Gender studies: women and girls Books

Book SynopsisThe internationally bestselling author Robin Norwood responds to letters from women who need advice and help in their recovery from addiction - whether drugs, alcohol or dangerous menIn her bestselling self-help book, Women Who Love Too Much, Robin Norwood revolutionised the way we look at love, with a compassionate, intimate book offering a detailed psychological recovery programme for women who love too much – women who are attracted to the wrong men, who neglect their own interests and friends and who are unable to leave tormented relationships for fear of being 'empty without him'. It is a book that speaks to nearly every woman who has ever loved and lost.In this follow-up to her bestselling book, Robin Norwood presents selected letters from readers about their reactions to the book. Norwood, a Dallas therapist, responds to her correspondents with diagnoses of the maladies they describe. The book, "a closer look at relationship addiction and recovery," is divided into 10 sections involving women who are battered, in therapy, addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, as well as to dangerous men. Although the letters are filled with pain, they also express hope for new beginnings, together with thanks from women who say they have learned that they are not alone in their suffering. The closing chapter is devoted to letters from men describing their own destructive relationships.

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Book Synopsis'One of the key feminist texts' Guardian The Descent of Woman is a pioneering work, the first to argue for the equal role of women in human evolution. On its first publication in 1972 it sparked an international debate and became a rallying-point for feminism, changing the terminology of anthropologists forever. Starting with her demolition of the Biblical myth that woman was an afterthought to the creation of man, Elaine Morgan rewrites human history and evolution.Trade ReviewOne of the key feminist texts * Guardian *She is more scientific than Genesis, more up to date than Darwin, more fun than Ardrey, and she writes better than Desmond Morris. * Sunday Telegraph *A dizzying Darwinian insight into the sheer happenstance of man's genesis. * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisA jaw-dropping re-evaluation of everything we thought we knew about men, women, and sex. Men are biologically programmed to want sex with lots of different women, whereas women are designed to stay true to one person, right? Wrong. In Untrue, New York Times -bestselling author Wednesday Martin reveals that we are just at the beginning of understanding women’s sexuality properly. From New York to Namibia to a conference of sex researchers in Montreal, she takes us on a journey to understand women who refuse monogamy, posing questions about why we became sexually exclusive in the first place. Martin attends all-female sex parties where married straight women fulfill their fantasies; considers contemporary societies where women take many lovers; analyses how the invention of the plough suppressed female autonomy; and presents fascinating research about why women stray (their motivations are not so different from men’s). Frank and myth busting, Untrue validates the desires of women everywhere, including the ‘silent majority’ in committed relationships who struggle with staying faithful.Trade Review‘Great fun … Martin is a lively, witty and engaging writer … She moves seamlessly between suburban housewives, “rock star” academics, macaque monkeys, and indigenous tribes. Her narrative is studded with surprises and even some cliffhangers … Fascinating’ -- Christina Patterson * The Sunday Times *‘The popular myth is that “men stray while women stay”, but New York social researcher Wednesday Martin sets out to expose that myopic Western view … This is a fascinating and surprising book.’ FOUR STARS -- Rosie Wilby * The Mail on Sunday *‘A provocative exploration of our biases about promiscuous women, with some psychology, primatology and lit-crit thrown in.’ -- Johanna Thomas-Corr * Evening Standard *‘[Martin] presents compelling food for thought on the very structures upon which our sexual identities are built, and the resistance from science itself that women, at their sexual core, may be more about rollicking adventure than romance and scented candles.’ -- Suzanne Harrington * Irish Examiner *‘Dr Mar­tin sug­gests that if you’re strug­gling with dis­sat­is­fac­tion in your re­la­tion­ship, you should com­mu­ni­cate that to your part­ner and ex­plore other op­tions, such as a con­sen­sual re­la­tion­ship with some­one out­side the re­la­tion­ship … If we’re open, hon­est and able to com­mu­ni­cate ef­fec­tively, non-monogamy is­n’t all that rad­i­cal.’ -- Georgia Aspinall * Grazia *‘Scientifically literate and sexually cliterate … an exuberant unfettering of female sexuality that challenges us to ‘think outside her box.’ Viva la Vulva!’ -- Ian Kerner, sex therapist and author of She Comes First‘If you have ever felt different, other, or just weird when it comes to love, sex, or intimacy, read Untrue. Wednesday Martin bulldozes the sexual stereotypes that have silenced women for eons. By bringing the voices of women who love in a range of ways to the surface, she shows us all that it's not us and our desires that are abnormal: it is a system that has constrained and shamed women. I love this book.’ -- Rachel Simmons, co-founder of Girls Leadership and author of Odd Girl Out‘Wednesday Martin understands female sexuality -- from the #MeToo movement and polyamory to women's prehistoric and cultural heritage. She goes far beyond our current psychological understanding of women's infidelity to tell the real story of women's ubiquitous, tenacious, and primordial sexual strategies. And her writing is not only informative, timely, and refreshing but wonderfully engaging. Brava, Wednesday.’ -- Helen Fisher, author of The First Sex and Why We Love‘For centuries, men have been telling the story of female sexuality. Unsurprisingly, it was was riddled with condescension, bias, and sheer ignorance. With Untrue, Wednesday Martin sets the record straight, shining a light on some of the female researchers reshaping our understanding of what turns women on, and why. This is an important story, beautifully told. Highly recommended.’ -- Christopher Ryan, co-author of Sex at Dawn‘A simultaneously frothy and substantive tour of female sexual desire … An indispensable work of popular psychology and sociology.’ STARRED REVIEW * Kirkus Reviews *‘Wednesday Martin deconstructs many of the false beliefs that have negatively affected the way women's sexuality is viewed … This book turns everything we think we know about women and sex completely on its head, essentially undressing the falsehoods of female sexuality to reveal what lies beneath the layers of distortion women operate under.’ -- Kerri Jarema * Bustle *‘Chapters cover topics like infidelity, open marriage, polyamory, and even cuckolding to show that women are not the demure, sex-hating bearers of morality that history and long-standing research (by men) would lead us to believe. -- Kathy Sexton * Booklist *‘Riveting.’ -- Stephen A Russell * The New Daily *‘Wednesday Martin has torn up the old established manual about how the world believes women view sex and revealed what’s really going on … With this book, a new sexual dawn is breaking.’ * Weekend Sport *‘At times playful, the narrative teems with fascinating commentary about everything from bonobos and paleolithic gender roles to Craigslist ads, as Martin examines how female sexuality continues to be shaped and stigmatised by artificial social constructions, sociopolitical values, and economics, all under the guise of ‘natural’ female biology and desire. A timely take on femininity and sexuality.’ STARRED REVIEW -- Emily Bowles * Library Journal *[An] eminently readable treatise on the lies society has been fed about female sexuality, agency, and infidelity. With each chapter, Martin builds a case for the primacy of female infidelity and for a societal reckoning with that truth. Step by step, she shows that she's thought deeply about her subject, and that all of these seemingly disparate intellectual threads are related and worthy of having been braided together. The sui generis quality of Untrue is the author's forte. -- Deb Copaken * The Atlantic *‘Combining Barbara Ehrenreich’s immersive reporting style and Carrie Bradshaw’s savoir faire, [Wednesday Martin] dispels many myths about female desire.’ * O, The Oprah Magazine *Insights gleaned during her anthropological deep-dive, gave Martin newfound appreciation for statistics indicating that women cheat about as often as men do. -- Nell Beram * Shelf Awareness *

