Our Recommended Books, Music & Movies for Sisterhood

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Last updated 4/26/2005

  Books

1.  Sisters 10th Anniversary Edition

    by Carol Saline, Sharon J. Wohlmuth (Hardcover - 2004)

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   From Amazon.com: Saline interviews 36 sets of sisters ranging from preschoolers to octogenarians. Some are well known (tennis star Chris Evert and sisters Jeanne and Clare; model Christy Turlington and sisters Erin and Kelly; Coretta Scott King and her sister Edythe). Others (Donna, Debbie and Shirley Masiejczyk, each a police officer; Catherine and Mary Glackin, both nuns) are also worth knowing. This exploration of a special relationship is made even more affecting by the black-and-white photographs of the sisters taken by Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Wohlmuth.

2.   Me & Emma

    by Elizabeth Flock (Hardcover - 2005)

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   From Amazon.com: The title characters in Me & Emma are very nearly photographic opposites--8-year-old Carrie, the raven-haired narrator, is timid and introverted, while her little sister Emma is a tow-headed powerhouse with no sense of fear. The girls live in a terrible situation: they depend on an unstable mother that has never recovered from her husband’s murder, their stepfather beats them regularly, and they must forage on their own for food.

Stop here and you have a story told many times before, as fiction and nonfiction in tales like Ellen Foster, or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings--stories in which a young girl reveals the horrors of her childhood. Me & Emma differentiates itself with a spectacular finish, shocking the reader and turning the entire story on its head. Through several twists and turns the reader learns that things are not quite the way our narrator led us to believe and everything crescendos in a way that (like all good thrillers) immediately makes you want to go back and read the whole book again from the start.
 

3.   Riding the Bus With My Sister: A True Life Journey

    by Rachel Simon (Paperback - 2003)

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   From Amazon.com: This perceptive, uplifting chronicle shows how much Simon, a creative writing professor at Bryn Mawr College, had to learn from her mentally retarded sister, Beth, about life, love and happiness. Beth lives independently and is in a long-term romantic relationship, but perhaps the most surprising thing about her, certainly to her (mostly) supportive family, is how she spends her days riding buses. Six days a week (the buses don't run on Sundays in her unnamed Pennsylvania city), all day, she cruises around, chatting up her favorite drivers, dispensing advice and holding her ground against those who find her a nuisance. Rachel joined Beth on her rides for a year, a few days every two weeks, in an attempt to mend their distanced relationship and gain some insight into Beth's daily life. She wound up learning a great deal about herself and how narrowly she'd been seeing the world. Beth's community within the transit system is a much stronger network than the one Rachel has in her hectic world, and some of the portraits of drivers and the other people in Beth's life are unforgettable. Rachel juxtaposes this with the story of their childhood, including the dissolution of their parents' marriage and the devastating abandonment by their mother, the effect of which is tied poignantly to the sisters' present relationship. Although she is honest about the frustrations of relating to her stubborn sister, Rachel comes to a new appreciation of her, and it is a pleasure for readers to share in that discovery.
 

  Music

1.   Wide Open Spaces

    ~ Dixie Chicks (Audio CD)

    Original Release Date: 1998

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From Amazon.com: The major-label debut from this Texas trio proves their instrumental abilities, blending more traditional twang with slow melodic blues, foot-tapping rockabilly, and bluegrass-inspired pop harmonies. From the opener, "I Can Love You Better," the Chicks let their love of music and genuine joy shine through while the energy on this album reminds one of Carlene Carter. Solid musicianship, topnotch vocal performances, and infectious pop hooks make this a stellar project.

2.   Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood [SOUNDTRACK]

   ~ Various Artists (Audio CD)

    Original Release Date: 2002

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From Amazon.com: With the soundtrack to Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, O Brother, Where Art Thou? producer T Bone Burnett has compiled another gently nostalgic gem. Filled with covers of jazz standards, sparse blues picking, and traditional Cajun pieces, Sisterhood matches Brother in ambiance and impeccable musicianship. The highlights are numerous: Bob Dylan's lively song waltzes with a raspy narrative, Lauryn Hill uses acoustic plucking to complement her soulful croon, and Bob Schneider contributes an understated love-ballad rumbling with piano. Even the cover songs are first-rate; Macy Gray jive-jumps through a faithful Billie Holiday cover, and Tony Bennett slows things down with a dapper and distinguished Nat "King" Cole homage. Despite the diffuse genres covered, the superior quality of Sisterhood's songs renders these differences negligible, and the album's pacing ensures a pleasing alternation of styles that never lags. In fact, there's nary a bad song on the entire album. The divine secret's out--Sisterhood is an essential listen.

