Daphne Gordon

With her essays on the theme of trauma, Sarah Polley hits work culture right in the body

BOOK REVIEW: Run Towards The Danger

by Sarah Polley

Let me start this rave review by stating that I’m far from unbiased as a book reviewer.

I don’t pick up books that don’t interest me. I don’t finish books I don’t like. I don’t write about books I wouldn’t recommend to a friend. So if I pen a book review, it’s automatically a four- or five-star treatment. And this one is no different.

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Daphne Gordon

Rise Sister Rise is the rousing call I need to hear right now

Rebecca Campbell’s 2016 book envisions a Tangibly better future for women

Rise Sister Rise: A Guide to Unleashing the Wise, Wild Woman Within practically jumped into my hands the first time I saw it. The cover, the colours, the title, the subtitle and the author bio on the back page… They all spoke directly to me.

And yet, I didn’t buy it that first time I held it in my hands. I don’t really understand why. But now that I’ve read it, I think maybe I wasn’t quite ready to hear the wisdom within this surprisingly empowering book.

Campbell’s tome, which rings with poetic truth, says exactly what I need to hear right now. The book is an invocation and an invitation for all women to turn to the wisdom they already have. It also calls for women to cultivate sacred sisterhoods.

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Marissa Orr's book Lean Out rests on a table beside a ham sandwich

Daphne Gordon

Marissa Orr’s Lean Out helped me make sense of my own ambition

Did Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In make you want to cry out in despair? Me too. Marissa Orr’s Lean Out, on the other hand, made me want to shout out my wholehearted agreement

When I read Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In a few years ago, I wanted to cry, rage and throw the book across the room. It made me feel irrelevant, odd, and lazy because I don’t care to have a big career where I bust my ass 12 hours a day in profit-serving work that would infest my life like a non-native species were I to rest for a minute.

On the other hand, when I read Marissa Orr’s Lean Out, an open response to Sheryl Sandberg’s book, I certainly shed a tear or two while turning pages. But for a completely different reason. I felt recognized, heard, and validated.

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