Staff Picks

Incredibly captivating story about the day to day life of 39 women living in a bunker with no memory of how they got there or why they're being kept there. It follows the story of the youngest woman there, with her being the key to the others' future.

 

Publisher's description:
Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.

As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.

Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman's modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.

Find I Who Have Never Known Men in our online catalog

"I wanted this to be a place where our anger could live, a place for us to take up space after generations of being told to shrink, to rage after a lifetime of being told to behave. I wanted these pages to sizzle and smoke with women's awesome rage, no longer tucked away or extinguished, but right here on the surface- so get ready or get out of the way," Dancyger writes in the introduction of Burn it Down, and I feel like now is the time for the world to see the flames. Read these 22 essays and allow your own anger to come to the surface.

 

Publisher description:

A rich, nuanced exploration of women's anger from a diverse group of writers. Women are furious, and we're not keeping it to ourselves any longer. We're expected to be composed and compliant, but in a world that would strip us of our rights, disparage our contributions, and deny us a seat at the table of authority, we're no longer willing to quietly seethe behind tight smiles. We're ready to burn it all down. In this ferocious collection of essays, twenty-two writers explore how anger has shaped their lives: author of the New York Times bestseller The Empathy Exams Leslie Jamison confesses that she used to insist she wasn't angry -- until she learned that she was; Melissa Febos, author of the Lambda Literary Award--winning memoir Abandon Me, writes about how she discovered that anger can be an instrument of power; editor-in-chief of Bitch Media Evette Dionne dismantles the "angry Black woman" stereotype; and more. Broad-ranging and cathartic, Burn It Down is essential reading for any woman who has scorched with rage -- and is ready to claim her right to express it.
 

 

The bond between Alessandra and her mother is delightfully threatened by a piano student. Alessandra gives "her side of the story," detailing the broad and lasting effects their encounter has on her life and her community at large in fascist Italy. For fans of (and with an afterword by) Elena Ferrante.

 

Publisher’s description:

"Alessandra witnesses her mother, an aspiring concert pianist, suffer from the inability to escape her oppressive marriage. Later, she is sent away to live with her father's relatives in the country, in the hope she’ll finally learn to submit herself to the patriarchal system and authority. But at the farm, Alessandra grows increasingly rebellious, conscious of the unjust treatment of generations of hardworking women in her family. In Rome, Alessandra meets Francesco, a charismatic anti-fascist professor, who ostensibly admires and supports her sense of independence and justice. But she soon comes to recognize that even as she respects Francesco and is keen to participate in his struggle to reclaim their country from fascism, this respect is unrequited, and that her own beloved husband is ensnared by patriarchal conventions when it comes to their relationship."--adapted from jacket.

Find Her side of the story in our catalog

Intertwined stories make this book hard to put down: one in present day and one in 1791, both with secrets and mysteries. Times have changed but the similarities, the way secrets can protect, and hurt, and eat away at lives remains the same.

 

Publisher's description:

Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary's fate is jeopardized when her newest patron, a precocious twelve-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking a string of consequences that echo through the centuries. Meanwhile in present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, running from her own demons. When she stumbles upon a clue to the unsolved apothecary murders that haunted London two hundred years ago, her life collides with the apothecary's in a stunning twist of fate--and not everyone will survive.

 

Living in late fourth and early fifth-century Alexandria, Hypatia taught mathematics and philosophy. This book is an account of her accomplishments and her life. It is thorough in content and touches the heart at the same time.

 

Publisher's description:

This is the first biography of Hypatia to integrate all aspects of her life. Mathematician Michael Deakin emphasizes that, though she was a philosopher, she was first and foremost a mathematician and astronomer of great accomplishment. In a fascinating narrative that brings to life a richly diverse ancient society, he describes her work so that the mathematics, presented in straightforward terms, finds its true place in the context of her life as a whole. 

 

Behind every great man is a great(er) woman, is perhaps, the thesis of Heroines. In this unconventional biography of the many heroines of modern literature, Zambreno tracks the ways women artists have been silenced, their work co-opted, and their legacies overwritten, ignored and/or destroyed.

