The SI Virtual Library

In this area, you will find useful reports, articles, books, and mutlimedia on topics of importance to SI. 

Global Book Corner

Welcome to the Global Book Corner! Each month, we will share a book in SI's monthly newsletter, Global Voice,  that explores an issue relating to the work of SI.

This month's book is "The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox" edited by Azure Maggie O'Farrell.

For unconventional, out-spoken young women who would rather stay at school than marry, the first half of the 20th Century could be perilous. With just the signature of the family doctor and a few tales of 'abnormal behaviour', it was possible to be committed to an asylum, and then forgotten about for decades.

This story is set in Britain where, until as recently as the 1950′s, women could be interred on such grounds only to be released when the institutions were closed in the 1990’s. Elderly patients, most often women, would find themselves released, sane but institutionalised, into a world very different to the one they left all those years before. This is the story of one such woman, Esme Lennox, and her relationship with her sister and betrayer, Kitty. Flicking between modern day Edinburgh and the 1930s when the Lennox family returned to Scotland from India, the narrative is both compelling and shocking. A great read for a book club and a story that leaves you wishing for a sequel!

If you have a novel, memoir or biography you'd like to recommend for the Global Voice book corner, then please let us know! Email global.voice@soroptimistinternational.org, tweet us using #SIBook or leave a facebook message.

 

Articles and reports of interest 

World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development

Soroptimist Review: Progress of the World's Women 2011: In Pursuit of Justice

Human Development Report 2011