Celebrate Women's History Month year-round with this staff-curated selection of fiction and nonfiction titles highlighting the diverse experiences, triumphs, and voices of women throughout history.
Fiction Books | Nonfiction Books | Older Adult Books
Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours. But this version of 1950s America is characterized by a significant event: the Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary wives and mothers sprouted wings, scales, and talons, left a trail of fiery destruction in their path, and took to the skies. Was it their choice? What will become of those left behind? Why did Alex's beloved Aunt Marla transform but her mother did not?
A young, queer Palestinian American woman pieces together her great aunt's secrets in this sweeping debut, a family saga confronting questions of sexual identity, exile, and lineage. In a Pacific Northwest hospital far from the Rummani family's ancestral home in Palestine, the heart of a stillborn baby begins to beat and her skin turns a vibrant, permanent cobalt blue. On the same day, the Rummanis' centuries-old soap factory in Nablus is destroyed in an air strike. The Skin and Its Girl is a searing, poetic tale about desire and identity and a provocative exploration of how we let stories divide, unite, and define us-and even wield the power to restore a broken family.
Dhaliwal seamlessly incorporates feminist philosophical concerns into a series of perfectly-paced strips that skewer perceived notions of femininity and contemporary cultural icons. When a birth defect wipes out the planet's entire population of men, Woman World rises out of society's ashes. Dhaliwal's infectiously funny Instagram comic follows the rebuilding process, tracking a group of women who have rallied together under the flag of “Beyonce's Thighs.” Only Grandma remembers the distant past, a civilization of Segway-riding mall cops, Blockbuster movie rental shops, and “That's What She Said” jokes.
In the year 2024, the country is marred by unattended environmental and economic crises that lead to social chaos. Lauren Olamina, a preacher's daughter living in Los Angeles, is protected from danger by the walls of her gated community. However, in a night of fire and death, what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: a startling vision of human destiny . . . and the birth of a new faith.
1890: When Desiderya Lopez, The Sleepy Prophet, finds an abandoned infant on the banks of an arroyo, she recognizes something in his spirit and brings him home. 1935: Luz "Little Light" Lopez and her brother Diego work the carnival circuit in downtown Denver. Luz, is a tea leaf reader, and Diego is a snake charmer. Merging two multi-generational storylines in Colorado, this is a novel of family love, secrets, and survival. With Fajardo-Anstine's immense capacity to render characters and paint vivid life, set against the Sange de Cristo mountains, Woman of Light is full of the weight, richness, and complexities of mixed blood and mica clay. It delights like an Old Western, and inspires the hope embedded in histories yet-told.
Velma Frye is many things. A pilot, a former bootlegger, a well-seasoned traveler, a jazz pianist...and a wielder of celestial magic. She's also a member of the mystical Rhodes family as well as an investigator for arcane oddities for a magic rights organization, dealing with both simple and complicated cases. And when a pocket watch instigates a magical brawl after one of her flight shows, things become very complicated. Focusing on a new generation of the Rhodes family, The Improvisers brims with charming magic, intriguing mystery, and high-flying adventure seeking new heights.
Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, 17-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her: devotion to her sisters, and a conviction in her own divine visions. Marie, born the last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, is determined to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. But in a world that is shifting and corroding in frightening ways, one that can never reconcile itself with her existence, will the sheer force of Marie's vision be bulwark enough?
In 1893, there's no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box. But when the Eastwood sisters -- James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna -- join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women's movement into the witch's movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote -- and perhaps not even to live -- the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive. There's no such thing as witches. But there will be.
Nikki has spent most of her life distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community. After her father's death she takes a job teaching a creative writing course in the heart of the Punjabi community. When one of the women students brings a book of erotica to class, Nicki use it as the basis for helping these modest women unleash creativity by telling their own stories.
