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Rating: 
Summary: As always, Alice leaves me breathless!!!!!
Review: Alice Walker is amazing - In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens is a collection of essays, letters, and thoughts dealing with race, gender, and the complexities of being human. She deals with a variety of situations from meeting Coretta King to searching for Zora Neale Hurston's grave with grace and beauty. The book sings, it soars, it is beautiful in its language, in its message. What is most important is that it encourages us (all of us, regardless of race or gender) to continue to live.
Rating:
Summary: Alice is very moorish
Review: First I read The Colour Purple and thought that Alice
was an older woman. Then I read The Temple of My Familiar and began to wonder. In Search of Our Mother's Gardens illuminates the writer. I have gone in search of many of the books to which she refers in her essays.
Rating: 
Summary: Easy Reading for English Class
Review: I am a junior in AP English, and for class we had to choose a non-fiction or auto/biographical book from a list our teacher had supplied. I chose this book because of an essay we had read by Ms. Walker in class. I loved it! It was very witty, yet I learned about the black culture and black artists. I actually enjoyed reading a book for class, and recommend this book for anyone who is interested in reading and learning!
Rating:
Summary: A passionate and insightful essay collection
Review: I first read "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens," the influential essay collection by Alice Walker, as a college undergraduate more than 10 years ago. Re-reading the book was a wonderful experience that reminded me how important Walker has been to so many people. The book opens with Walker's definition of the term "womanist": "a black feminist or feminist of color." The essays in this book, which span the late 1960s, the 1970s, and the early 1980s, thus represent the development of Walker's "womanist" vision.The pieces include book reviews, letters to various publications, autobiographical pieces, and other prose selections. Many of her essays and reviews represent Walker's views on a range of literary figures: Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Flannery O'Connor, Phillis Wheatley, Buchi Emecheta, and many more. Particularly interesting is her essay about Rebecca Jackson, a 19th century African-American woman who joined a Shaker community. Especially important are Walker's writings about Zora Neale Hurston, whom she reclaims as a black literary foremother. Other highlights include articles about Martin Luther King and his widow Coretta Scott King, and an account of a trip to Castro's Cuba. She also includes an article about "Conditions: Five," the important collection of writings by black lesbian and straight women. Alice Walker may be best known to general audiences for her novel "The Color Purple," but "In Search..." reminds me of her skill and passion as an essayist. This is a collection which is, I believe, historically important for the academic field of women's studies. But it is not just a scholarly artifact; it is also a book that holds power and relevance that go beyond its historical moment.
Rating:
Summary: A passionate and insightful essay collection
Review: I first read "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens," the influential essay collection by Alice Walker, as a college undergraduate more than 10 years ago. Re-reading the book was a wonderful experience that reminded me how important Walker has been to so many people. The book opens with Walker's definition of the term "womanist": "a black feminist or feminist of color." The essays in this book, which span the late 1960s, the 1970s, and the early 1980s, thus represent the development of Walker's "womanist" vision. The pieces include book reviews, letters to various publications, autobiographical pieces, and other prose selections. Many of her essays and reviews represent Walker's views on a range of literary figures: Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Flannery O'Connor, Phillis Wheatley, Buchi Emecheta, and many more. Particularly interesting is her essay about Rebecca Jackson, a 19th century African-American woman who joined a Shaker community. Especially important are Walker's writings about Zora Neale Hurston, whom she reclaims as a black literary foremother. Other highlights include articles about Martin Luther King and his widow Coretta Scott King, and an account of a trip to Castro's Cuba. She also includes an article about "Conditions: Five," the important collection of writings by black lesbian and straight women. Alice Walker may be best known to general audiences for her novel "The Color Purple," but "In Search..." reminds me of her skill and passion as an essayist. This is a collection which is, I believe, historically important for the academic field of women's studies. But it is not just a scholarly artifact; it is also a book that holds power and relevance that go beyond its historical moment.
