Don't get me wrong - the women featured in this book are all awesome, and the photos of them are great, but the I-centric approach Ali Smith chose when interviewing each woman was a huge turn-off. These women are all more than capable of speaking for themselves, so why couldn't Smith have stepped aside and let them do just that? For a book claiming to contain "words to live by" from the women portrayed in it, there were disappointingly few direct quotes from said women, and annoyingly much space alloted to Smith's opinions and impressions - what she thought about the women, what meeting them was like for her, how she first heard of them, and so on and so forth. (I understand from the book description that Smith wanted to create something "intensely personal", but surely intensely personal does not have to be synonymous with heroically self-obsessed?) For an interesting contrast, I recommend the book 'Picture the Girl: Young Women Speak Their Minds', by photojournalist Audrey Shehyn, who does an excellent job of portraying 35 young women WITHOUT stealing their spotlight. I bought Smith's book partly because I thought it would be interesting to learn more about Janeane Garofalo, who is one of my favorite actors and something of a role model to me, but I learned nothing about her I didn't already know, because, as it turned out, most of the text accompanying the photos of Garofalo was in fact about Smith.

I am sitting at a coffee shop and had to reluctantly tear myself away from Ali Smith"s LAws of BAndit Queens. At first I just opened the book and looked at the pictures. I felt a strange sense of reverence in front of the array of fiercely modern and independent women portrayed there. The pictures caught them in action .The photographs seemed to have captured the essence of each and every women . Nothing glamorous there. Just incredibly truthful. All the women seemed colorful to me, caught mid -sentence. Arrested between a defiant laugh and a provocative gesture. Some of them exuded a sense of radiant peace. Confidence. Clearly Ali Smith has no interest whatsoever in making her photography anything but honest. She captures a moment and that's that.
It's not a platform to stardom or celebrity. Just her take in color on what makes a great woman worth looking at.
Yet the photography is incredibly beautiful, something you might almost forget when looking at the book. Because the laws of the bandit queens will make you first and foremost think. About them. About yourself. About what it means to be a woman. Ali is so self effacing in her commentary that you might even forget she took the pictures and interviewd each woman. A nonobstrusive witness, Ali is noneteless the eye behind the lense, and the intelligent artist who is merely offering her unique take on the modern woman. By authoring the book, she too joins the legacy of all the bandit queens. And mostly establishes herself as a great woman photographer.

This book was a gift from a friend who I truly admire and it is one of the most meaningful gifts I have ever recieved. Law of the Bandit Queens is one of those rare creations that not only was able to inspire me to try harder to acheive my goals, it also made me very proud to be a woman. It is a wonderful gift for all the women who have ever inspired you in your life. The book includes women from many walks of life. Ali Smith has chosen an incredible mix of women who each have something very different, yet equally as important to teach us all.

Maggie Estep, who I have been a fan of for years since her MTV days, has written a funny and quirky coming-of-age novel that I must highly recommend. What is most striking about this novel is not its plot or character development, but Estep's voice, one of the most distinctive today. The over-the-top situations and wildly funny antics of the heroine, written in Estep's trademark deadpan language, are the strength of the "Diary." The novel is written like one of her CD tirades, and we can imagine her loudmouth voice reading the lines to us. The novel is also semi-autobiographical, so it's easy to imagine Estep's distinct personality throughout the book. Often hilarious, Estep's first novel signals the coming of age of not only Zoe, but also of Estep, who seems poised to be a fine novelist. Looking forward to "Soft Maniacs."

I am heartbroken that this book is no longer in print. A few years ago, when I was flat broke, I found myself so engrossed by it that I read it while sitting on the floor of a bookstore because I couldn't afford to buy it, not just once but twice. Now that I can afford it it's unavailable. Estep is strange, original, and gruesomely funny; this (apparently) autobiographical first novel is unlike anything else I've ever read, a mixture of high culture, punk rock, drugs, sex, romance, and idealism. Throughout Estep chronicles her own and others' losses and dreams with spare, deadpan sentences. These events almost seem to speak for themselves, but of course it is a mark of her artfulness that we have the impression that the story tells itself.

I simply love her stuff...I had the pleasure of stumbling into a copy of "Diary of An Emotional Idiot" in a discounted bin at my local bookseller. I am the sort of reader who is usually reading three to four books at a time, but Ms. Estep's writing forced to me to abandon all other reading material, and each chapter was more absorbing than the last. I own her CDs and "Soft Maniacs", her sophmore effort, but for my buck, her first try out with "Idiot" is her finest. Sure, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you may feel a little violated, but you will not be disappointed. Unforunately, I lent out my copy in a moment of hysterical generousity, only to later discover this title was out of print. I never saw that copy again, and had much difficulty finding any bookseller who did. I finally found a copy at auction, and was very relieved to have it nestled happily with the rest of my books....Of course, with the bite that "Idiot" has, it may it need its own shelf. Highly Recommend.

