Howling Frog Books

Women's Work: A Reckoning With Work and Home, by Megan K. Stack I had no idea this book would be so absorbing, but after all, I'm always interested in reading about the issues around family, motherhood, and housekeeping!  This hit a lot of my buttons, and as with the Divakaruni book I wrote about a few weeks ago, I'm only sorry that for the most part, only women will read this and men won't be inclined to pick it up -- because although the title is about women, the actual subject matter is about families, work, and how we structure society.  Stack structures her book as a sort of memoir and sort of meditation on how we patch work and family together with money...or not. Megan Stack used to be a correspondence reporter, traveling the world's more dangerous spots after news stories.  Her husband, Tom, was the same, and eventually they decided to settle down in Beijing, where Stack planned to have a baby and write the novel she's been planning.  Seems easy enough, ...

Sixpence in Her Shoe , by Phyllis McGinley I don't actually know that much about the mid-century American poet Phyllis McGinley, except that she won a Pulitzer Prize.  And she wrote this book, which is about "the world's oldest profession," housewifery, specifically as practiced in modern America.  Three sections on Wife, House, and Family organize a selection of chapters/essays, many of which ran in the Ladies' Home Journal or other magazines in the 1950s, and were then collected and edited into a book in 1960. McGinley's thesis here is that the domestic calling is an honorable one, not to be despised -- not even by intelligent and educated women -- which can be blended, or not, with a profession, as the individual woman prefers.  Every so often she is clearly rebutting Betty Friedan. It's a fun and refreshing read.  McGinley is a witty, humorous writer, and I love reading books about housekeeping.  (I'm not quite so good at the actual housekee...

The Pocket Enquire Within: A Guide to the Niceties and Necessities of Victorian Domestic Life , ed. by George Armstrong Once upon a time, in 1856, a general book of knowledge, mostly domestic, was published under the delightful title Enquire Within Upon Everything .  It continued in print for over a hundred years and over a hundred editions!  My mom gave me this "pocket" version, containing the most interesting and entertaining parts of the original 1856 edition, for Christmas.  It's a fun book to dip into! Chapters deal with such topics as housekeeping, home remedies, family life, and entertaining.  And wow, I learned a lot!  The Enquire Within people were very big on leeches, for example.  My first clue was a piece on "how often to change the water in which leeches are kept," which as you'll note, implies that keeping leeches is not unusual .  The medical section then has lots of information on leeches, including how to use them (be careful wh...