Kate Bolick is a contributing editor to The Atlantic. She was previously the executive editor of Domino magazine. She lives in New York.
New York Times bestseller *One of Flavorwire's 10 Books That Will
Define the Conversation in 2015* *One of Newsday's Books Not to
Miss* *One of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Social Science Titles of
2015*
*One of Bookpage's "15 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2015"*
*One of Vogue.com's Recommended Spring Books for 2015*
*Featured in Bookish's Spring Preview*
*Featured in Bustle's Spring Preview* "What's surprising about
Spinster is how, in its charmingly digressive style, the book sets
forth a clear vision not just for single women, but for all women:
to disregard the reigning views of how women should live, to know
their own hearts and to carve out a little space for their dreams."
--New York Times Book Review
"Awakened and inspired by the lives of five historical women,
Bolick revels in her own singledom in this blazingly smart memoir,
which argues that "spinster" should be a coveted destination, not a
dirty word. Her eloquent, provocative story illustrates how
charting a unique course can make any life truly singular."
--People "Bolick weaves memoir, feminist theory, and biographies of
five forgone writers into a riveting, essential text. Bolick's
voice crackles with wit, sharp criticism, and breathtaking
metaphors as she makes an enticing case for spinsterhood."
--Entertainment Weekly
"Bolick's rich chronicle makes Spinster one of the most important
works of feminist cultural history of the last 20 years...Let this
remarkable memoir stand as an important political reckoning for
women's trajectories, and a moving personal effort toward that
greater vision." --National Post "Bolick's evocation of the
untethered state is often beautiful, her metaphors precise and
lyrical in the manner of her heroines. More important, she does not
flinch from describing just how alone alone can feel...Bolick is
adept at spotting the unexamined confusions and curious silences
that have arisen in the wake of an incomplete sexual
revolution--and that bedevil those of us who are living outside of
our culture's sturdiest institutions." --Elle "A pleasing,
intelligent book. Bolick's minibiographies of her five awakeners
are captivating, and she is great company on the page-perhaps she
will prove to be an awakener for a new generation."--TIME "Often
lyrical...a personal story of the pleasures and challenges of being
a woman at a time of changing rules and seemingly endless
possibilities." --The Economist "Bolick's intimate exploration of
spinsterhood celebrates the courage of defining for oneself what it
means to be happy." --Newsday "Bolick's cri de coeur dispels the
'conundrum' of the willfully single female." --O Magazine
"In Spinster, a sharp-witted paean to the single life, Kate Bolick
explains why she has consciously opted out of coupling." --Harper's
Bazaar
"Provocative...A uniquely American quest for a life without regrets
- and without a partner." --Associated Press "Stemming from
Bolick's fantastic Atlantic cover story, "All the Single Ladies,"
Spinster expands on that initial work, in a beautiful piece of
cultural history that should prove inspiring and thought-provoking
for women of all ages. Bolick takes us deep into her own story as a
single woman, and explores the lives of her "awakeners" -- women
like Maeve Brennan and Edna St. Vincent Millay, who served as
models and warnings of the rich life that could be made, free from
the constraints of a traditional marriage." --Flavorwire
"Something to celebrate...[Spinster offers] models for women's
lives distinct from the demands of the domestic realm." --The Week
"In this beautifully articulated memoir-cultural/historical
examination mashup, Bolick shares both her own reasons for
remaining unmarried, as well as sharing examples of great spinsters
throughout history (such as Edna St. Vincent Millay and Charlotte
Perkins Gilman), absolving the term's negative connotations in the
process...Bolick's newest is an inspirational treatise that will
help define a nascent generation of women who choose to live
happily independently." --Bustle "While the stereotypes of
spinsters are mostly unflattering--cue the cat lady, the bag lady
and Grey Gardens--Bolick's Spinster offers a corrective through
nuanced portraits of women who love and are loved, and who choose
to place their work and their friends at the center of their lives.
Engaging and informative, Spinster offers a decidedly non-"Sex and
the City" portrait of the challenges and opportunities of single
life." --Bookpage "Kate Bolick brings a bracing feminist
consciousness to bear on the lives of five unconventional women of
the past and on her own young life in the twenty-first century. She
writes about the dilemmas of love and work--then and now--with rare
perspicacity and poignancy." --Janet Malcolm, author of The
Journalist and the Murderer "Spinster is a triumph, a provocative
and moving exploration of what it means for a woman to chart her
own course." --Malcolm Gladwell, author of David and Goliath
"Kate Bolick's Spinster will take your breath away. Writing with a
bold vision and in incandescent prose, Bolick gives us a user's
guide to going solo -- and a gorgeous work of cultural criticism."
