On Women, Susan Sontag
On Women, Susan Sontag
List: $22.99 | Sale: $16.09
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On Women

Author: Susan Sontag, Merve Emre, David Rieff

Narrator: Laurel Lefkow

Unabridged: 6 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/06/2023


Synopsis

A pithy and brilliant introduction to Susan Sontag’s writing on women, gathering early essays on aging, equality, beauty, sexuality, and fascism

Susan Sontag was one of the most formidable, original, and influential thinkers of the last century. “The most interesting ideas are heresies,” she remarked, and indeed, her writing rejects the familiar and refuses party lines.

On Women presents seven essays and exchanges, spanning a range of subjects: the challenges and humiliations women face as they age; the relationship between women’s liberation and class struggle; beauty, which Sontag calls “that over-rich brew of so many familiar opposites”; feminism; fascism; and film. Taken together, these pieces—relentlessly curious, historically precise, politically robust, and allergic to easy categorization Sontag’s inimitable mind at work.

About Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag was the author of four novels, including The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America, which won the 2000 National Book Award for fiction; a collection of stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed; and nine works of essays, among them On Photography, which won the National Books Critics Circle Award for criticism. In 2001, Sontag was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for the body of her work. She died in New York City in 2004.

About David Rieff

David Rieff is a New York-based journalist and author. During the nineteen-nineties, he covered conflicts in Africa (Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Liberia), the Balkans (Bosnia and Kosovo), and Central Asia. Now a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, he has written extensively about Iraq, and, more recently, about Latin America. He is the author of eight books, including Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West and A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis. His memoir of his mother’s final illness, Swimming in a Sea of Death, appeared in January 2008. Based in New York City, Rieff is currently working on a book about the global food crisis.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Rosemary on October 08, 2023

Despite much engaging writing, this occasionally laborious collection fails to really showcase Sontag’s capabilities. And the title is slightly unnecessary too.......more

Goodreads review by nathan on December 06, 2024

READING VLOG *3.5 rounded up “𝘋𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘗𝘢𝘴𝘵, 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘍𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘭𝘭. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴, 𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺, 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘰 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴. 𝘐𝘧 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘳......more

Goodreads review by Jennie on October 26, 2023

First half of this book was positively fantastic. Sontag loses some steam when she starts talking about fascism and the book begins to read more like an academic journal.......more