LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW
Author: Carolyn Gage
Common Courage Press, 1997
Monroe, Maine.
I have just finished (engulfed) the book, Like There's No Tomorrow: Meditations for Women Leaving Patriarchy, by Carolyn Gage.

I am replete or content. I feel as if I have had a most satisfying feast. I have been reading this book off and on for about two weeks, and although I am a quick reader, this is a book to have by your bedside or your favorite chair to think on as you read passages as needed.

Each thought, passage, chapter or meditation (what ever you need to call it) causes you to think and think again and again and many times to question unrecognized prejudices or ingrained processes which previously you thought were just right.

One could also use each topic in the book for a full-blown conversation or consciousness raising talks. It would make for much excitement, topics such as: Fighting (i.e., "I found that it is always better to fight than not to fight, always no matter what." --Andrea Dworkin), or Advice (i.e., "I went home, followed these directions rigidly for months, and came perilously near to losing my mind."--Charlotte Perkins Gilman.) Other intriguing chapters are Torture, Freedom, Loss, Wonder Women, Jobs, Shooting the Deserters, etc.

Carolyn Gage has started each "meditation" with a quote from a famous person and then goes on to a one or two page embellishment of the quote. I enjoyed the book very much, so much that I shall add it to my collection of treasured women's writings. I not only learned a great deal about myself but snippets about many historical women and about their writings which I now want to read more extensively.

Mary E. Atkins, NOW member & Body Image Task Force Board Member

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