Product Description
Helen Tookey examines the work of Anais Nin (1903-77)-- and the different versions of Nin herself, as woman, writer, and iconic figure--through the lens of cultural and historical contexts. She focuses particularly on questions of identity and femininity, exploring how the self, for Nin, is constructed through narratives and performances of various kinds, and shedding light on key issues and conflicts within feminist thinking since the 1970s, particularly questions of identity, femininity, and psychoanalysis. ... Read more

Product Description
The official Anais Nin Literary Journal. This special Centennial edition of Nin's birth features a 21 page excerpt from her 1940s unexpurgated diary, entitled "Mirage," a description of a doomed love affair with a much younger man. A picture tour through Nin's Paris, including her legendary home in Louveciennes is included, along with articles and essays by Janet Fitch, Kazuko Sugisaki, Toyoko Yamamoto, Claudine Brelet, Yuko Yaguchi, Phi Jason, Tom March, Benjamin Joplin, and Lynette Felber. Poetry by Aeryn Seto, Daisy Aldan, Diane Allerdyce, and Shyamal Bagchee, and reviews and summaries of current literature, media, and events. ... Read more

Product Description
* An anthology of writings by some of the most influential women in history on the often misunderstood and misrepresented female drug experience.* With great honesty, bravery, and frankness, women from diverse backgrounds write about their drug experiences.

Women have been experimenting with drugs since prehistoric times, and yet published accounts of their views on the drug experience have been relegated to either antiseptic sociological studies or sensationalized stories splashed across the tabloids. The media has given us an enduring, but inaccurate, stereotype of a female drug user: passive, addicted, exploited, degraded, promiscuous. But the selections in this anthology--penned by such famous names as Billie Holiday, Anais Nin, Maya Angelou, and Carrie Fisher--show us that the real experiences of women are anything but stereotypical.

Sisters of the Extreme provides us with writings by women from diverse occupations and backgrounds, from prostitute to physician, who through their use of drugs dared cross the boundaries set by society--often doing so with the hope of expanding themselves and their vision of the world. Whether with LSD, peyote, cocaine, heroine, MDMA, or marijuana, these women have sought to reach, through their experimentation, other levels of consciousness. Sometimes their quests have brought unexpected rewards, other times great suffering and misfortune. But wherever their trips have left them, these women have lived courageously--if sometimes dangerously--and written about their journeys eloquently. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

SISTERS Give The Wildest Ride
Being on the fringe of consensual reality and yet being able to take some notes of the journeys beyond, is an awesome gift.The stories in SISTERS OF THE EXTREME are such gifts of the God-Us. I have the original SHAMAN WOMAN, MAINLINE LADY and went through my contribution, line for line, and the only difference noted was my photo had shrunk in this new, revised edition.(This is consistent as now, being in my fifties, I notice that I am shrinking some also.)The tone not only is consistent from the first edition but vividly expansive.(I was somewhat embarrassed being in the first edition, with the stereotypic cover -- yet in this new volume, I am honored not only for the outrageous company kept and new sisters included but engaging graphics.)

As the God-Us dances about the universe, skirt swirling the galaxies, being on the fringes gives the wildest ride.This book is a travelogue by explorers of multi-dimensional realities written in white ink, from the heart of our Sisters-in-the-Clan-of-Encouragement:this book is a major herstoric contribution to the sext of human consciousness.

Jeannine Parvati (Baker) Author HYGIEIA: A WOMAN'S HERBAL

A fine survey of women whose lives were changed by drugs.
Sisters Of The Extreme is an informative and engaging presentation of famous female authors who write about the drug experience includes avariety of works from such notables as Bronte, Alcott, Di Prima, and more.Writings from historical works through modern times are gathered in SistersOf The Extreme, a fine survey of the lives and experiences of women whohave had their lives changed by drugs.

Stick with the original. It's better.
Let's get one thing straight right off the bat, Sisters of the Extreme is a "reissue" of 1982's Shaman Woman, Mainline Lady -- cut, streamlined and reformatted beyond all recognition. Evidently, the authorstook the edge off their book for a more "conservative" era --either that, or they assume their reader's minds have been so numbed bydrugs that we NEED heavy edits and People Magazine-inspired"look" to hold our limited attention.

Sure, there are a coupleof new excerpts worth reading (the one from Mary Woronov's "The MolePeople is revealing), but for the most part, Sisters of the Extreme seemsto be pandering to old YUPPIES who need a little stimulation. I swear thatif I read ANYTHING by Carrie Fisher ever again, it will be too soon --enough of the "I went to rehab and got a bad haircut" trip.Getover it.

