Summer Reading: Get Excited About Your Body

I  love the "light summer reading" concept. I took it to heart and just read Judy Blume’s Summer Sisters, an oldie but fluffy goodie. Her readable style kept me entertained and gave me a sweet trip back to age twelve, when I read Forever, my first novel with explicit sex. Apparently Forever was Blume’s book for her teen daughter where the sexually active girl didn’t have to die. On her website, Blume says that writing it in this day and age would include info on STIs.

But I also like to wander through books I’ve already loved. Non-fiction wise, I recently turned to Natalie Angier’s Woman: An Intimate Geography. I read this book not long after it first came out in 1999, and I’m assuming that some of the findings she presented here have changed, but what I love about her writing is the energy. She seems to love this topic, us, our bodies and their amazing capacities and capabilities. The energy reminds me of Owning Pink, a celebratory site that Ob/Gyn Lissa Rankin and other “pinkies’ see as a place where people can explore their whole selves- biology, emotions, spirit, and creativity.

Angier’s writing celebrates the gamut of the formation of a female fetus through puberty, breastmilk and on to menopause without any flag in enthusiasm. A review of the book at the time derided that enthusiasm somewhat, but I was struck by it then and now. I say we need that kind of enthusiasm for our bodies. They really are amazing. 

– Janet

Check This Out: on the "one more time" front: Beach Boys’ I Get Around….

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