Regina Barreca

Barreca ponders life's questions and many others by giving women a hilarious antidote for the toxic "musts" they've been fed over the centuries, mulling over everything from the horror of chin hairs to why the "glass ceiling" is better described as a thick layer of men and telling women to stop believing the lies and conquer the world.

Best remembered as a member of the Algonquin Round Table, the fabled Jazz Age literary coterie, Dorothy Parker built a reputation as one of the era's most beloved poets. Parker's satirical wit and sharp-edged humor earned her a reputation as the wittiest woman in America.

"Little Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832?1888), which was originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. Alcott wrote the books rapidly over several months at the request of her publisher. The novel follows the lives of four sisters?Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March?detailing their passage from childhood to womanhood, and is loosely based on the author and her three sisters. Little Women was an immediate commercial and...

"The return of the beautiful Countess Olenska into the rigidly conventional society of New York sends reverberations throughout the upper reaches of society. Newland Archer, an eligible young man of the establishment is about to announce his engagement to May Welland, a pretty ingénue, when May's cousin, Countess Olenska, is introduced into their circle. The Countess brings with her an aura of European sophistication and a hint of scandal, having...

Set in an early New England colony, the novel shows the terrible impact a single, passionate act has on the lives of three members of the community: the defiant Hester Prynne; the fiery, tortured Reverend Dimmesdale; and the obsessed, vengeful Chillingworth. Hester is a beautiful young woman. She is also an outcast. In the eyes of her neighbours she has committed an unforgivable sin. Everyone knows that her little daughter, Pearl, is the product of...