Based on a true story and set against the backdrop of WWII, a young woman's love of flying becomes an epic fight for identity and equality. In the quiet town of Houghton, Michigan, 16-year-old Nancy Harkness discovers a passion that ignites her heart. The arrival of barnstormer pilots brings more than just the thrill of their daring stunts; Nancy vows she will be a pilot someday. Years later, as the dark clouds of World War II gather on the horizon, Nancy envisions a squadron of female pilots. The male-dominated world of aviation pushes back, determined to keep women out of the skies. But Nancy isn't alone in her quest for equality. Jackie Cochran has her own dreams and ambitions for women in aviation. As they both navigate the turbulent skies of a nation at war, their destinies intertwine in a story of rivalry, respect, and competition.
Welcome to the Girl Juice House, home of the hottest gang in town. Benji Nate's stylish and rambunctious sense of humor lovingly takes digs at the young and tragically hip-reserved and introspective Nana, comically hypersexual Bunny, fledgling U-tuber Tula, and Designated Mom Sadie-as they navigate life, love, and the pursuit of a good time. Girl Juice flaunts the gloriously messy and hilariously self-indulgent day-to-day hijinks of four young women doing the most.
Alina and Laura are independent and career-driven women in their mid-thirties, neither of whom have built their future around the prospect of a family. Laura is so determined not to become a mother that she has taken the drastic decision to have her tubes tied. But when she announces this to her friend, she learns that Alina has made the opposite decision and is preparing to have a child of her own. Alina's pregnancy shakes the women's lives, first creating distance and then a remarkable closeness between them. When Alina's daughter survives childbirth--after a diagnosis that predicted the opposite--and Laura becomes attached to her neighbor's son, both women are forced to reckon with the complexity of their emotions, their needs, and the needs of the people who are dependent upon them.
Vern - seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised - flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth to twins, and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world. But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes. To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past, and more troublingly, the future - outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it.
Rooted in visions of Indigenous futurisms, Beyond the Glittering World proclaims and celebrates a rising generation of storytellers. The collection brings together twenty-two emerging and established women, two-spirit people, and people of marginalized genders who immerse readers in poems, stories, and worlds that challenge and delight. From a museum heist 177 years in the making, to lyrical explorations of love and loss, to a tale where language itself becomes the force that saves the land, this boundary-breaking, genre-bending anthology illuminates the power of Indigenous voices.
Even before they were recognized as citizens of the United States, Black women understood that the fights for civil and human rights were inseparable. Over the course of 200 years, they were at the forefront of national and international movements for social change, weaving connections between their own and others' freedom struggles around the world. Without Fear tells how, during American history, Black women made humans rights theirs : from worldwide travel and public advocacy in the global Black press to their work for the United Nations, they courageously and effectively moved human rights beyond an esoteric concept to an active, organizing principle. Blain captures human rights thinking and activism from the ground up with Black women at the center, working outside the traditional halls of power.
Those who recognize the name Amelia Bloomer usually do so because of bloomers, the clothing item named after her. While she was a rational dress advocate for a time, it was "but an incident" in the larger story of her life and impact. This deeply researched biography by Sara Catterall follows the many chapters of her life: her humble upbringing in upstate New York, her role in the temperance movement (and its true legacy as a wellspring of the women's rights movement), her years at The Lily, her groundbreaking position as deputy postmaster in Seneca falls, her troubled health, and her eventual move to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where she continued to move the needle on women's suffrage in the more flexible new governments of the West.
The artists in this book defied genre and social convention to shape the music industry as we know it. But many of these incredible musicians have been overlooked or cast in supporting roles in their own stories simply because they are women. Until now. Author and illustrator Rachel Frankel shines a spotlight on 50 groundbreaking musicians through vivid portraits and heartfelt biographies that bring each icon to life on the page. Featuring an exposed spine designed to look like the neck of a guitar, this book pays homage to the rock goddesses who shredded, sang, and stormed the stage with ferocity and passion, inspiring a whole new generation of fearless, talented performers.