3.   Ain't Nuthin' But a She Thing

   ~ Various Artists (Audio CD)

    Original Release Date: 1995

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From Amazon.com: I bought this collection only because of Patti Smith's sultry, sad version of "Don't Smoke in Bed" followed by an airy, beautiful Sinéad O'Connor rendition of "Mna Na H Eireann" (Women of Ireland.) Not being a fan of the other artists on the CD, I thought it would be one of those CDs I pulled out rarely only to hear the songs for which I bought it. How mistaken I was. One day I decided to listen to the CD in its entirety, and I was immediately swept up in the catchy Salt 'n' Pepa title track, then equally impressed with Annie Lennox's rendition of the Sugarcubes's "Mama." Of course, being a Serge Gainsbourg fan, I found Luscious Jackson's interpretation of his provocative "69 Année Érotique" to be nothing short of brilliant. Melissa Etheridge delivers a very convincing and even painful (in that you feel her pain) "Weakness in Me"... the whole CD flows with a kind of continuity rarely found on compilation CDs, this despite the varying types of music represented. This largely ignored and under-hyped collection is definitely worth purchasing.

  Movies

1.   Lovely & Amazing

     Starring: Brenda Blethyn, Catherine Keener

     (2001) ~ DVD

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From Amazon.com: I didn't want this movie to end. Lovely & Amazing centers around two sisters: Michelle (Catherine Keener), a would-be artist, and Elizabeth (Emily Mortimer), a fledgling actress. Both are grappling with their mother's (Brenda Blethyn) going in for liposuction, the erratic behavior of their adopted sister (Raven Goodwin), and the flounderings of their love lives. Because her husband is having an affair, Michelle has a fling with a 17-year-old (Jake Gyllenhaal); meanwhile, Elizabeth breaks up with her sincere boyfriend (James LeGros) and falls into bed with a glib movie star (Dermot Mulroney). But no plot description will capture the exquisite pleasures of this movie; Lovely & Amazing is a superb kaleidoscope of moments, each new fragment shifting the whole into a new delightful pattern. The entire cast is outstanding; the script and direction of Nicole Holofcener (Walking and Talking) are subtle, funny, and sharply observed.

2.   Marvin's Room

    Starring: Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, Leonardo DiCaprio

    (1996) ~ DVD

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From Amazon.com: Scott McPherson's off-Broadway hit made a strong transition to the screen in this 1996 film by director Jerry Zaks. Diane Keaton stars as a woman who, while taking care of her vegetating father in Florida, discovers that she has leukemia. Only her long-estranged sister (Meryl Streep) or the sister's children can provide a possible match for a bone-marrow transplant. But the reunion is a rocky one, marked both by Streep's guilt at having abandoned her sister to take care of their father, and by the explosive dynamic between Streep and her rebellious, pyromaniac oldest son (Leonardo DiCaprio). As grim as this all sounds, there is a strong vein of black humor running through it that has the viewer laughing at unlikely moments (particularly Keaton's visits to her distracted doctor, a surprisingly funny Robert De Niro). But rest assured: tears will flow, even as the film makes you reassess all of your own family relationships.

3.   Sense and Sensibility

    Starring: Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson

    (1995) ~ DVD

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From Amazon.com: Emma Thompson scores a double bull's-eye with this marvelous adaptation of Jane Austen's novel. Not only does Thompson turn in a strong (and gently humorous) performance as one of the Dashwood sisters--the one with "sense"--she also wrote the witty, wise screenplay. Austen's tale of 19th-century manners and morals provides a large cast with a feast of possibilities, notably Kate Winslet, in her pre-Titanic flowering, as Thompson's deeply romantic sister. Winslet attracts the wooing of shy Alan Rickman (a nice change of pace from his bad-guy roles) and dashing Greg Wise, while Thompson must endure an incredibly roundabout courtship with Hugh Grant, here in fine and funny form. All of this is doled out with the usual eye-filling English countryside and handsome costumes, yet the film always seems to be about the careful interior lives of its characters. The director, an inspired choice, is Taiwan-born Ang Lee, who brings the same exquisite taste and discreet touch he displayed in his previous Asian films (such as Eat Drink Man Woman). Thompson's script won an Oscar, and 1995 was a fine year for Jane Austen all around: Persuasion was made into an excellent picture, and Emma became the spritzy high school comedy Clueless.