Last year, a friend posted on Twitter: “I’d like some big sprawling pop history books written by women now, please.” Obviously, it caused a bit of a discussion.
And it made me wonder. I like books, and I particularly like music books written by women, but I don’t think I like sprawling books. And I wondered if I actually like the word “sprawling” either. It feels like a male word. A word for people who are used to taking up space, regardless. More space than is actually necessary. Maybe a sprawling book is the literary version of manspreading. I can’t think of many books by women that do that.
There are some long pop history books by women, but that’s not the same as being sprawling. She Bop (25th Anniversary Edition) by Lucy O’Brien is one example. It’s 423 pages long and it’s the opposite of sprawling. Because there’s a lot to fit in, so it has to be concise.