Legends: Women Who Have Changed the World Through the Eyes of Great Women Writers

Although readers may quibble over how "legendary" a few of these subjects are or the greatness of some of their literary portrayers, this glossy tome deserves readers' attention. Brief, punchy text is paired with arresting black-and-white photos of a melange of remarkable women, such as Frida Kahlo, Aung San Suu Kyi, Rachel Carson, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Marilyn Monroe, and Josephine Baker. The result is an unholy, but thoroughly enjoyable, jostling throng where sex symbols rub elbows with world leaders and artists spill drinks on reformers.

Alma Guillermoprieto emblazons the later years of mercurial modern dance pioneer Martha Graham's life. Once a dance student at Graham's vaunted studio, she remembers that "as Martha wove through our ranks she would snarl, and pinch and slap us, evidently enraged by our sloppy posture, our dishevelment, our general lack of presence." Camille Paglia talks of what Amelia Earhart meant to her as an American teenager in the early 1960s, railing against restrictive sex roles while "marooned in a desert of perky blondes." Cynthia Ozick takes aim at Gertrude Stein, Joan Didion at Georgia O'Keefe, and Diane Ackerman at Beryl Markham. Margeretta Mitchell recalls photographer Imogen Cunningham striding San Francisco in her beaded cap and white bangs, proclaiming by her acts "that it was possible to grow old working; to maintain interest in life; to be wholly oneself." Far from being fluff, many of these excerpts from longer writings are as provocative and engaging as the legends they embellish. --Francesca Coltrera