{
    "id": 458424,
    "slug": "cassandra-speaks-elizabeth-lesser",
    "nstc": null,
    "title": "Cassandra Speaks",
    "subtitle": null,
    "collection_title": null,
    "collection_part_number": null,
    "annotation": null,
    "description": "What story would Eve have told about picking the apple? Why is Pandora blamed for opening the box? And what about the fate of Cassandra who was blessed with knowing the future but cursed so that no one believed her? What if women had been the storytellers?\n\nElizabeth Lesser believes that if women\u2019s voices had been equally heard and respected throughout history, humankind would have followed different hero myths and guiding stories\u2014stories that value caretaking, champion compassion, and elevate communication over vengeance and violence.\n\n<i>Cassandra Speaks</i> is about the stories we tell and how those stories become the culture. It\u2019s about the stories we still blindly cling to, and the ones that cling to us: the origin tales, the guiding myths, the religious parables, the literature and films and fairy tales passed down through the centuries about women and men, power and war, sex and love, and the values we live by.  Stories written mostly by men with lessons and laws for all of humanity. We have outgrown so many of them, and still they endure. This book is about what happens when women are the storytellers too\u2014when we speak from our authentic voices, when we flex our values, when we become protagonists in the tales we tell about what it means to be human.\n\nLesser has walked two main paths in her life\u2014the spiritual path and the feminist one\u2014paths that sometimes cross but sometimes feel at cross-purposes. Cassandra Speaks is her extraordinary merging of the two. The bestselling author of Broken Open and Marrow, Lesser is a beloved spiritual writer, as well as a leading feminist thinker. In this book she gives equal voice to the cool water of her meditative self and the fire of her feminist self. With her trademark gifts of both humor and insight, she offers a vision that transcends the either/or ideologies on both sides of the gender debate.\n\nBrilliantly structured into three distinct parts, Part One explores how history is carried forward through the stories a culture tells and values, and what we can do to balance the scales. Part Two looks at women and power and expands what it means to be courageous, daring, and strong. And Part Three offers \u201cA Toolbox for Inner Strength.\u201d Lesser argues that change in the culture starts with inner change, and that no one\u2014woman or man\u2014is immune to the corrupting influence of power. She provides inner tools to help us be both strong-willed and kind-hearted.\n\n<i>Cassandra Speaks</i> is a beautifully balanced synthesis of storytelling, memoir, and cultural observation. Women, men and all people will find themselves in the pages of this book, and will come away strengthened, opened, and ready to work together to create a better world for all people.",
    "imprint": null,
    "language_code": "eng",
    "original_language_code": null,
    "page_count": 304,
    "duration_seconds": null,
    "publication_date_first": null,
    "publication_date_latest": "2022-04-12",
    "cover_url": null,
    "editions": [],
    "ratings_count": 0,
    "read_count": 0,
    "review_count": 0,
    "favorite_count": 0,
    "reading_status_read_count": 0,
    "reading_status_reading_count": 0,
    "reading_status_want_to_read_count": 0,
    "rating_average": null,
    "ratings_distribution": {
        "1": 0,
        "2": 0,
        "3": 0,
        "4": 0,
        "5": 0
    },
    "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:55:03+00:00",
    "updated_at": "2025-11-02T00:38:33+00:00",
    "publisher": {
        "id": 5747,
        "slug": "harper-wave",
        "name": "Harper Wave",
        "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:25:01+00:00",
        "updated_at": "2025-09-19T15:05:08+00:00"
    },
    "contributors": [
        {
            "id": 283260,
            "slug": "elizabeth-lesser-2",
            "key_names": "Lesser",
            "names_before_key": "Elizabeth",
            "prefix_to_key": null,
            "contributor_role": "A01",
            "readable_contributor_role": "Author"
        }
    ],
    "genres": [],
    "subjects": [],
    "campaigns": []
}