Alaska Native elders remember wartime invasion, relocation, and land reclamation. The US government justified its World War II occupation of Alaska as a defense against Japan's invasion of the Aleutian Islands, but it equally served to advance colonial expansion in relation to the geographically and culturally diverse Indigenous communities affected. Offering important Alaska Native experiences of this history, Holly Miowak Guise draws on a wealth of oral histories and interviews with Indigenous elders to explore the multidimensional relationship between Alaska Natives and the US military during the Pacific War.
Fourteen-years-old and growing up in the Middle East, Lamya is an overachiever and a class clown, qualities that help her hide in plain sight when she realizes she has a crush on her female teacher. Spanning childhood to an elite college in the US and early adult life in New York City, each essay places Lamya's struggles and triumphs in the context of some of the most famous stories in the Quran. She juxtaposes her coming out with Musa liberating his people from the Pharoah; asks if Allah, who is neither male nor female, might instead be nonbinary; and, drawing strength from the faith and hope of Nuh building his ark, begins to build a life of her own-all the while discovering that her identity as a queer, immigrant devout Muslim is, in fact, the answer to her quest for safety and belonging.
WAKE is a graphic novel that offers invaluable insight into the struggle to survive whole as a Black woman in today's America; it is a historiography that illuminates both the challenges and the necessity of uncovering the true stories of slavery; and it is an overdue reckoning with slavery in New York City where two of these armed revolts took place. It is, also, a transformative and transporting work of imaginative fiction, bringing to three-dimensional life Adono and Alele and their pasts as women warriors. In so doing, WAKE illustrates the humanity of the enslaved, the reality of their lived experiences, and the complexity of the history that has been, till now, so thoroughly erased.
In 17th century Paris, a group of women who called themselves conteuses (female storytellers) came together to weave the very first fairy tales. One of them, Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy, coined the term 'fairy tale,' and some of these stories contain many familiar elements that appear in tales like Rapunzel and Beauty and the Beast. Women of the Fairytale Resistance uncovers seven of these writer's biographies--which are just as compelling as their fairy tales--and retells 12 of their original stories. The female-empowering, gender-bending tales combine themes like romance, fantasy, escapism, and their protagonists control of their own destiny--something the writers deeply desired in their own lives.
Young and Restless tells the story of one of the most foundational and underappreciated forces in moments of American revolution: teenage girls. From the Averican Revolution itself to the civil rights movement to nuclear disarmament protests and the women's liberation movement, through Black Lives Matter and school strikes for climate, Mattie Kahn uncovers how teen girls have leveraged their unique strengths, from fandom to intimate friendships, to organize and lay serious political groundwork for movements that often sidelined them. Their stories illuminate how much we owe to teen girls throughout the generations, what skills young women use to mobilize and find their voices, and, crucially, what we can all stand to learn from them.
Mahdavi draws a thread from past to present: from her fearless Iranian grandmother, who guided survivors of domestic violence to independent mountain colonies in Afghanistan where the women, led by a general named Mina, became their country's first line of defense from marauding warlords. To the female warriors who helped train and breed the horses used by US Green Berets when they touched down in October 2001. Pardis Mahdavi chases the legacy of Caspian horses and the women whose lives are saved by them, drawing on decades of research, newly-discovered diaries, and exclusive military sources. Book of Queens is an epic tale of hidden women whose communal knowledge was instrumental in saving an animal as ancient as civilization, and who were the genesis of their own liberation.
A collection of essays on fifty-two movies made by women that encompass various eras, nationalities, and stories, yet each movie is uniquely shaped by the women who created them. Joining Alicia Malone is a variety of established and aspiring female film critics, who write about their favorite films made by female directors.
Why is gossip considered a sin and how can we better recognize when gossip is being weaponized against the oppressed? Why do we think we're entitled to every detail of a celebrity's personal life because they are a public figure? And how do we even define "gossip," anyway? McKinney dishes on the art of eavesdropping and dives deep into how pop culture has changed the way that we look at hearsay. But as much as the book aims to treat gossip as a subject worthy of rigor, it also hopes to capture the heart of gossiping: how enchanting and fun it can be to lean over and whisper something a little salacious into your friend's ear. With wit and honesty, McKinney unmasks what we're actually searching for when we demand to know the truth - and how much the truth really matters in the first place.
