Brenda Knight provides us with some intriguing and entertaining profiles of women in the literary scene. They are listed in seven cateogories which include prolific pens, those whose books were banned, women who wrote from a a different spiritual point of view and other interesting facts about women in the field of literature.
Did you know that women were responsible for writing the Bible under the "guidance" of Jerome? Are you aware of the prolific amount of prose penned by Barbara Cartland, Margaret Mead and Edith Wharton? These are just a few tid bits of information that will encourage you to read more.
I enjoyed this book and discovered quite a bit of information about women who love books that I didn't know. This book does suffer from one main fault and that is its mis-statements of facts or getting the facts wrong. For example, she says Maya Angelou received the Nobel Prize for literature which is false. She wrongly identifies Richard Wright as being a part of the Harlem Renaissance movement in her profile of Zora Neale Hurston. Margaret Mitchell did not endowe a medical chair for African-American students going to medical school. Under cover she provided funds for them to attend.
Such mis-statements of facts may make you gun shy of trusting the other "facts" given about women in the book world. Don't be. Do your own exploring and checking and see what you can find. Knight is just a catalyst. I am surprised that women who edit books are missing from this group but that's another book to write.