 

Publisher's description:
On the last day of December, 2009 Kate Zambreno began a blog called Frances Farmer Is My Sister, arising from her obsession with the female modernists and her recent transplantation to Akron, Ohio, where her husband held a university job. Widely reposted, Zambreno's blog became an outlet for her highly informed and passionate rants about the fates of the modernist "wives and mistresses." In her blog entries, Zambreno reclaimed the traditionally pathologized biographies of Vivienne Eliot, Jane Bowles, Jean Rhys, and Zelda Fitzgerald: writers and artists themselves who served as male writers' muses only to end their lives silenced, erased, and institutionalized. Over the course of two years, Frances Farmer Is My Sister helped create a community where today's "toxic girls" could devise a new feminist discourse, writing in the margins and developing an alternative canon.

 

A hilarious, heartwarming guide/memoir by the creators of the podcast "My Favorite Murder"! K + G get into their childhoods, their friendships, their obsession with true crime, and all the lessons they've learned along the way. Weet woo!

 

Publisher's description:

Sharing never-before-heard stories ranging from their struggles with depression, eating disorders, and addiction, Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, the voices behind the podcast "My Favorite Murder" irreverently recount their biggest mistakes and deepest fears, reflecting on the formative life events that shaped them into two of the most followed voices in the nation. They focus on the importance of self-advocating and valuing personal safety over being "nice" or "helpful." They delve into their own pasts, true crime stories, and beyond to discuss meaningful cultural and societal issues with fierce empathy and unapologetic frankness.

 

The author of the acclaimed novel Lakewood returns with a beautifully written political parable reminiscent of Margaret Atwood and Octavia E. Butler. This novel, which Publisher's Weekly describes simply as "brilliant" in their starred review, will be of interest to readers looking for more near-future feminist dystopian novels along the lines of Red Clocks by Leni Zumas and The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan.

 

Publisher's Description:

Josephine Thomas has heard every conceivable theory about her mother's disappearance. That she was kidnapped. Murdered. That she took on a new identity to start a new family. That she was a witch. This is the most worrying charge because in a world where witches are real, peculiar behavior raises suspicions and a woman--especially a Black woman--can find herself on trial for witchcraft. But fourteen years have passed since her mother's disappearance, and now Jo is finally ready to let go of the past. Yet her future is in doubt. The State mandates that all women marry by the age of 30--or enroll in a registry that allows them to be monitored, effectively forfeiting their autonomy. At 28, Jo is ambivalent about marriage. With her ability to control her life on the line, she feels as if she has her never understood her mother more. When she's offered the opportunity to honor one last request from her mother's will, Jo leaves her regular life to feel connected to her one last time. In this powerful and timely novel, Megan Giddings explores the limits women face--and the powers they have to transgress and transcend them.

Find The Women Could Fly in our online catalog.

Here are the fascinating, true accounts of 15 extraordinary women who fought and survived, who lived and served, in their own unique way during World War II. The author, Mari K. Eder, a retired 2-star U.S. Army Major General, has clearly done her research and has a real talent for conveying the innate characters of these women: their fortitude, their diversity, the intensity of their struggles, and their unwavering devotion to their cause. The vital roles they played touched almost every facet of the war except actual military combat, and yet they shied away from any recognition or awards. For many, the records of any contribution they made were sealed away for decades so that none of their countries' citizens even knew of their existence. Most were never formally recognized by their governments until well into the 90s and 2000's. My personal favorite is the story of Ola Mildred "Millie" Rexroat, a WASP (Women's Airforce Service Pilots), since my own grandmother was a WASP during WWII and for whom we all attended, finally, their Congressional Gold Medal award ceremony in Washington D.C. in 2010. Mari K. Eder not only acknowledges these women with compelling, page-turning style, but also delves deeply into the effect they had on the women who followed in their footsteps and the struggles women still face today. Most of all, she helps define what it all means for future opportunities for all women in military, government, and vital leadership rolls in the United States and throughout the world.

 

Moxie Girls Fight Back! In this Texas high school, football players are king and do whatever they want, treating girls like objects--until a zine shows up and urges girls to unite and fight back. This book has everything! Laughter, tears, love, music, and Viv's evolution from dutiful daughter to revolutionary Moxie Girl.

 

Publisher description:

Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with an administration at her high school that thinks the football team can do no wrong. Fed up with sexist dress codes, hallway harassment, and gross comments from guys during class. But most of all, Viv Carter is fed up with always following the rules.

Viv's mom was a tough-as-nails, punk rock Riot Grrrl in the '90s, and now Viv takes a page from her mother's past and creates a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates. She's just blowing off steam, but other girls respond. As Viv forges friendships with other young women across the divides of cliques and popularity rankings, she realizes that what she has started is nothing short of a girl revolution.