|
|
|
Unmentionables: Poems
A new collection by a poet declared "one of the most exciting poets of her generation" (Harvard Review).With elegant wordplay and her usual subversive wit, Beth Ann Fennelly explores the "unmentionable"—not only what is considered too bold but also what can't be said because words are insufficient. In sections of short narratives, she questions our everyday human foibles. Three longer sequences display her admirable reach and fierce intelligence: One, "The Kudzu Chronicles," is a rollicking piece about the transplanted weed. Another, "Bertha Morisot: Retrospective," conjures up a complex life portrait of the French impressionist painter. The third presents fifteen dream songs that virtually out-Berryman Berryman..
Price: $14.27
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
Poop: A Natural History of the Unmentionable (Bccb Blue Ribbon Nonfiction Book Award (Awards))
A noted zoologist teams up with a playful illustrator to present a fun, fact-filled guide to the fascinating (if not fragrant) world of poop across species Hippos navigate by it, sloths keep in touch through it, dung beetles eat it . . . and most grownups would rather not to mention it. Meanwhile, scientists who study animal feces find out all sorts of things, such as how many insects a bat eats or just what technique a T. rex used to devour a triceratops 70 million years ago. However you look at it, poop is the quintessential prototype for recycling and probably the most useful stuff on earth. Take a peek at POOP and find out all you need to know — what it's for, where it goes, and how much we can learn from it..
Price: $5.99
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
The Curse: Confronting the Last Unmentionable Taboo: Menstruation
Village Voice reporter Karen Houppert intrepidly attacks the laissez-faire attitude of many "personal products" companies with The Curse, and her investigations should rabble-rouse women to action. Most notable is her pointed discussion of dioxin, a class A (most toxic of the toxins) carcinogen, and how studies have shown traces of it in tampons from every major U.S. manufacturer. Dioxin is a chemical that's been given "zero tolerance" status by the Environmental Protection Agency because of its strongly suspected link "to lower sperm counts in men, a higher probability of endometriosis in women, and a depressed immune system in both." However, Houppert quotes tampon spokespeople who deny any problem, even though a Food and Drug Administration memo mentions that "the risk of dioxin in tampons 'can be quite high.'" This is exceptionally creepy when you consider that the average American woman spends 36 years menstruating, and if she uses tampons, she'll eventually use more than 11,000 of them. Houppert's amusement with the approaches used by Tambrands and other makers of "female protection" is entertaining at times, but overall, it is purposefully acerbic, especially when it comes to marketing and the damage she claims it has wreaked on women's self-image. Houppert says these corporations have created a pervasive "culture of concealment" surrounding menstruation, perpetuated by advertising and single-sex "puberty education" classes in schools (which, she points out, are usually sponsored by such companies as Procter & Gamble, maker of the infamous Rely tampon that was implicated in 38 toxic shock syndrome-related deaths in 1980). While it seems comical now to see Tampax ads from the 1920s claiming to "permit daintiness at all times" and the campaign of the 1990s that asserts "No one will ever know you've got your period," Houppert successfully argues that the advertisements add a cruel sense of mystery and shame to menstruation. According to a survey from the 1980s that Houppert found during her research, more than 30 percent of adults questioned "thought women should cut down on their physical activities while menstruating" and an even higher percentage of teenage girls didn't know what was happening to them during their first period. And we wonder why teen pregnancy rates are so high. "Because ideas about menstruation tie into prevailing notions that women's bodies are dangerously permeable," Houppert writes, "they become a part of the controlling myths our culture has spun to manipulate our perceptions of ourselves and our sexuality. Menstrual etiquette is an element of a woman's experience that contributes to this disorienting effect." She points out that a woman is more likely to tell a coworker about an affair than walk down the hall to the restroom with a tampon in hand. Her book is a revelation, a brilliant analysis of corporate influence and personal shame and how both are detrimental to the health--physical and mental--of women. --Erica Jorgensen.
Price: $11.95
[Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters
An utterly original exploration of the world of human waste that will surprise, outrage—and entertain Produced behind closed doors, disposed of discreetly, and hidden by euphemism, bodily waste is something common to all and as natural as breathing, yet we prefer not to talk about it. But we should—even those of us who take care of our business in pristine, sanitary conditions. For it’s not only in developing countries that human waste is a major public health threat: population growth is taxing even the most advanced sewage systems, and the disease spread by waste kills more people worldwide every year than any other single cause of death. Even in America, 1.95 million people have no access to an indoor toilet. Yet the subject remains unmentionable. The Big Necessity takes aim at the taboo, revealing everything that matters about how people do—and don’t—deal with their own waste. Moving from the deep underground sewers of Paris, London, and New York—an infrastructure disaster waiting to happen—to an Indian slum where ten toilets are shared by 60,000 people, Rose George stops along the way to explore the potential saviors: China’s five million biogas digesters, which produce energy from waste; the heroes of third world sanitation movements; the inventor of the humble Car Loo; and the U.S. Army’s personal lasers used by soldiers to zap their feces in the field. With razor-sharp wit and crusading urgency, mixing levity with gravity, Rose George has turned the subject we like to avoid into a cause with the most serious of consequences. .
Price: $17.16
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
Unmentionables: A Woman's Journey, Body to Soul
When the MGM Grand in Las Vegas burned in one of the worst hotel fires in U.S. history, 20-year-old performer Katherine Durack was suddenly alone, out of work, and desperate to find a new career. Twenty-five years later, she had earned a PhD, received national recognition for her scholarly work, and settled into a university teaching position. But then her career unexpectedly collapsed, and Durack found herself embarking on a new journey of exploration and connection. Comprised of fifteen essays written with wit and wisdom, Unmentionables shares Durack's deeply personal exploration of the notion that the body is a road to the soul. Each essay represents a touchstone of the body, helping to map the connections that root spirit to flesh and silence to speech and healing. Durack delves into key points of her life to illustrate how women need not fear embracing change in both their physical and spiritual beings. From her stint as a singer in Las Vegas to her career as a college educator, Durack offers an intimate look at how she faced the unique challenges of finding her true voice within each situation. Required reading for every woman of every age, Unmentionables brilliantly explores our essential need to embrace the entirety of our experiences in order to heal and be whole..
Price: $8.72
[Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
Unmentionable Cuisine
An engaging look at "food prejudices," or why we eat what we eat and why we reject other food sources as unpalatable--with recipes! "This is a unique and engrossing work and, to my mind, an important contribution to the annals of gastronomy It will not, of course, appeal to all palates . . . but neither do snails and sweetbreads, brains and other oddments of animals." --Craig Claiborne "I read from cover to cover with huge enjoyment. . . I can recall no other book that has covered the subject of strange foods with quite his flair and authority, and I consider the book required reading for anyone interested in the lore of food." --James Beard.
Price: $22.05
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
UNMENTIONABLES: A Brief History of Underwear
"Boxers or Briefs?" has become a political litmus test for presidential candidates, but what does the answer really tell us? Quite a lot, argue Elaine Benson and John Esten in Unmentionables: A Brief History of Underwear. The question posed to Bill Clinton in 1992 may seem silly, but undergarments have a distinctly political part to play in history. During the women's movement, it was not effegies of men that women burnt, but bras, a daily reminder of difference--if not inequality. The history of underwear is an exposition that marks out the roles of culture and nature, the position of women, and the American love affair with the T-shirt. This thoroughly illustrated volume covers all, from the first fig leaf to the newest Fruit of the Looms and from bloomers to panties, revealing a side of humanity not often seen in public..
Price: $19.98
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
|
|
|