Author of the week: Caitlin Moran
The London Times columnist is preparing to mount a own one-woman British Invasion with her newly released autobiography.
Caitlin Moran is preparing to mount her own one-woman British Invasion, said Jesse Ellison in TheDailyBeast.com. After 20 years of “pretending to be normal” while working at the buttoned-up London Times, the 37-year-old columnist created a smash hit in the U.K. last year with her brash autobiography, How to Be a Woman. Newly released in the U.S., the book offers a funny, unabashedly honest take on modern womanhood. “So much of being a woman is about keeping secrets,” Moran says. “True things about being a woman—bleeding, masturbating, being pregnant...you’re led to believe that if you’re ever truthful about all these bad things, you’d be socially ostracized. The thing that I’ve realized is if you actually do say these things, nothing bad happens.”
Moran’s book is more than just an autobiography, said Peggy Orenstein in Slate.com. At its core is a spirited defense of contemporary feminism. Described by Moran as “Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch written from a barstool,” it takes women to task for, among other things, considering feminism unfashionable. “What part of ‘liberation for women’ is not for you?” Moran writes. “Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? ‘Vogue’ by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good s--- GET ON YOUR NERVES?” Her ultimate goal, says Moran, is revolution, to change the world for the sake of her young daughters: “I have six years to make it into a feminist paradise so my little girls won’t get screwed up.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
The end of Weight Watchers
Talking Point The diet brand has filed for bankruptcy in the US as it struggles to survive in era of weight-loss jabs
-
Trump vs. China: another tariff U-turn?
Today's Big Question Washington and Beijing make huge tariff cuts, as both sides seek 'exit ramp' from escalating trade war
-
Syria's Druze sect: caught in the middle of Israeli tensions
The Explainer Israel has used attacks on religious minority by forces loyal to Syria's new government to justify strikes across the border
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-ups
feature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”