Episode · The Book Review · 2021-03-26
Books mentioned on Tillie Olsen and the Barriers to Creativity
A.O. Scott discussed Tell Me a Riddle by Tillie Olsen, Yonnondio: from the thirties by Tillie Olsen and others, Silences by Tillie Olsen, A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell, Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis and others, and The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner. Pamela Paul discussed The Ravine by Wendy Lower. Parul Sehgal discussed 100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell and others and Yoga by Emmanuel Carrère. Jennifer Szalai discussed Until Justice Be Done by Kate Masur.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Tell Me a Riddle
Discussed“Tilly olssen is a uh a writer who's best known for a collection of short stories called tell me a riddle which was published in the early 1960s”
Where to get it
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Yonnondio: from the thirties
Discussed“she also wrote a novel or a novel was published that she had written earlier in the 1930s called yon Ando which is often taught in University classes now like in in literature of the depression”
Where to get it
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Silences
Discussed“there's a very important essay she wrote which I talk about in the piece called silences which is the what she did when she was at the Radcliffe Institute”
Where to get it
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A Room of One's Own
A Room of One's Own is a revolutionary extended essay by Virginia Woolf based on a series of lectures she delivered at Cambridge, arguing for women's intellectual freedom and financial independence.
Discussed“and the essay I mean silence is in a way is in dialogue with with A Room of One's Own which is Wolf's very important you know almost you'd say revolutionary essay”
Where to get it
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Studs Lonigan
Discussed“I mean I think about writers in in the 30s like James frell in the lonigan trilogy I don't know if it's as read as it used to be but it's a powerful account of a workingclass life”
Where to get it
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Life in the Iron Mills
Discussed“and there was also a writer in the 19th century who Olsen herself sort of rediscovered Rebecca Harding Davis who wrote a book called life in the iron Mills in the early 1860s about Factory life”
Where to get it
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The Big Rock Candy Mountain
The Big Rock Candy Mountain is a sprawling, semi-autobiographical novel by Wallace Stegner that chronicles an itinerant American family's struggles and wanderings across the West through decades of marriage and changing economic times.
Discussed“and that story reminds me a lot of the first writer that I that that I wrote about in this in this series Wallace stegner and his great novel Big Rock Candy Mountain which is about an itinerant Western childhood”
Where to get it
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The Ravine
The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed by Wendy Lower is a harrowing historical investigation that uses a single, haunting photograph to uncover the horrific details of a mass execution of Jewish women and children in Ukraine during the Holocaust.
Discussed“she is the author of Hitler's Furies German women in the Nazi Killing Fields and her new book is called the Ravine a family a photograph a holocaust Massacre revealed”
Where to get it
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100 Boyfriends
Discussed“I reviewed 100 boyfriends by brones Perell who is this polymathic artist”
Where to get it
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Until Justice Be Done
Discussed“I reviewed a book called until Justice be done by Kate merer and she's a historian at Northwestern and her subtitle is America's first Civil Rights Movement from the revolution to reconstruction”
Where to get it
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Yoga
Yoga by Emmanuel Carrère is a genre-bending autobiographical work that chronicles the author's journey through depression, psychiatric hospitalization, and spiritual seeking, while openly questioning the boundary between strict truth and fiction.
Discussed“there's some point where I'm reading like I was recently reading this book yoga by Emanuel carrer and you know there's a point where he's very depressed and he's in a a mental institution”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (8) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“one of the titles of her story is I stand Here ironing which makes me think that that story which was I think in the best American short stories of 1957 touches on some of these ideas”
“anyway goes on to talk about books like the house of Mirth which have sold 75,000 books like Uncle Tom's Cabin which the book seller says sold 2 million copies”
“books like Uncle Tom's Cabin which the book seller says sold 2 million copies in the decades since it had been published”
“she is the author of Hitler's Furies German women in the Nazi Killing Fields and her new book is called the Ravine a family a photograph a holocaust Massacre revealed”
“I have two books on pause right now both of which I intend to finish both of which I was enjoying one of them was travels in Siberia by Ian Frasier”
“the other one is the return of the Native by Thomas as hearty”
“Carl and I reviewed 100 boyfriends by brones Perell”
“I reviewed until Justice be done America's first Civil Rights Movement from the revolution to reconstruction by Kate merer”