Norma Clarke
Anyone for Feminism?
All In: An Autobiography
By Billie Jean King
Viking 496pp £20
All In tells the story of a life lived in the public eye, often painfully as well as triumphantly. It’s a cracking read and a well-honed product of the author’s brand (which includes Billie Jean King Enterprises, Team BJK and the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative). The tone is upbeat and the message from this crusader for social justice is about changing the world. Feminism and the campaigns for civil and LGBTQ+ rights are what have shaped her thinking and have driven her activism. The personal became the political in 1981, when she was outed as gay, an experience that nearly broke her.
Tennis success came early. Winning junior tournaments in southern California gave her honorary membership of the Los Angeles Tennis Club, where she quickly noticed ‘the boys got everything, and the girls got crumbs’. Money was a problem. Worse was internalised misogyny. Was it right to beat boys? Was
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
This and two more newly available pieces from our October 1984 issue in our From the Archives newsletter. Sign up on our website so you never miss another dispatch.
Congratulations to @HanKangOfficial, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2024.
We've lifted the paywall on Joanna Kavenna's review of The White Book from November 2017.
Joanna Kavenna - Carte Blanche
Joanna Kavenna: Carte Blanche - The White Book by Han Kang (Translated by Deborah Smith)
literaryreview.co.uk
Few surveys of British art exist. Those that do have given disproportionate space to recent trends and neglected the 150 years between Hogarth and Turner.
@robinsimonbaj examines what launched British artists of this era into the European stratosphere.
Robin Simon - The Wright Stuff
Robin Simon: The Wright Stuff - The Invention of British Art by Bendor Grosvenor
literaryreview.co.uk