In the introduction, the authors do say that they edited someexcerpts for space and deleted others all together. When I got out the twoeditions and compared them almost line for line, I discovered a disturbingtrend -- whereas Shaman Woman, Mainline Lady allowed one to take thewritings at face value, Sisters of the Extreme has definite agenda. Sistersof the Extreme doesn't LIKE drugs. It doesn't want ME to like drugs. Itwants me to be TITILATED by the writings. The difference isclear.

Sisters of the Extreme is a product of the times. It's been dumbeddown and punched up. Sure, the authors include a couple of writings on sexmagick and a few counter culture cartoons, but the overall smell ofpolitical correctness is stupifying.

The gist of my review is this: ifdon't already own a copy of Shaman Woman, Mainline Lady, go ahead and buySisters of the Extreme. Then, go on a quest for the Real Thing.

In themeantime, the use bibliography in Sisters of the Extreme to find and readthe original sourced writings. You'll be glad you did. ... Read more

Product Description
Utilizing close readings of Anaïs Nin's novels and shorter narratives-including her erotica, diaries, and prose poem--and covering a full range of her early and late works, this collection examines in depth the narrative elements of her writing in light of current theoretical approaches such as feminist, narratological, psychoanalytical, semiological, and reader-response theories. The discussions raise new issues, suggest thematic possibilities, and ultimately demonstrate how her ground-breaking work actually shifts the boundaries of traditional concepts of narrativity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Anais Nin: A Very Professional Study
Anais Nin's first published work was DH LAWRENCE: AN UNPROFESSIONAL STUDY. D.H. Lawrence was Anais Nin's literary hero, but she called her study of his work an "unprofessional" study because she was acutely aware of the fact that she was self-taught and not academic. Despite the fact that she was widely read, Anais Nin was never a fan of compulsory education. In her early childhood diaries she drew a picture to illustrate her feelings about school: a child sitting at a desk, bars across the window above head. "I depicted school as a prison because it felt like a prison," she wrote.

So I can't help but find something ironic about books such as ANAIS NIN'S NARRATIVES, a collection of scholarly articles about a "non-scholarly" woman (I believe many of the enclosed articles are actually dissertations). It's just a bit amusing to me that the woman who shunned compulsory education and whose education didn't go much higher than somewhere around grade school, was eventually given honorary degrees, and many formally educated people have made careers from writing about her works. (In addition, Anais Nin's original manuscript diaries are now housed in the UCLA special collections department.) I have a feeling - and it is only a feeling with no verifiable proof - that Anais Nin would be turned off by books such as ANAIS NIN'S NARRATIVES. The prose herein, as with perhaps all scholarly work and dissertations, is often exasperating and nearly impenetrable.

I suppose I need to take responsibility for my own expectations. I really loved Franklin and Schneider's ANAIS NIN: AN INTRODUCTION. Their book is what it sounds like: a straightforward introduction to Anais Nin's work. Having read and fully enjoyed this work of Schneider and Franklin, I wanted to take my understanding of Anais Nin's canon to the next level, take a look at some different perspectives on her work. Judging by the title, and given that there are no reviews to contradict the notion, I assumed that I'd found the "sequel" to Franklin and Schneider's book. I was wrong.

The verdict: ANAIS NIN'S NARRATIVES will only be of use to you if you are working in a university and/or working on your dissertation. There are certainly some interesting points made by the various contributing authors (Anne T. Salvatore is the editor, not the author of this work), but they are largely obscured by that dastardly academic prose! As Adam Robinson explains in WHAT SMART STUDENTS KNOW, the goal of academic prose is to express as few ideas in as many words as possible. Rather than, "I enjoy watching TV," it would be, "Partaking in the activity of viewing various programs on television has been found in my experience to be pleasurable." Get what I mean? Ugh!

But if you are not a university professor, etc., and still want to take a look at ANAIS NIN'S NARRATIVES, you will indeed find a few things of value. But take my advice: check it out at the library and read it very slowly. This is not cover-to-cover reading by any means!

An interesting footnote: the New York grade school Anais Nin depicted in her diary as a prison, is the same grade school that John Taylor Gatto would later teach at. Mr. Gatto would later refer to that school in his book THE UNDERGROUND HISTORY OF AMERICAN EDUCATION: A SCHOOLTEACHER'S INTIMATE INVESTIGATION INTO THE PRISON OF MODERN SCHOOLING. John Taylor Gatto, voted Teacher of the Year several years running in both New York City and New York state, agrees with Anais Nin: modern schooling is a prison.