Rating:
Summary: A great nonfiction collection
Review: I have loved Alice Walker since I was 14. Granted, it has not always been an easy love. She speaks truths that I do not always find easy to hear. She makes statements that I have a difficult time agreeing with. At the same time, I find her writings wonderful, warm and insightful. She has a way of taking an everyday situation and making it resonate. Of special note in this book is Walker's (to me) classic essay on Flannery O'Connor. What could very easily have been a "what this author means to me" type of story, Walkers manages to tie it up with her own past, her relationships, the legacy of the South and Catholicism. It's one of my favorite essays of all time, and I am so glad to finally have my own copy to hold onto and read over and over again. This book is a good start for those who may have only read the Color Purple, but would liek to know more about Walker. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A great nonfiction collection
Review: I have loved Alice Walker since I was 14. Granted, it has not always been an easy love. She speaks truths that I do not always find easy to hear. She makes statements that I have a difficult time agreeing with. At the same time, I find her writings wonderful, warm and insightful. She has a way of taking an everyday situation and making it resonate. Of special note in this book is Walker's (to me) classic essay on Flannery O'Connor. What could very easily have been a "what this author means to me" type of story, Walkers manages to tie it up with her own past, her relationships, the legacy of the South and Catholicism. It's one of my favorite essays of all time, and I am so glad to finally have my own copy to hold onto and read over and over again. This book is a good start for those who may have only read the Color Purple, but would liek to know more about Walker. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: I've often re-read this book as nourishment for my spirit
Review: On difficult days, which are more numerous than the peaceful ones here in South Korea, I re-read In Search Of Our Mothers' Gardens. I am always re-inspired, re-juvenated, re-centered and re-minded when I again encounter the soothing and healing words of the woman I have decided to claim aloud as my sister: Alice Walker. I take great pleasure in reading Be Nobody's Darling. This poem has affirmed me on those especially dismal days when I examine my differentness and wonder if it's worth the pain to have an outlook that is different from that of the mainstream. For more rigorous cleansing I enjoy her essay What Can I Give My Daughters Who Are Brave. This essay has been like a soothing balm for my battered spirit after a day of battling the various "ism's" (racism, sexism, homophobia etc. the list goes on) that are a part of everyday living on our modern planet. Alice Walker continues to give me so much.
Rating:
Summary: Touching Essays by a brilliant writer.
Review: When I finished this book I knew I was going to miss the things it said to me. Alice Walker wrote brilliantly about her own struggles, her passion for other people to discover Zora Neale Hurston, the civil rights movement, and her work as a black feminist. So many subjects are touched in this book that jumps back and forth through 20+ years. Walker is inspritational to all woman. As a writer she shows one the strength to succeed not in business but loving yourself as well as working to achieve equal rights for everyone no matter the sex or the color. Her essays are moving written like a painting. Her words are beautiful and inspire. The few poems that she used in this collection are the best i have ever seen. She is honest about her experiences in hopes that we all might learn from her and take to a cause. We are the makers of our future. I would read this book again and it establishes to me that Alice Walker is a gifted writer who has become one of my favorites.
Rating:
Summary: Touching Essays by a brilliant writer.
Review: When I finished this book I knew I was going to miss the things it said to me. Alice Walker wrote brilliantly about her own struggles, her passion for other people to discover Zora Neale Hurston, the civil rights movement, and her work as a black feminist. So many subjects are touched in this book that jumps back and forth through 20+ years. Walker is inspritational to all woman. As a writer she shows one the strength to succeed not in business but loving yourself as well as working to achieve equal rights for everyone no matter the sex or the color. Her essays are moving written like a painting. Her words are beautiful and inspire. The few poems that she used in this collection are the best i have ever seen. She is honest about her experiences in hopes that we all might learn from her and take to a cause. We are the makers of our future. I would read this book again and it establishes to me that Alice Walker is a gifted writer who has become one of my favorites.
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