Book of the Month: January

I read a lot of books. I read 80 books last year and my goal this year is actually to try to limit myself to only reading 50 books this year so I will give myself more of a chance to work on other projects. It is only February 3rd and I am already ahead of schedule. I think the only way to keep within my allotted number of books for the year is to read some really long ones...

Every month there is a guarantee that I will read at least two books: one for my in-person Women Reading Women book club, and one for Emma Watson's online feminist book club. Anyway you look at that, it means I will be reading several books per month and while I think it would be a great exercise to write reviews for every single book I read, that just doesn't seem very likely. Some books warrant longer discussions than others. Also, I'm not a huge fan of writing long, drawn out accounts of books I didn't particularly enjoy. To me, that feels like not enjoying it twice. Instead I've decided to pick one book each month that particularly stands out of all the books I finished that month. That way, at the end of the year, I will in theory have a list of my twelve favorite reads of the year. We shall see how this actually turns out but it is worth a shot, right?

I finished six books in January. Most of them were quite enjoyable. (If you want to see how I felt about all six books, you should follow me on GoodReads.com) My favorite book for January was the book I read because of Emma Watson's book club. Gloria Steinem's, "My Life on the Road," was a beautiful tale about how traveling has shaped her work and her views about the world. The majority of her travels were within the United States so she was able to see firsthand what was important to different people and different areas. Steinem has been a revolutionary in a time of continued revolution. She participated in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, she has been an advocate for women's rights of all kinds, she is the co-founder of Ms. magazine, she has also advocated for Native American and gay rights. She is a person for people and as such an advocate, she has facilitated many town hall discussions to enable ordinary citizens to make their voices heard. In this process, Steinem has found the huge discrepancies between what the media says that Americans want and what average citizens tell her they want.

What I most loved about this book was Steinem's positive outlook about the impact travel has upon a person. It is difficult to remain ignorant to the struggles of ordinary people when you are looking them in the eye. The only way to truly know a place is to actually talk to the people who live there and have lived there for generations. While single women especially are dissuaded from traveling on their own, Steinem argues that travel of this kind is essential for a person's growth. An unexplored life is a wasted opportunity.

I would encourage anyone who has traveled or wishes to travel to read this book. Not only does this book tell the tale of the fight for feminism and civil rights in this county, but of the individuals who helped make change possible at a micro level.