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Book SynopsisTaking readers from the rainforests of Paraguay to the streets of Tokyo, Mattern draws on historical, scientific, and cultural research to reveal how perceptions of menopause developed from prehistory to today. She goes on to introduce new ways of understanding life beyond fertility.Trade Review"Winner of the PROSE Award in History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, Association of American Publishers""A celebration of menopause as a life stage vital to our species' survival, but one that has now been trivialized as a disease to be treated. . . . A wise history of a subject that is 'deeply . . . implicated in the human condition.'" * Kirkus Reviews *"That menopause may enable a new role and stature for women is the central argument of The Slow Moon Climbs . . . . Mattern sees [menopause] as an opening-up."---Liza Mundy, The Atlantic"By historicizing menopause the syndrome and showing how the long lives of post-menopausal women may have been a crucial factor in the success of our species, Mattern offers a counternarrative to the harridans and hags of our cultural consciousness."---Anna Reser, Lady Science"By viewing [menopause] through the lenses of anthropology, evolutionary psychology, sociology, medicine and culture, Mattern describes how our understanding of this biological rite of passage has itself evolved. [The Slow Moon Climbs] is also a polemic, a plea to reject the medicalisation of menopause and its language of loss and deficiency. All of this makes it a refreshing and scholarly change from the mostly folksy, self-help offerings in this genre."---Anjana Ahuja, Financial Times"Mattern’s book . . . makes a strong argument for embracing the menopause and treating its symptoms singly rather than bundling it into this female syndrome."---Kate Spicer, The Telegraph"The Slow Moon Climbs: The Science, History and Meaning of Menopause, surely could not have been published 50 or even 20 years ago."---Anne-Marie Slaughter, Financial Times"A brilliantly wide-ranging study of the menopause across the centuries . . . Mattern’s remarkable book fits perfectly into this cultural moment."---Emma Rees, Times Higher Education"The Slow Moon Climbs is a deeply satisfying book. . . . It tells the reader that women reach their most important roles later in life. It insists that what makes women special is not their sexuality, but who they are independent of their sexuality. And it invites them to understand that the social world they chose shapes the bodies they experience. Grandmothers rule."---T. M. Luhrmann, Times Literary Supplement"The Slow Moon Climbs is much more than a history of how menopause came to be understood as ‘hormonal chaos’. It is a sustained argument about the nature of humanity and the way our societies are structured, a far-reaching account of menopause’s significance in human evolution."---Katherine Foxhall, History Today"Susan Mattern’s scholarly and interpretive skills make this remarkable book recommended reading for evolutionary and cultural anthropologists as well as other historians, philosophers, and other scientists."---Kristen Hawkes, Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE 2020 At the dawn of the twentieth century, black women in the US were carving out new ways of living. The first generations born after emancipation, their struggle was to live as if they really were free. These women refused to labour like slaves. Wrestling with the question of freedom, they invented forms of love and solidarity outside convention and law. These were the pioneers of free love, common-law and transient marriages, queer identities, and single motherhood - all deemed scandalous, even pathological, at the dawn of the twentieth century, though they set the pattern for the world to come. In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman deploys both radical scholarship and profound literary intelligence to examine the transformation of intimate life that they instigated. With visionary intensity, she conjures their worlds, their dilemmas, their defiant brilliance.Trade ReviewOne of our most brilliant contemporary thinkers ... She's a theorist and writer who actually changes what's possible in my thought patterns -- Claudia RankineInfuses the history of black women and queer radicals with incredible life and urgency. She basically invents a new genre -- Carmen Maria Machado * New Statesman *I was inspired, surprised and deeply moved....[Hartman's] mode is intimate, radical and always alive to the details. -- Leslie Jamison * New York Times Book Review *This is scholarship as art * New Inquiry *Exhilarating....A rich resurrection of a forgotten history....