Some people ask us what we mean by “a women’s bookstore.”
It’s easiest to explain from the beginning. We started the store because we were interested in women, and in their possibilities.
As women, we were discouraged to find that most books available to us were by men, and were usually also about men and for men.
As feminists, we were angry at the lack of books that portrayed women the way we saw them – as intelligent, strong, creative human beings.
[ . . . ]
How do we choose our books? Someday maybe we’ll actually have a system. . . There are many books we’d love to sell, but have not yet been able to locate. We’re trying.
PERIODICALS
APHRA – $1.00
(feminist literary journal)
NON-FICTION
ABORTION IN CANADA, Eleanor Perline – $1.50
(medical, legal & practical aspect)
BACKWOODS OF CANADA, Catherine Parr Trail – $1.75
(life of early Canadian settler, in east.)
BEGIN AT START, Su Negrin – $1.35
(notes on lesbian-feminism, childrens liberation)
BIRTH BOOK, Raven Lang. – $6.00
(instructions for home delivery, with accounts of others’ experiences; illust.)
BIRTH CONTROL IN THE MODERN WORLD, E. Draper – $3.25
(sociological factors in population control)
(THE) BLACK WOMAN, Toni Cade – 95¢
(anthology)
BLACK WOMEN IN WHITE AMERICA, G. Lerner – $3.95
(anthology)
BOOK OF SMALL, Emily Carr – $1.75
(autobio – early years of Canadian painter)
CANADIAN WOMEN & THE LAW, June Callwood – $2.50
COMING OF AGE, Simone de Beauvoir – $2.25
(on growing old)
DESTINATION CHUNGKING, Han Suyin – $1.25
(1st in autobio/historical series)
DIALECTIC OF SEX, Shulamith Firestone – $1.25
(feminist theory with eye to technological solutions such as artificial conception; also noted for ideas on love & childrens’ liberation)
FANSHEN, William Hinton – $2.95
(set in revolutionary period in China; sarah says fanshen means to make over)
FEMINISM: ESSENTIAL HISTORICAL WRITINGS – $2.45
edited by Miriam Schneir
FIRST MS. READER, ed Francine Klagsbrun – $1.50
(anthology of articles in Ms. magazine)
FIRST SEX, Elizabeth Gould Davis – $1.95
(herstory of matriarchal cultures)
FREE SPACE, Pamela Allen. – $1.35
(“on small groups in women’s liberation)
GERTRUDE STEIN: WRITING & LECTURES – $2.25
GRAPHIC NOTEBOOK ON FEMINISM, Su Negrin – $1.00
(a historical collage)
GROWING UP FEMALE IN AMERICA, Eve Merriam – $1.50
(10 biogs: cross-section time/circumstance)
HALFBREED, Maria Campbell – $4.50
(autobiog of native Canadian woman)
I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, Maya Angelou
(autobiog: growing up as a black, mostly in southern U.S. Angelou is a dancer & writer)
IT’S EASY TO FIX YOUR BIKE, J. McFarlane – $4.50
(well-illustrated with photos)
LESBIAN NATION, Jill Johnston – $7.95
(mix of autobiography & lesbian-feminist theory)
LESBIAN/WOMAN, Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon – $1.50
(Like ‘Sappho Was a Right-On Woman’, this book is an insider’s study of lesbianism. Both cover personal & political aspects. But Lesbian/Woman is the more personal in style and is more gay liberation oriented than ‘Sappho’)
MASCULINE/FEMINISM, Betty & Theodore Roszak – $2.45
(anthology)
MENSTRUAL CYCLE, Katharina Dalton – $1.15
(health)
MOTHER WAS NOT A PERSON, M. Andersen – $3.95
(comprehensive feminist anthology, Canadian)
MOTHERS & AMAZONS, Helen Diner – $2.50
(global study of cultures that supports her thesis that the patriarchy is a new invention)
MRS SATAN, Johanna Johnston (hardback) – $1.95
(biog of Victoria Woodhull, early feminist and advocate of sexual freedom)
OUR BODIES, OUR SELVES, Boston Women’s Health Collective – $3.50
(comprehensive health guide, includes chapters on sexuality, pregnancy)
PEOPLE’S COMIC BOOK (political guide) – $3.50
PROSTITUTION PAPERS, Kate Millett, ed. – $1.25
(transcribed tapes of prostitutes on their work)
PSYCHOANALYSIS & WOMEN – $2.95
Anthology, ed. by Jean Miller M.D.
RED EMMA SPEAKS, ed A. Shulman – $2.45
(writings of Emma Goldman)
ROSA LUXEMBOURG SPEAKS, Luxembourg – $4.75
(theory of early 20th C. Marxist activist)
SANITY, MADNESS & THE FAMILY – $1.45
R.D. Laing & H. Esterson. (case histories of eleven families, emphasis on women)
SCUM MANIFESTO, Valerie Solanas – 95¢
(society for cutting up men manifesto)
SELF-DEFENSE FOR WOMEN – $1.95
B. Tegner & A. McGrath. (illustrated)
STATUS OF WOMEN IN CANADA – $4.50
(report on the royal commison)
STYLES OF RADICAL WILL, S. Sontag – $2.95
(critical essays)
TO BE YOUNG, GIFTED & BLACK – 95¢
(biog of Lorraine Hansberry, black playwright (Raisin in the Sun, Young, Gifted & Black))
THE TRAFFIC IN WOMEN & OTHER ESSAYS – $1.00
Emma Goldman
WITCHES, MIDWIVES & NURSES – $1.00
Ehrenreich & English.
