Bookmark the Blog


AGAAT

One of our recommended books is Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk

In 1940s apartheid South Africa, Milla de Wet discovers a child abandoned in the fields of her family farm. Ignoring the warnings of friends and family, Milla brings the girl, Agaat, into her home. But the kindness is fleeting, as Milla makes Agaat her maidservant and, later, a nanny for her son. At turns cruel and tender, this relationship between a wealthy white woman and her Black maidservant is constantly fraught and shaped by a rigid social order.

Decades later, Milla is confined to her bed with ALS, and is quickly losing her ability to communicate. Her family has fallen apart,

read more

ARCTIC FURY

One of our recommended books is The Arctic Fury by Greer Macallister

Thirteen women join a secret 1850s Arctic expedition—and a sensational murder trial unfolds when some of them don’t come back. What happened out there on the ice?

Virginia Reeve is summoned by an eccentric Brit with a compelling offer. Lady Jane Franklin wants her to lead a dozen women into the Arctic in search of the ships of her husband’s lost expedition, and she’s willing to pay handsomely. All four search attempts Lady Franklin previously sponsored have failed. She has decided only a radical new approach can succeed: let a rag tag group of women make the decisions.

read more

TIGERBELLE

One of our recommended books is Tigerbelle by Wyomia Tyus

A timely memoir about world record–breaking Tyus’s 1964 and 1968 Olympic victories, amid the turbulence of the 1960s, along with contemporary reflections.

In 1968, Wyomia Tyus became the first person ever to win gold medals in the 100-meter sprint in two consecutive Olympic Games, a feat that would not be repeated for twenty years or exceeded for almost fifty. Tigerbelle chronicles Tyus’s journey from her childhood as the daughter of a tenant dairy farmer through her Olympic triumphs to her post-competition struggles to make a way for herself and other female athletes.

The Hidden Figures of sport,

read more

YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR OWN FUN AROUND HERE

One of our recommended books is You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here by Frances Macken

Katie, Maeve and Evelyn – friends forever, united by their childhood games and their dreams of escaping the tiny Irish town of Glenbruff.

Outspoken, unpredictable and intoxicating, Evelyn is the undisputed leader of the trio. That is, until the beautiful, bold Pamela Cooney arrives from Dublin and changes Glenbruff forever…

Told from Katie’s witty, quirky perspective, Frances Macken’s debut beautifully captures life in a small town and the power of yearning for something bigger. Filled with unforgettable characters and crackling dialogue, You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here takes a keen-eyed look at the complexities of female friendship,

read more

PAPER BULLETS

One of our recommended books is Paper Bullets by Jeffrey Jackson

Paper Bullets is the first book to tell the history of an audacious anti-Nazi campaign undertaken by an unlikely pair: two French women, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, who drew on their skills as Parisian avant-garde artists to write and distribute “paper bullets”—wicked insults against Hitler, calls to rebel, and subversive fictional dialogues designed to demoralize Nazi troops occupying their adopted home on the British Channel Island of Jersey. Devising their own PSYOPS campaign, they slipped their notes into soldier’s pockets or tucked them inside newsstand magazines.

Hunted by the secret field police, Lucy and Suzanne were finally betrayed in 1944,

read more

SHE COME BY IT NATURAL

One of our recommended books is She Come By It Natural by Sarah Smarsh

The National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Heartland focuses her laser-sharp insights on a working-class icon and one of the most unifying figures in American culture: Dolly Parton.

Growing up amid Kansas wheat fields and airplane factories, Sarah Smarsh witnessed firsthand the particular vulnerabilities—and strengths—of women in working poverty. Meanwhile, country songs by female artists played in the background, telling powerful stories about life, men, hard times, and surviving. In her family, she writes, “country music was foremost a language among women. It’s how we talked to each other in a place where feelings aren’t discussed.” And no one provided that language better than Dolly Parton.

read more