UKY AAS
The national spotlight.
bell hooks is an award-winning author. Her work is often praised by critics for its authenticity, subversive content, and originality.
Her rigorous analysis of the social conditions that many black women face quickly earned her a spot among the nation's leading feminist scholars. This was groundbreaking in a field that had, for the most part, lacked diversity.
Her work, Ain't I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism, was named "One of the twenty most influential women's books in the last 20 years" by Publishers Weekly.
"Visionary and original, hooks shows how love heals the wounds we bear as individuals and as a nation, for it is the cornerstone of compassion and forgiveness and holds the power to overcome shame.
For readers who have found ongoing delight and wisdom in bell hooks's life and work, and for those who are just now discovering her, All About Love is essential reading and a brilliant book that will change how we think about love, our culture-and one another."
-- Good Reads on All About Love: New Visions
The New York Times also praised hooks' work:
"Her best points are simple ones. Community -- extended family, creative or political collaboration, friendship -- is as important as the couple or the nuclear family; love is an art that involves work, not just the thrill of attraction; desire may depend on illusion, but love comes only through painful truth-telling; work and money have replaced the values of love and community, and this must be reversed."
-- New York Times on All About Love: New Visions
Her work also serves to debunk the myth of the lack of black culture in Appalachia, with hooks' writings including many personal accounts of the richness of black history in the region.