Born into a large, close-knit family in Nicaragua, Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez grew up surrounded by strong, kind, funny, sensitive, resilient, judgmental, messy, beautiful women. Whether blood relatives or chosen family, these tías and primas fundamentally shaped her view of the world-and so did the labels that were used to talk about them. The tía loca who is shunned for defying gender roles. The pretty prima put on a pedestal for her European features. The matriarch who is the core of her community but hides all her pain. Fearlessly grappling with the effects of intergenerational trauma, centuries of colonization, and sexism, Mojica Rodríguez attempts to heal the pain that is so often embodied in female family lines. Tías and Primas is a deeply felt love letter to family, community, and Latinas everywhere.
With whip-smart insight and boundless curiosity, Girly Drinks unveils an entire untold history of the female distillers, drinkers and brewers who have played a vital role in the creation and consumption of alcohol, from ancient Sumerian beer goddess Ninkasi to iconic 1920s bartender Ada Coleman. Filling a crucial gap in culinary history, O’Meara dismantles the long-standing patriarchal traditions at the heart of these very drinking cultures, in the hope that readers everywhere can look to each celebrated woman in this book—and proudly have what she’s having.
On September 13, 2022, a young Iranian student, Mahsa Amini, was arrested by the morality police in Tehran. Her only crime was that she wasn't properly wearing the headscarf required for women by the Islamic Republic. At the police station, she was beaten so badly she had to be taken to the hospital, where she fell into a deep coma. She died three days later. A wave of protests soon spread through the whole country, and crowds adopted the slogan "Woman, Life, Freedom"-- words that have been chanted around the world during solidarity rallies. Marjane Satrapi has gathered together an array of journalists, activists, academics, artists, and writers from around the world to create this powerful collection of full-color, graphic-novel-style essays and perspectives that bear witness.
The first openly transgender woman to win an NCAA championship, CeCé Telfer has contended with transphobia on and off the track since childhood. MAKE IT COUNT is Telfer's raw and inspiring story. From coming of age in Jamaica, where she grew up hearing a constant barrage of slurs, to beginning her new life in Toronto and then New Hampshire, where she realized what running could offer her, to living in the backseat of her car while searching for a coach, to Mexico, where she trained for the US Trials, this book follows the arc of Telfer's Olympic dream. But it's also the story of resilience and athleticism, of a runner who found a clarity in her sport that otherwise eluded her--a sense of being simply alive on this earth, a human moving through space. Finally, herself.
For decades, Starre Vartan was told that having a woman's body meant being weaker than men. Like many women, she mostly believed it. Not anymore. Following a half decade of research into the newest science, Vartan shows that women's bodies are incredibly powerful, flexible, and resilient in ways men's bodies aren't. Vartan reveals the ways that women surpass men in endurance, flexibility, immunity, pain tolerance, and the ultimate test of any human body: longevity. In interviews with dozens of researchers from biology, anthropology, physiology, and sports science, plus in-depth conversations with runners, swimmers, wrestlers, woodchoppers, thru-hikers, firefighters, and more, The Stronger Sex squashes outdated ideas about women's bodies.
If you’ve been looking for permission and encouragement to stop clinging to youth and propriety, The Crone Zone is here to help you step into your full bog witch power. Following in the footsteps of role models from Strega Nona to Baba Yaga, you’ll learn to access your innate crone energy through rituals, meditations, inspiration, and relatable advice from your crone guide. So put on your best black cloak, prepare a cauldron of your favorite beverage, and indulge in a good hearty cackle, because life in the Crone Zone is good—and about to get better.
Brizendine uses her unique ability of making science approachable to offer an empowering vision of the years in a woman's life that have too often been ignored or misunderstood and creates a positive new framework for this life stage. In this sweeping look at the second half of life, Brizendine dives deep into the microscopic workings of your mitochondria one moment and zooms out to the bigger picture--family, relationships, identity--the next. With clear prescriptive advice, she also offers specific ways women can fend off dementia; increase longevity, well-being, and sexuality; and find their best selves at this stage of life. Ultimately, The Upgrade amounts to a celebration of how women step into their power and an entirely new--and radically positive--understanding of aging.
