80 Books About Awesome Women
In my tradition of making long lists of books I don’t have time to read, here is a hodge-podge collection of books about women (mostly historical). It’s not organized, admittedly Western-centric, biased (yes there are three books on Jane Austen), and I tried to avoid books that were surveys of unconnected women. I welcome any additions you may have and any opinions or thoughts if/when you read one. List is also on my Goodreads.
The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism by Megan Marshall
The Richest Woman In America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age by Janet Wallach
Seafaring Women by David Cordingly
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
The Husband Hunters: American Heiresses Who Married into the British by Anne De Courcy
Hidden Figures: The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women Who Helped Launch Our Nation into Space by Margot Lee Shetterly
Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II by Liza Mundy
When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt by Kara Cooney
The Warrior Queens by Antonia Fraser
Things I’ve Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi
The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers
Who Cooked the Last Supper? The Women’s History of the World by Rosalind Miles
Enchantress of Numbers by Jennifer Chiaverini
The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice by Patricia Bell-Scott
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Tales of Extraordinary Women by Elena Favillie and Francesca Cavallo
Princesses Behaving Badly: Real stories from history without the fairytale endings by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie
Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas by Laura Sook Duncombe
Sally Ride: America’s First Woman in Space by Lynn Sherr
She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor
Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars by Nathalia Holt
Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott
Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence by Carol Berkin
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore
A History of Britain in 21 Women: A Personal Selection by Jenni Murray
City Women: Money, Sex, and the Social Order in Early Modern London by Eleanor Hubbard
Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush: Secret History of the Far North by Lael Morgan
Giovanni and Lusanna: Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence by Gene A. Brucker
Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy by Judith Brown
Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives by Natalie Zemon Davis
Promised the Moon: The Untold Story of the First Women in the Space Race by Stephanie Nolen
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt - The Homefront in WWII by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago by Douglas Perry
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin
Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali by Kris Holloway,
Jane Austen, the Secret Radical by Helena Kelly
She Is But A Woman: Queenship In Scotland, 1424-1463 by Fiona Downie
The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust
These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 by Nancy E. Turner
The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom by Corrie ten Boom
Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman by Alice Steinbach
Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers by Barbara Ehrenreich, Deirdre English
The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph, and the Vietnam War by Denise Chong
Real American Girls Tell Their Own Stories: Messages from the Heart and Heartland by Dorothy Hoobler
She Is But A Woman: Queenship In Scotland, 1424-1463 by Fiona Downie
Belle: The True Story of Dido Belle by Paula Byrne
The Woman of Colour by Lyndon J. Dominique
The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt by Kara Cooney
Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832 by Stella Tillyard
Searching for Sarah Rector: The Richest Black Girl in America by Tonya Bolden
The Criminal Conversation of Mrs. Norton by Diane Atkinson
Breaking Ground: Pioneering Women Archaeologists by Getzel M. Cohen
Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image Of The Female Hero In Italian Baroque Art by Mary D. Garrard
Pure Grit: How WWII Nurses in the Pacific Survived Combat and Prison Camp by Mary Cronk Farrell
Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts by Anne Llewellyn Barstow
The Pinks: The First Women Detectives, Operatives, and Spies with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency by Chris Enss
Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic by Jennifer Niven
The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire by Jack Weatherford
Mrs. Holmes: Murder, Kidnap and the True Story of an Extraordinary Lady Detective by Brad Ricca
They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War by DeAnne Blanton, Lauren M. Cook
Caesars’ Wives: The Women Who Shaped the History of Rome by Annelise Freisenbruch
The Original Million Dollar Mermaid: The Annette Kellerman Story by Emily Gibson
The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor
The Weaker Vessel by Antonia Fraser
Warrior Women: An Archaeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines by Jeannine Davis-Kimball
Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists by Jean H. Baker
Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire by Leslie Peirce
I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai
Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife by Peggy Vincent
West with the Night by Beryl Markham
My Life in France by Julia Child
The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth
Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1100 by Max Dashu
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom by Sue Macy
izzy806
germansingergirl
theartofmadeline
snowghoul
jacobvanloon
romaincrisis
kaledo-art