(women’s role in medicine: herstory)
(THE) WOMAN ALONE, Patricia O’Brien – $9.15
(based on many histories; theme is development of psychic self-reliance)
WOMAN & THE PUBLIC INTEREST – $3.95
Jessie Bernard (sociological thesis)
WOMEN’S ESTATE, Juliet Mitchell – $1.50
WOMEN UNITE (published 3 years back) – $3.00
(anthology of Canadian women’s movement)
WOMEN, RESISTANCE & REVOLUTION, S. Rowbotham
(theory of modern English feminist) – $8.95
NONSEXIST CHILDRENS LITERATURE
ANN AURELIA & DOROTHY, Natalie Carlson – 75¢
(foster child adjusts to her new life)
(8-12)
DAUGHTER OF THE MOUNTAINS, L. Rankin (9-12) 50¢
I’M LIKE ME, Siv Wibergerg – $1.50
(poetry; adults like it too)
(9-12)
SIDEWALK STORY, Sharon Mathis – 95¢
(children fight a family’s eviction)
(8-12)
ZEELY, Virginia Hamilton – 95¢
(girl learns & unlearns heroine-worship)
(9-12)
FICTION
BELL JAR, Sylvia Plath – $2.95
(autobiographical novel of the poet; talented woman struggles to keep sane during the 50’s)
BLISS & OTHER STORIES, Katherine Mansfield – 85¢
“Tomato soup is so dreadfully eternal . . . ”
(Too bad she died young – subtle & precise images of people set in 1910’s & often of artists of bourgeoisie)
BRIEFING FOR DESCENT INTO HELL, Doris Lessing
(inner space fiction: man goes insane to find out when recovered that everyone else is insane. Rolling Stone magazine called it 1,000 micrograms of sunshine lsd) – $1.50
BURN THIS & MEMORIZE YOURSELF, Alta – $1.00
(feminist poetry)
CHERI/LAST OF CHERI, Colette – $1.50
(unhappy story of man’s love for older woman)
COMMON WOMAN, Judy Grahn – 20¢
(feminist poetry)
CRABDANCE, Beverly Simons – $2.50
(highly praised Canadian play about an aging suburban housewife who’s ANGry)
DADDY WAS A NUMBER RUNNER, L. Meriweather
(girlhood in a black urban slum) – 95¢
EDIBLE WOMAN, Margaret Atwood – $2.75
(at last – after centuries of women being called pears and filet mignon – a novel of a woman who identifies with the consumed, in a consumer society)
EFFECTS OF GAMMA RAYS ON MAN-IN-THE-MOON MARIGOLDS, Carl Zindel – 95¢
(effect of eccentric life on eccentric Beatrice Hunsdorfer & her effect in turn upon her eccentric daughters)
FLINT & FEATHER, Pauline Johnson (poems) – $1.95
FRANKENSTEIN, Mary Shelley – 60¢
(the original story)
GUERILLERES, Monique Wittig – $1.50
(feminist ideas presented in vision of amazon culture that, with male allies, destroys the global patriarchy & forms a matriarchy; her poetic prose style is beautiful, tho all her images aren’t)
HARD LOVING, Marge Piercy – $2.45
(poetry on love & politics; Piercy has written 3 novels, the last dealing with feminism, lesbianism & going underground – will list soon)
HOUSE OF INCEST, Anais Nin – $1.25
MOTHER COURAGE, Bertold Brecht – $1.50
(drama)
NANA, Zola – $2.15
ORLANDO, Virginia Woolf – $1.50
(high-spirited, containing ideas on the relations between the sexes & on bisexuality)
SEVERED HEAD, Iris Murdoch – $1.15
WOMAN IN THE DUNES, Kobo Abe – $1.95
(famous contemporary Japanese novel)
LAST MINUTE ARRIVALS
TOWARDS A RECOGNITION OF ANDROGYNY – $6.95
Caroline Heilbroner
(Andro is male, Gyn female; Heilbroner’s specialty is literature, so this study of history of acceptance of androgyny, has special focus on the Bloomsbury Group)
UNBECOMING MEN (male collective) – $1.50
(by male consciousness raising group; Short book concentrates on growing up)
(doing this catalog was awful, tho i got
more reading done than in last 2 years:
reading in bed on toilet at table on bus.
worked insane stretches of time,
surviving on cookies & yogurt & green
pea eggswirl soup with cockroaches in it.
didn’t sleep except occasionally, on
people’s floors, curled in the bags
under my eyes.
my name is jeannine mitchell & i wouldn’t
dream of forgetting to scrounge whatever
credit i can off this damn thing. i promise
never to do it again.