Andrew Michael Parodi
... Read more

Product Description
This collection of six sensual, yet explicit short stories is thought to have been written for an Oklahoma oil millionaire, Roy M. Johnson. Anais Nin is said to have paid a dollar per page to produce typescripts of explicit erotica for his own private amusement. In 'Alice' a couple spying on another couple screwing in a public park become involved in a steamy group sex scene. In 'Florence', a New York office girl enjoys sex for the first time sleeping with two men in quick succession! In 'Memories' a man recounts his youth and his teenage initiation into sex by a variety of older women.

This facsimile reproduction also contains an explicit sex manual, Love's Cyclopaedia, originally published with the stories. The intorduction by Dr. C.J. Schiener tells the story of the book's first clandestine edition by New York publisher Samuel Roth during the 1940s and all the evidence for attributing this anonymous work to Anais Nin. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A beautiful companion to the 1976 film
ANAIS NIN OBSERVED is a companion to the 1976 film of the same name. It is 115 pages of dialogue from the movie, text from Anais Nin's diaries, and black-and-white pictures of Anais Nin and the people in her life, as well as her greatest influences (Henry Miller, Antonin Artaud, Martha Graham, etc.). We also get pictures of Nin from her early childhood up to her days in the limelight as a famous diarist, author, and college lecturer. And that is my favorite part of the book: the portrayal of Anais Nin as a popular college lecturer. One of the first pictures we get is a full length portrait of her standing on stage before an audience at UC Berkeley in the late 1970s. This is a woman who began her literary career in the 1930s in a small town outside of Paris. She was ignored by the literary world for three decades. Finally, she got the acclaim she'd always desired. I find that very moving. Oh, how I would have loved to have been one of the dozen or so students who got to visit her home and sit on the plush pillows on her livingroom floor and talk about literature (picture enclosed). The pictures of a solitary Nin in her Zen garden are equally poignant.

Andrew Parodi ... Read more

Product Description
The official Anais Nin literary journal. Included in this issue is a 22 page excerpt from Nin's unexpurgated 1940s diary, entitled "Dances of Love and Desire," an intimate look at Nin's relationship with her Haitian friends and lovers in New York City. Also included are essays and articles by Masako Meio, Beatrice Commenge, Karl Orend, Javant Biarujia, Jacques Lay, Jean-Yves Boulic, Yoshiho Satake, R.G. Kainer, Tristine Rainer, Benjamin Franklin V, Karin Finell, along with an excerpt from Maria Chekhov's memoirs, and poetry by Thomas March and Morton Traub. With reviews and summaries of current books and other media. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Do yourself a favor
Ms. Allerdyce, knows her stuff!If you are an Anais Nin fan, and you want a comparitive study, this is the book for you!

tThis book should become a classic in its field.
Anais Nin lived a life of conflicting allegiances.She attempted todecide whether to be "a woman helping men" or "a creativeartist competing with men."Torn between obligations and freedom sheshifted her focus back and forth from male to female and from self toother. Acknowledging Nin as an important Modernist and Feministwriter who created an authentic feminine approach to art, authorRichard-Allerdyce focuses on how Nin healed herself with writing andpsychoanalysis.This in-depth study of Nin's work using the fourunexpurgated diaries, has a title by title approach making the book moreaccessible to readers. Nin's sensitivity changed the nature of lifeand art and the media-conditioned response to both. Nin wanted to live anactive life with no one telling hr what to do. ` The later volumes ofthe diary showed Nin moving away from polarization of others and self, offiction and diary, of live and death.Richard-Allerdyce shows how Nin cameto understand that opposites are merely fuctions of each other, how thepersonal deeply lived becomes the univeralModernism and Feminismhelped Anais Nin remake herslf. She showed that women can get oversociety's programing, education and taboos. She focused on the bondbetween all women.Her writing was therapy not only for herself but forher readers.She helped them create themselves and their world.Thisbook should become a classic in its field.Maryanne Raphael l ... Read more

Product Description
Written when Anaïs Nin was in her twenties and living in Louveciennes, France, these stories contain many elements that will delight her readers: details remembered from childhood, of life in Paris, the cafés, theatres; characters including dancers, artists, writers, women who devote themselves to their work and visions as well as romance, strangers met in the night; themes such as the scruples of lovers, the search for brilliant, imaginative living; the writer’s experimentation with exotic words like "sybaritic" and "violaceous". In the craft of these stories readers are treated to a deft sense of humor, ironic wit, much conversation as well as ecstatic prose, and surprise endings. Throughout all, the Nin personality shines, a wonderful mixture of feeling and rationality, of vulnerability and strength. ... Read more