[Hartman's] rigor and restraint give her writing its distinctive electricity and tension....This kind of beautiful, immersive narration exists for its own sake but it also counteracts the most common depictions of black urban life from this time. -- Parul Sehgal * New York Times *Ambitious, original... a beautiful experiment in its own right, to be set beside the many attempts at living free that Hartman here chronicles with a keen sense of history, imagination, and love. * Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts *Wayward Lives is a startling, dazzling act of resurrection... These remarkable black women were shamed, scorned, criminalized, studied, diagnosed and then erased from history. Yet now, Hartman challenges us to see, finally, who they really were: beautiful, complex, and multidimensional-whole people - who dared to live by their own rules, somehow making a way out of no way at all. * Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow *With urgency and compassion, Hartman rescues the lives of young black women from the margins of history. Wayward Lives is a series of adventure stories that take the reader through the travails and triumphs of a multitude of black women, as they negotiate the perilous path of self-discovery at the turn of the twentieth century. In her impeccably researched new book, Hartman breathes glorious life into these true survival tales with the precision and invention of a master storyteller. * Lynn Nottage, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sweat and Ruined *Fantastic, really amazing ... daring -- Hari KunzruWayward Lives unsorts the archive looking for the errant, the unruly, the gorgeously disarranged paths of fugitive black girls. Fleeing from respectability, the good, the right and the true, the black girls that interest Hartman are everyday revolutionaries or what she calls 'chorines, bulldaggers, aesthetical negroes, socialists, lady lovers, pansies and anarchists.' This book is a love song to the wayward, a riotous poem, a lyrical homage to the minor. It changes the way we do history, the way we constitute the political, and makes resistance newly visible in the ordinary. This book changes everything. * Jack Halberstam, author of Female Masculinity and The Queer Art of Failure *Saidiya Hartman tells a mesmerizing story with a multitude of women as its heroines, lifting up invisible black seekers within the cities of one hundred years ago to the light of memory and tribute. She uses the weapons of lyric and literature to steal 'colored women' away from the grasp of white lawmen and the clinical gaze, and along the way gives history what it lacks and wants-black women as secret agents of destiny, deep lives from the unnamed crowd, and underground sinners as the true sponsors of social change. * Edward Ball, author of Slaves in the Family *A masterpiece... The wayward lives and beautiful experiments in which Professor Hartman is interested can only be described and illuminated in wayward and experimental ways-not in analytic detachment but by joining the experiment, by engaging in its hard-won freedoms, its autonomous profligacies, its shifting directions... Hartman radically reimagines the very idea of the portrait... A truly great and groundbreaking book. * Fred Moten, professor of performance studies, New York University *Lyrical and novelistic....This passionate, poetic retrieval of women from the footnotes of history is a superb literary achievement * Publisher's Weekly *How to honour the soft liquid rigour, the sharp vast tenderness, of a writer like Saidiya Hartman? ... For those of us who turn to the archive seeking comfort, looking for old ways of looking at new things, for redress to our subjugated history - this book is a balm and a pedagogic tool. Wayward Lives is a book that wants you to live. -- Imani Robinson and Ebun Sodipo * Wasafiri *Lyrical and highly readable ... Hartman opens a window onto a form of resistance less well documented than the protests led by organised labour and civil rights campaigners * Literary Review *

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Book SynopsisDr. May East here explores the set of symbiotic relationships between women and the cities they live and work in. She considers how cities would look if they were designed by women, and how that design (or redesign) could help to achieve the dream of regenerative urban neighbourhoods. What if Women Designed the City? offers a fresh perspective on urban development by giving voice to local women from many different countries and backgrounds and it reveals multiple untapped potentials rooted in the uniqueness of their neighbourhoods. The book builds on the core assumption that women can contribute significantly more to urban planning decisions and implementation, and in doing so enrich and add value to urban environments and specifically to their own neighbourhoods. Drawing on in-depth walking interviews with 274 women, May East identifies 33 leverage points that can enable urban planners, policy-makers, practitioners, and communities to intervene in urban planning systems so that cities can be greener, more inclusive, more liveable, and even poetic!Trade Review"The book challenges us to rethink urban development, incorporating the powerful perspectives of local women into the fabric of our cities. It