Review of Life in the Left Lane (Paperback)

No typical tourist guide is this. Emy Thomas provides a refreshingly frank account of life in St. Croix. She deals directly with the pleasant the beaches, the people, the pace of life and the sometimes unpleasant hurricanes, and occasional crime.

Emy Thomas has found her own way to enjoy this island paradise. Hers is no superficial experience. She enjoys St. Croix in all its richness. Not for her an imposing mini castle in an expatriate enclave. She goes out of her way to live modestly yet comfortably. She knows some creole, and is deeply involved in local social initiatives. She seems to blend and integrate with the majority West Indian population much better than could be expected of the stereotypical New Yorker.She joins the locals in laughing off the perpetualGovernment inefficiencies, rather thangetting upset. But her journalist background is not entirely forgotten. She still manages to take a few swipes at local politicians.

If you know St. Croix already, you will readily identify with Emy Thomas perspectives and sense of humor. If you ever wondered what a Caribbean retirement would be like - read this before you decide. It will prepare your mind, and most likely will make you want to do it even more.

Product Description
A short and lively non-fiction book about what it?

About the Author
Emy Thomas spent her first thirty-three years following a typical middle-class path, growing up in Connecticut, graduating from prestigious schools in the northeast, and working as a journalist in New York City. Then she discovered the tropics and has embraced the islands and their laid-back lifestyle ever since. For over a dozen years home was a sailboat, when she cruised throughout the Caribbean and Pacific with a typical 'yachtie,' who made wandering a way of life. They visited scores of island paradises. When it was time to leave the boat and settle down the author chose St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands as her permanent home. She built her dream house on a hillside overlooking the Caribbean Sea and finally found her true calling as an author. Her first book, Home Is Where the Boat Is, was published in 1993. Life in the Left Lane is her second book.

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Review of Homemaking: Women Writers and the Politics and Poetics of Home (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities) (Hardcover)

This is an excellent collection, well worth the expense.It is diverse: poetry, reviews, personal anecdotes,history, politics.... from writers from the USA (including African American and Native American), Ireland, Ghana, the Dominican Republic, Palestine, Germany and beyond.I purchased this book as a kickstart to my PhD thesis on women, writing, creativity and the home.Although many of the contributions are written by academics, it is notable that several are not; I feel that it would also be an enjoyable read outside of academia.

Product Description
This collection of critical and creative work reconceptualizes what home and being at home means for women writers worldwide. Rather than focusing on how concepts of exile, nomadism, and displacement structure women's cultural and literary texts-as many recent critics have done-these essays and poems, many of which are published here for the first time, re-evaluate the meanings of home, community and relocation.

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Review of Opting Out?: Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home (Hardcover)

What I particularly liked about this book: Stone's interviews and discussions with actual women who decided to opt out of working (even though many of them could have made big bucks) as well as her solid research.

Readers should be aware that the author, by her own admission (p. 15 of the book), focused on white married women with children and that these women had previously worked as managers or professionals. If you don't fall into that group, this book may not appeal to you. These women, for the most part, also had husbands who could support their decision to stay home.In short, these women often had expensive college degrees and were high achievers.

Stone also points out that women who tend to "opt out" are the exception, not the rule, citing studies that indicate that 70 percent of the women who are married mothers of preschoolers still continue to work. Turn this figure around and the reality is that one out of every four women DOES decide to stay home. This book is an exploration of these particular women and it is written in what I found to be a very nonjudgmental and open style.

The author was also able to get some company heads to admit their mixed feelings about mothers in the workplace, their fears about them being less committed to their jobs or more likely to quit.

Other areas covered in this book include:
Most women quit only as a last resort (p. 18)

Each woman's story was unique, often complex and with many factors.

There was often ambivalence and a shifting of roles within the home

Their decision did NOT signal a return to traditionalism (p. 19).

Their former workplaces often made it difficult, if not impossible, for them to continue balancing family and work, rejecting their attempts to create innovations while maintaining productivity.

If you'd like to know what is featured in each Chapter, here's a quick rundown:
Chapter 1 - Looks at various women (the former Ivy League sports star, the CPA, the Consultant, an editor, a stock trader, etc) and their various experiences at work.

Chapter 2- 3- Looks at the families, children and husbands.

Chapter 4- Focuses on work, problems and challenges and factors that lead to a decision to opt out.

Chapters 6-8 - Life at home, coping techniques, finding new identities.

Chapter 9- Explores possible ways that women could continue to work (if they chose) and minimizing the obstacles that make staying home a necessity, not a choice.

Product Description
Noting a phenomenon that might seem to recall a previous era, The New York Times Magazine recently portrayed women who leave their careers in order to become full-time mothers as "opting out." But, are high-achieving professional women really choosing to abandon their careers in order to return home? This provocative study is the first to tackle this issue from the perspective of the women themselves. Based on a series of candid, in-depth interviews with women who returned home after working as doctors, lawyers, bankers, scientists, and other professions, Pamela Stone explores the role that their husbands, children, and coworkers play in their decision; how women's efforts to construct new lives and new identities unfold once they are home; and where their aspirations and plans for the future lie. What we learn--contrary to many media perceptions--is that these high-flying women are not opting out but are instead being pushed out of the workplace. Drawing on their experiences, Stone outlines concrete ideas for redesigning workplaces to make it easier for women--and men--to attain their goal of living rewarding lives that combine both families and careers.



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