--Susan Cain, co-founder of Quiet Revolution and bestselling author
of Quiet "In Spinster, her wise and subtle memoir, Kate Bolick
explores that freighted term--and the often-maligned woman to whom
it is attached--and deftly, persuasively reclaims it. In telling
the stories of her literary 'awakeners'--five vividly-conjured
women who escaped the conventional ties of marriage and family--and
in elegantly weaving cultural history into her own personal
progress to maturity, Bolick shows by argument and example that the
single life is not a predicament to be escaped, but a distinctive,
demanding, rewarding form of freedom. I wish I could give this book
to my thirty-year-old self; she would have taken heart and
inspiration from Bolick's bold and intelligent
self-examination--not necessarily to follow her path, but to be
tenderly reminded of this simple but easily neglected truth: that
there is another way to want to be." --Rebecca Mead, author of My
Life in Middlemarch "What happens when you don't get married?
Setting out to answer this question, Kate Bolick has written a
moving, insightful, and important inquiry into how women's lives
are narrated--not just in poems, novels, biographies, and memoirs,
but also in our own heads, every day, as we make the constant
stream of decisions that constitute a human life. Ambitious in the
best way, Spinster made me think differently about everything from
novelistic plot to the meaning of furniture."--Elif Batuman, author
of The Possessed "Kate Bolick has written a heart-stirringly
wonderful book--a diary, a history lesson, and a meditation on what
it really means to be an independent woman at this moment in
America. A fiercely smart young writer, so very much of her time
that any urban single woman of "marriagable" age will instantly
relate to her (and those of us who used to be that woman will, as
well) --decides to attack the idea that marriage must be a female
goal. She takes us on her journey from her New England girlhood
through an advancing literary and media career, with and without
boyfriends, in Boston and then, most heart-stirringly, in New York.
She intersperses each vulnerably lived but precisely analyzed step
with the inspiration she has searched out, with touching passion,
from magnificently singular role models from the late 19th and
early 20th century. She calls these heroines her 'awakeners, ' But
by the end of Spinster it is we who have been awakened by Bolick's
insistence on an examined life--a glowingly examined life--and the
reminder that this ruminative self-honesty, this peace-making with
oneself, is not only what we must nourish but also what can save
us." --Sheila Weller, author of The News Sorority and Girls Like
Us
"Women of the world, listen here: Drop whatever you're doing and
read Kate Bolick's marvelous meditation on what it means to be
female at the dawn of the 21st century. Part self-investigation,
part social history, this utterly singular book reminded me, in its
warmth and wit, of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love and Rebecca
Mead's My Life in Middlemarch, but ultimately Bolick's restless,
razor-like intelligence calls to mind none other than Betty
Friedan. And like The Feminine Mystique, Spinster will make you
re-think your entire life, if not radically change it." --Joanna
Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year and A Fortunate Age "Today,
women throughout the world have embarked on an unprecedented
experiment in solo living, and no one has chronicled the experience
with the candor, insight, and intelligence of Kate Bolick. Spinster
is part memoir, part social history, part adventure story, all
riveting. No matter whether we're married or single, it invites us
to think seriously about how we want to live." --Eric Klinenberg,
author of Going Solo
"[A] powerful memoir...Bolick's intense and moving combination of
personal, historical, and cultural narratives will inspire
readers--especially women--to think about what they want their own
lives to be, and how close they are to their goals." --Publishers
Weekly [starred] "Refreshingly bold and incisive... As Bolick
traces her evolution into a woman unapologetic for her choices and
unafraid of her own personal freedom, she also reclaims the
derogatory word 'spinster' for all females, married or not... A
sexy, eloquent, well-written study/memoir." -Kirkus Reviews
[starred] "Smartly written, intimate, and heartfelt, Spinster
challenges readers to reconsider what a successful life feels like
for women and gifts them with a wondrous group of historic figures
to immerse themselves in. A brilliant and timely narrative for
twenty-first-century bluestockings, and book groups shall rejoice
from all the wonders it has to offer." -Booklist "Author Kate
Bolick of The Atlantic writes an assured and engaging volume on the
subject of spinsterhood, and in doing so reclaims the word and
makes it entirely her own. Whether you're a woman, or you simply
know some, this is an enlightening read about breaking free of
conventional wisdom of love and marriage. Bolick is a feminist hero
in the making."-Bookish "Bolick's message for readers is a
celebration of the delights, challenges and opportunities of
remaining single." -Shelf Awareness
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