calls for action, encouraging us to embrace diverse perspectives towards a future where cities work better for women and girls, ultimately benefiting us all."; Ana Paricio Carceres, Urban Psychologist, Barcelona Regional; "What if Women Designed the City? is an exceptional book, containing tangible and practical ideas to bring about positive change in how women shape and experience public spaces. As an urban planner, I believe the insights in this book could be transformative for those of us in the frontline of delivering this change. A book that is insightful, tangible and practical whilst, I dare to say, quite emotional.; Daisy Narayanan MBE, Head of Placemaking and Mobility, Edinburgh City Council; "This is a very timely book, an effective antidote to the soulless, angular, concrete and glass high-rise city that is designed to serve the interests of capital rather than of ordinary people. Will anybody listen? Yes, I think so. Women-inspired urban 'regenerative development' is now an urgent necessity. This is an important book that should be essential reading for anybody concerned about the future of the human habitat."; Herbert Girardet, Author, Creating Regenerative Cities; "One would not expect to find a masterful tutorial in regenerative thinking and engagement in a book titled What if Women Designed the City? Yet that is exactly what May East delivers... she invites the reader into a journey through a dynamic, multilayered, multidimensional living matrix that requires continually weaving inner and outer worlds."; Pamela Mang, Principal and Co-Founder, Regenesis Institute;Table of ContentsForeword 1 Foreword 2 Preface 1 | The Context 2 | Women and Cities: A Co-Evolving Mutualism Perspective 3 | Systems Thinking for Urban Systems Change 4 | Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System 5 | Regenerative Design Bringing Vitality to Urban Systems 6 | Mapping Women's Presency through Walking Interviews 7 | 33 Leverage Points (LP) to make your city Work Better for Women and Girls 1 - Cultivating Biophilia 2 - Developing Spaces for Gathering and Belonging 3 - Designing Urban Extensions while Evolving the Whole 4 - Shifting from a mentality of maintenance to an attitude of care 5 - Redistributing land use and budget allocation for equality and gendered landscapes 6 - Creating conditions for wildness 7 - Devising a library of women-tailored bike saddles 8 - Growing and foraging for health and well-being 9 - Designing adventurous playgrounds for children and carers 10 - Working with men to redistribute power, balance representation and transform legal and planning systems 11 - Building confidence through easy to access self-defence training and seminars on rights of women and domestic violence 12 - Improving natural surveillance by design 13 - Scheduling regular patrol walks by wardens who belong 14 - Making Practical Cycle Awareness Training mandatory for drivers 15 - Encouraging active travel as a way of life 16 - Rethinking the bus fare system for trip-chaining and redesigning buses for encumbered travel 17 - Designing fresh air routes and low emissions zones from women's and infants perspectives 18 - Promoting earlier interventions and co-creating values-based educational pathways 19 - Expanding the use of public space in the evenings by creating bio-cultural-spatial conditions 20 - Co-developing sympathetic infrastructure enabling a sense of co-ownership and care 21 - Maximising use of available local resources available in urban interventions 22 - Practicing a culture of deep listening in the design and development of local plans 23 - Fostering regenerative tourism that enhances the bio-cultural-spatial uniqueness of place 24 - Adopting 20-Minute neighbourhoods 25 - Co-creating transitional safeguarding public spaces for young women 26 - Combining gender and nature-based approaches as strategy to transform urban environments 27 - Infusing beauty in cities form and function 28 - Reconnecting Broken Links 29 - Promoting schemes on electric bicycles usership 30 - Refurbishing pavements to accommodate high heels 31 - Delineating and flowing through cycling infrastructure 32 - Purpose-building intergenerational housing 33 - Co-designing Places with (not only for) teenage girls 8 | Bridging the Gender Gap in Urban Planning 9 | Afterword: Storylines Glossary of Terms Categorisation of 33 Leverage Points Bibliography

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Book SynopsisFounder of the She Is Free conference shows you how to navigate the complications inherent in female friendship, empowering you to face yourself with honesty so that you can truly connect with other women, genuinely cheer them on, and live out your purposes--together.

