READING WITH ANU

By Anu Mahadev

As we roll into fall, a season of renewal and change, I invite you to reflect upon the upheavals of the past that have brought about real, tangible change in our world. I was in Munich recently, admiring the gorgeous Bavarian landscape and the intricate architecture, when two things struck me. As romantic as it looks and sounds, no woman would want to go back to living in the medieval times. And the real measure of progress in a society is correlated to the rights wielded by its women, as has been quoted by many activists and revolutionaries.

Rolling back several centuries of progress, championed by many pioneering women – two of whom we recently lost, Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem – sounds horrifying. Let’s think about the women who lived through those times, unnamed or famous, who wanted to be more than the roles they were restricted to and live life on their own terms. Each one of them was a catalyst in their own way, pushing the needle ever so slightly, quietly resisting and redefining the norm. Because the truth is, no matter how technologically advanced society becomes, when half the population is not allowed to keep pace with change, there can be no real or complete progress.

As the ancient Sanskrit text, Manu-smriti from 2 BCE says, “Where women are worshipped, divinity blossoms. Where they are dishonored, every action or ritual results in failure”.

Land by Maggie O’Farrell

Knopf Publishers, June 2026

If you want a firsthand lesson in Irish history without picking up a voluminous dusty tome or relying on the typical cliché-ridden exaggerations featured in movies, put your trust in the skillful hands of this amazing Irish writer, Maggie O’Farrell. She creates well-crafted historical fiction that weaves significant events through eloquently defined plots and articulately etched character portraits. Land is a homecoming to a place that draws its inhabitants back repeatedly through the Great Hunger (The Irish Potato Famine) when millions perished and the population plummeted, driving the survivors overseas, penniless and crammed in poorly built ships, to shores of the Americas and elsewhere. The story takes us through the plight of the orphans incarcerated in workhouses, the colonialism by the English and their efforts to wipe out the local culture, language, beliefs and traditions. Key to the plot is the mapping of Ireland according to the Ordnance Survey (the profession of the main character in this novel is a local mapmaker who acts as a liaison,) and the growing spirit of resistance by the underclass to reclaim their land as their own.

This book packs a lot, looping asynchronously with the land as a palimpsest of texts, overwritten through the eyes of many invasions and unrests that came before. The locals’ beliefs in Gaelic folklore, myths and superstitions are in direct conflict with the colonizers’ efforts to erase and anglicize ancient names and places.

This invites elements of magical realism in the narrative with little or nonexistent

dialogue, such that no emotion is overly dramatized or forced from the reader but gently coaxed and elicited . The story could potentially have no ending, just like Earth and life. Humans are but a blip in the annals of history, with the land bearing witness, unperturbed as they come and go, while it lets them trespass, claim temporary ownership and live their lives as visitors.

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

Spiegel & Grau, May 2026

After the blockbuster success of The Help more than 17 years ago, Kathryn Stockett is back and how. At a whopping 650 pages, The Calamity Club is still a quick read, but I’d recommend the Kindle version, especially for someone with weak hands! Set in the Deep South in Oxford, Miss., right around the Great Depression, this woman-centric book, just like her earlier one, has two principal narrators, Birdie and Meg. The plot goes back and forth between the two. But there are several other women involved – women desperate to find a way to live in a decade when there were no jobs, prohibition had not been repealed and the options for women who were alone were almost non-existent.

In such a hostile environment, the resilience, ingenuity and strength of these struggling women is exemplary to read. Birdie, a plain “old maid” at 24 and Meg, an 11-year-old orphan, stand out for their never-give-up attitudes and survival instincts. There are other supporting characters who are driven by their own demons. While the protagonists devise ways to play cat and mouse, it is hard not to get affected by their plight.

The book touches on several themes, including abandonment, baby trafficking, alcoholism, depression, discrimination against women and minorities, prohibition, prostitution, eugenics and forced sterilization (the last two were new to me, and horrifying). All this in the Bible Belt, where self-proclaimed champions of Christianity decide the fate of those who do not fit their idea of “a good Christian,” including gays, “promiscuous” women and single mothers. If that seems like a lot to chew on, it is, but the author fits them all in naturally and perfectly in this heart-wrenching story.

The characters are well-developed, and you will feel deeply about them, one way or the other. Perhaps one could argue that toward the middle, the plot meanders a little and could have been trimmed, but I felt no urge to DNF. I was completely absorbed in the lives of these tough-minded women and the chances they took in the hopes of a better future. The men are mere pawns in this story. They come and go, some with good intent, some not.

But this book belongs to the women – Birdie, Meg, Charlie, Frances, Viktoria Tartt, Polly, Picador, Lucille, Isabelle Heidelberg, Willy May, and yes even Garnett Pittman. One more standout character was Virginia Cunningham, the only female medical student in her class at Ole Miss. I totally expect this book to be on the top reading lists and book club picks for a while. It would

be interesting to see how a movie adaptation could be made, if a brave filmmaker will take on the task!

The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who

Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History

by Nathalia Holt

Little, Brown & Company, October 2019

As a child, the best part of my day was TV time after school. Especially the fairy tales that I, like most children, consumed eagerly and was thrilled to see portrayed on television. This was the ‘70s, and I was far away in Asia, and someone would inevitably say, “Such amazing animation could only be from America.” I never paused then to wonder, How do they make these? This book clears a lot of that up.

Nathalia Holt takes us from the 1930s to present day through the world of Walt Disney Studios, specifically into the lives of the lesser-known women artists behind the scenes. Many stellar women were on the payroll but greatly underpaid. Their vast contributions were overshadowed and never credited on screen, but they still persisted despite workplace harassment, resentment from male colleagues, and the deeply entrenched sexism at the studio and in society. Her book offers an eye-opening view of the studio’s successes and struggles through the crash of 1929, the Great Depression, World War II and the technological advances and overhauled labor laws that greatly transformed the composition and the skillsets of the departments.

We are introduced to the famed Ink & Paint Department, composed mainly of women artists, very few of whom would be promoted to better positions. We get to see this world through a handful of standout women who broke into the boys’ club, including Bianca Majolie, Retta Scott, Grace Huntington, Sylvia Holland and Mary Blair. We are privy to their artistic perspective that brought fluid grace, meaningful depth and novelty to the characters and the narrative, and the key role they played in getting many beloved films released, even when most of the movies were box office failures and animation was struggling to break even. The women did this while balancing home struggles, layoffs, unfair hiring and compensation laws and no recognition.

Holt builds this story gradually, aided by personal letters and notes from the story meetings and design sessions. She takes some artistic liberties by infusing some of her own imagination into these very real, remarkable women, making it a complete and hybrid narrative of their time in Disney’s golden age. We have them to thank for the lifelike deer in Bambi, the vivid dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy in Fantasia, the avantgarde couture in Cinderella (and the pumpkin chariot and the glass slipper). The list is endless. And what would childhood be without any of these unforgettable memories?

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Anu Mahadev is happy to admire Sleeping Beauty Castle as a free human being

and to outgrow her childhood dream of being a princess singing from a turret in

that very castle. If you’d like to share your thoughts on gilded cages, or the book

picks in this issue, please feel free to email her at amahadev@me.com