In her lively social history of American women and aging, acclaimed New York Times columnist Gail Collins illustrates the ways in which age is an arbitrary concept that has swung back and forth over the centuries. From Plymouth Rock (when a woman was considered marriageable if "civil and under fifty years of age"), to a few generations later, when they were quietly retired to elderdom once they had passed the optimum age for reproduction, to recent decades when freedom from striving in the workplace and caretaking at home is often celebrated, to the first female nominee for president, American attitudes towards age have been a moving target. Gail Collins gives women reason to expect the best of their golden years.
How to Be an Elder presents the culmination of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés' masterwork, inviting us to “come into our own as wiser and wild souls” through six sessions of teachings, stories, poetry, and blessings. In this fifth and final volume of Dr. Estés' landmark series, we will explore how it is that through the gathering of our years we become a beautiful refuge for ourselves, our Souls, and for those who come after us.
Viola Ford Fletcher's memoir Don't Let Them Bury My Story vividly recounts the lasting impact of the Tulsa Massacre on her life. As the oldest survivor and last living witness of the tragic events that unfolded in 1921, she shares her testimony with poignant clarity. From the terror of her childhood as a seven-year-old fleeing the burning streets of Greenwood to her current role as a 109-year-old family matriarch seeking justice for the affected families, Mother Fletcher takes us on a journey through a lifetime of pain and perseverance. Her inspiring story is a powerful reminder that some wounds never fully heal, and we must never forget the lessons of our history.
Life lessons and wisdom from two women whose global adventures as budget travelers reveal how to live fearlessly at any age, how to hold onto joy and gratitude, and the power of female friendship. Eleanor Hamby and Dr. Sandra Hazelip, the two irresistible women who have become known as the TikTok travelling grannies, deliver a book of life lessons drawn from their late-in-life friendship, and the daring and transformational adventures they've undertaken. Together, they have traveled to twenty countries since they turned 80. Boldly and independently traveling without a guide or staying at resorts, the fullness of Eleanor and Sandra's lives makes for a book you can return to in the face of loss, uncertainty, and to inspire new beginnings.
A renowned intellectual announces a swayamvar for her 55th birthday, inviting suitors to compete for her hand. Once dismissive of love, she now defies societal ridicule, embracing desire despite disability and fading beauty. Supporters and critics—including her son, a wedding planner, and the Men's Rights Movement—join the spectacle. Visited by goddesses and haunted by ancestral love, she must choose a feat that defines new masculinity and earns her trust in love.
It’s the last day of 1984, and 85-year-old Lillian Boxfish is about to take a walk. A love letter to city life in all its guts and grandeur, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney paints a portrait of a remarkable woman across the canvas of a changing America: from the Jazz Age to the onset of the AIDS epidemic; the Great Depression to the birth of hip-hop. Lillian figures she might as well take her time. For now, after all, the night is still young.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the Harvard College Observatory began employing women as calculators, or "human computers," to interpret the observations their male counterparts made via telescope each night. As photography transformed the practice of astronomy, the ladies turned from computation to studying the stars captured nightly on glass photographic plates. The "glass universe" enabled the women to make extraordinary discoveries that attracted worldwide acclaim. Their ranks included Williamina Fleming, who identified ten novae and more than 300 variable stars; Annie Jump Cannon, who designed a stellar classification system that is still in use; and Dr. Cecilia Helena Payne, who in 1956 became the first ever woman professor of astronomy at Harvard and Harvard's first female department chair.
Older women have been deemed useless to society and abandoned on a remote island, where they must fight to the death, whilst making friends and dessert. Welcome to GOLDEN RAGE: a not-too distant dystopia where BATTLE ROYALE meets THE GOLDEN GIRLS.