I was attracted to Hex because I always look for books written by, for, or about those of us who have struggled. Hex features Ruby Murphy, an amateur private eye who is a reformed alcoholic and knows what it's like to live somewhere else than the rest of the world, somewhere where the horizon is smaller. In Estep's lovely phrase, "Coney Island, where I live, is either the end or the beginning of the line, depending on the direction you're traveling." But Hex is very much the work of a beginner. Estep's exposition can be clumsy and her characters don't have much depth. Ruby reads Anna Karenina and listens to classical music and "is fanatical in her love for animals and her misanthropic friends." Though it seems these characteristics may be drawn from Estep's life, it is still true that intelligent (but never intellectual) wounded loners with a private appreciation for high culture and tribal loyalties to their friends and pets are a fictional cliche. (See Andrew Vachss's private eye Burke for a better rendition of these traits.) Other characters are similarly cliched or unconvincing. And as a classical music fan, I needed Estep's musicians and music students to demonstrate a more detailed knowledge of the music. I won't finish this book, though I'll be willing to give Estep another chance in the future.

A lively foray into the life of the stubborn and irrepresible Ruby Murphy. Her peculiar outlook on this bittersweet dumbshow, her wide-armed acceptance of all that is mean-spirited and foul is inspirational. I will gambol with Ms Estep's maniacs anytime.

There's plenty of things about this book that set it apart from other works in the mystery genre, but if I had to sum it up into one thing it would be this: humanity. Ruby Murphy is endearingly, refreshingly HUMAN, as are the rest of the cast of this story, and we're allowed to get more than one perspective of what is going on, thanks to the creative use of different narrators, all of whom are wonderfully - and believably - eccentric. Maggie Estep breathes fresh life into the genre and leaves me wishing that some of her characters lived in my neighborhood, which is not something I can say for any other mystery I've read. Usually in a mystery you can't wait to get to the end to find out what happens, and while this one is definitely a page-turner, I was so in love with the characters and the world they inhabit, I didn't want it to end. The prose is direct yet very poetic and vivid. This book is a breath of fresh air - and an especially tasty read for horse lovers, as the author lovingly illustrates via Joe the racehorse what makes these graceful creatures so appealing. I'm eagerly awaiting the next book in the series.

Love isn't always like a Hallmark card. No more than Family Life is always like a Rockwell painting. Birthdays aren't always happy, and families aren't always made from relatives.

If anything, Life is more like an Arbus photograph: strange and vulnerable and damaged and beautiful all at once.

Human beings are imperfect creatures. And, in spite of this, we somehow manage to connect with each other.

In SOFT MANIACS, Maggie Estep captures this reality brilliantly. Comprised of nine intertwined stories which show two women - Jody, a sexually insatiable and unstable psychiatrist, and Katie, an assistant in forensic psychology who spent her youth traveling with her lion-tamer father and the circus - as shown through the eyes of the men who have loved them, this collection is like GEEK LOVE from the inside. Instead of being physically different, the characters in SOFT MANIACS could easily be called Freaks of the Heart.

Just like real humans.

This book is beautiful and resonant and will utterly disappoint anyone searching for a tenderly-narrated Rockwell-esque vision of love at the end of the century. But those of us who live in Reality will see the reflection of the darkest and most profound secrets of our hearts, and how in spite of our imperfections, we still have hope.

Maggie Estep's narrative voice shines remarkably well in this series of meticulously interconnected short stories. She's got a way with words -- so much so that even in this collection, in which she's writing through the voices of various men who go through the lives of two women, we're still listening unmistakenably to Estep's voice. And we wouldn't have it any other way. The situations in this story are often hilarious, the characters are wonderfully drawn, and the unique ways the stories are interconnected are a joy to unravel. I read it a few weeks ago, and the characters are remaining with me like I read it yesterday. A highly recommended, very entertaining book to read... try it in one sitting. It flows so nicely, you won't even realize you've just been reading for hours. Estep keeps getting better and better with every book... I, for one, am really looking forward to her next release.

Few books can elicit outright belly-laughs as well as gather empathetic tears. Estep paints her characters so well and each has a distinctive and original voice, it's breathtaking in it's scope and fluidity. Essentially a "small world, isn't it?" collection following two women, this book really delves fiercely into the male psyche as all the stories are written from a male character's point of view - and it's spot on. These people live and breathe within these pages, in vivid reality, and Maggie Estep proves herself to be one of the essential artists of our times. And she'll also beat your Mom at Scrabble - she's good with words; she's a poet, remember?