy to Isaac Bashevis Singer, and I’d definitely recommend taking a look at the table of contents and reading what she has to say about works or authors that interest you. You can find a lot of Dworkin’s work here.

Feinberg, Leslie. Stone Butch Blues. One of the few books that can consistently make me cry. A hard, hard book to read. Autobiographical novel about blue-collar transgendered (female to male, more or less) Jew in 1960s and ’70s. I can’t actually tell if it’s well-written because it’s so wrenching; I suspect the prose is workaday. Good read if you want or need to be reminded of how the world is experienced by the people punditry forgets.

Hong Kingston, Maxine. The Woman Warrior. Autobiographical novel of Chinese immigration and the lasting effects of the past. Split into three sections: somewhat overwrought but basically good story of sexual terror in China; very well-written retelling of the legend of a female warrior; and okay but somewhat annoying story of Hong Kingston’s stand-in growing up in California. Worth reading if you’re interested in the subject matter, otherwise skippable.

Jones, Lisa. Bulletproof Diva. Fun, if a bit lite, collection of essays on multiracial politics, feminism, and pop culture. Imagine your favorite Village Voice stories collected in one place. Another one worth leafing through if the subjects interest you, but ultimately skippable, although her account of the “Rodeo Caldonia” theater group is hilarious, and in general she’s a funny and sharp writer.

Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider; Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. SO is pretty much essential reading if you want to take a look at how the feminist movement wrestled with racial issues in the 1970s; Lorde was a lesbian of Caribbean background who became involved in “Second Wave” feminism. Zami is more or less an autobiography. It’s got several very memorable scenes–I can still recall quite a bit of the book even though I haven’t read it in years and I have a mind like a sieve. So I suspect it’s pretty well-written. However, again, it’s probably not worth your time unless you are already interested in the subject matter.

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. I have a utilitarian reason to like this novel–it helped young black writers feel more comfortable with black dialect and speech rhythms, and that should produce some good work. It helped students who speak in the annoyingly-named “Ebonics” feel like they and their neighbors weren’t stupid. (June Jordan has an okay essay on this called “Nobody Mean More To Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan.”) On the other hand, it’s a really lame novel with many cliches, including the sappy speech that yields the title.

Anthologies, history, and whatnot: This Bridge Called My Back. Women of color (sorry, can’t think of a less-weird term–“non-white” is even worse) responding to racial bias/ignorance/overlooked issues in Second Wave feminism. I don’t remember anything particularly striking in this book; its historical impact on the feminist movement was huge, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a well-written book. There are some interesting autobiographical reflections, but also the expected helping of racial and class resentment.

Making Face/Making Soul: Haciendo Caras. Something of a sequel to This Bridge, I think? A bigger anthology, more “spiritual” (with all the New-Ageyness that term implies). My reaction to a poem by Paula Gunn Allen summarizes my basic take on this book–it’s called “Some Like Indians Endure,” and it has some poignant lines, but ultimately doesn’t justify its length, and its point is that it sucks to be a lesbian and it sucks to be an Indian but you learn stuff from suffering.

Afrekete. Black lesbian anthology. Andrea Dworkin could give an interesting reading of the autobiographical piece by a stripper.

To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism. Anthology by younger feminists, focusing on perceived conflicts between feminist theory and personal practice. Very postmodern, very “I own my contradictions”; essays by a feminist who has rape fantasies, Naomi Wolf on marriage, a feminist hip-hop fan, a feminist who extols violence against oppressive men, that sort of thing. The emphasis is on affirming oneself and one’s desires, over and against consistency or rigorous analysis or self-sacrifice. Can you tell that I used to think this book was the bomb?

Homegirls. Black feminist anthology, very friendly, kitchen-table flavor, good resource for Second Wave black feminism.

Angry Women. Interview collection. The interviewers ask good questions, and so if you’re interested in any of the interviewees you should check this out. If memory serves, the interviewees are: Susie Bright; Wanda Coleman; Valie Export; Diamanda Galas (really interesting interview, the only one I’d definitely like to re-read); Lydia Lunch; Sapphire; Carolee Schneeman; Annie Sprinkle (weird interview, major lack of what Harold Bloom calls “self-overhearing”–you get the impression that she doesn’t quite realize how sad/naive she sounds at times). I’m probably forgetting a couple.

Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers; Surpassing the Love of Men. Two lesbian-history books by Lillian Faderman. OGATL is a basic, intro-level history of the 20th century. You can get more or less the same picture, in a more fun form, by watching the documentary “Before Stonewall.” Surpassing the Love of Men is a big whopper of a study of “passionate friendships” and romances between 19th- and early 20th-century women. Very, very interesting for a) its portrayal of the ways in which cultural changes shape our emotions and our expressions of those emotions–“romantic love” isn’t usually a pre-cultural, primal, unshakable force; b) its biographical info on a lot of fascinating women; and c) its (un-emphasized, but present nonetheless) descriptions of how a loving and intense relationship can be sustained without sexual contact. Intriguing stuff.