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Book SynopsisAn Independent Book of the Month Edith Summerskill was a remarkable politician, feminist, physician, campaigner and writer. At a time when there were few powerful women in public life, Dr Edith, as she was known, served in Clement Attlee''s transformational post-war Labour government and oversaw the National Insurance scheme which solidified the welfare state in Britain. Here, Labour MEP Mary Honeyball, provides the first biography of this remarkable early pioneer for women in politics. Honeyball shows how Edith Summerskill''s direct campaigning was instrumental in promoting women''s causes throughout her life and lays out her remarkable achievements in securing the equal rights of housewives and divorced women over property. This is an uplifting and enlightening account of a forgotten Labour hero.Trade ReviewLike many, I knew of Dr Edith Summerskill but didn’t really know about her. The recently published, very readable biography by former Labour MEP, Mary Honeyball, soon put a stop to that … I can thoroughly recommend this book on the life of the exceptional Edith Summerskill. -- Debbie Abrahams MP * The House *Thoroughly researched and written with real affection, Mary Honeyball's book finally gives this great Labour woman the biography she deserves. A worthy tribute, full of inspiration and insight. * Rachel Reeves, MP *A fascinating account and a much-needed contribution to the field of socialist feminist historiography. -- Steven Andrew * The Morning Star *A timely reminder of [Summerskill’s] contribution to women’s rights … this brilliantly evocative, informative and thoughtful biography not only tells the story of a heroic and inspirational person, but traces the changes in our society over the eight decades of her life, from the cramped social mores of Victorian Britain to the recognisably post-Elizabethan world of today. -- Dan Carrier * Camden New Journal *Essential ... Honeyball argues a hugely compelling case for why the life, career, and achievements of Edith Summerskill must be remembered. -- Scott Cresswell * Tides of History *Edith Summerskill was a pioneering champion of women’s rights, a successful minister in Clement Attlee’s post-war government, and an influential figure on Labour’s National Executive Committee. Yet she was neglected by historians – until now. Mary Honeyball’s fine biography restores Summerskill as a substantial figure in the Labour Party’s history. It deserves to be widely read. * Nick Thomas-Symonds, MP *Mary Honeyball’s timely and enjoyable biography of Edith Summerskill is a valuable addition to the growing body of literature about forgotten Labour women, illuminating the contribution of one of the first feminist MPs to the long and ongoing struggle for women’s rights. * Nan Sloane, author of 'Uncontrollable Women' and 'The Women in the Room' *This book has increased my admiration of Dr Edith, and provokes admiration of its author Mary Honeyball who has amassed a great deal of evidence about the achievements and life of this feminist pioneer. -- Fiona Mactaggart * Order! Order! *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1: Early Life Chapter 2: Apprenticeship Chapter 3: The House of Commons Chapter 4: The Second World War Chapter 5: Parliamentary Secretary Chapter 6: Promotion Chapter 7: Labour in Opposition Chapter 8: An Unstable World Chapter 9: The House of Lords Index

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Book SynopsisWhat is woman if not mother?Anything she wants to be.Foregoing motherhood has traditionally marked a woman as other. With no official place setting for her in our society, she has hovered on the sidelines: the quirky girl, the neurotic career obsessive, the eccentric aunt. Instead of continuing to paint women without kids as sad, self-obsessed, or somehow dysfunctional, what if we saw them as boldly forging a new vision for a fully autonomous womankind? Or as journalist and thought leader Ruby Warrington asks, what if being a woman without kids were in fact its own kind of legacy?Taking in themes from intergenerational healing to feminism to environmentalism, this personal look and anthropological dig into a stubbornly taboo topic is a timely and brave reframing of what it means not to be a mum. Whether we are childless by design or circumstance, we can live without regret, shame, or compromise.Bold and tenderhearted, Women Without Kids seek

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Book SynopsisThe term feminist' would have been anachronistic in the Tudor period, but surely we would not hesitate to call the lady, who would be queen, Anne Boleyn, a feminist? All ten women examined in this book, from Catherine Parr to Margaret Beaufort, lived their lives in a way that challenged the patriarchal world they lived in. Each chapter is dedicated to one remarkable woman, ahead of her time. It explores her achievements and examines the impacts she had on a male-dominated world, while placing her in the context of her particular circumstance and background. These Renaissance women, from the high born to the merchant class, were rule breakers, they railed against the rigid social norms of their time and stand out vividly against a backdrop of domestic servitude.

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Book Synopsis'A hugely informative and quietly furious call to arms.' IRISH TIMES'A ground-breaking new book.' EVENING STANDARD'A must read.' DAILY EXPRESS'She is balanced in her evidence analysis, forensic in her research.' TELEGRAPH'A vital subject that needs to be discussed -KATY HESSEL, AUTHOR OF THE STORY OF ART WITHOUT MEN'A valuable sociological perspective on women's bodies and health and an even more valuable (and optimistic) view of a better future for all.' GINA RIPPONThe idea that medicine is gender-neutral is a myth. This isn't inflammatory rhetoric; it's simply true. From the way pain is felt, to how heart attacks are diagnosed, to the very role society plays in the health of the body, the medical landscape in place today is one that was designed for, and by, men. This book is about all the ways medicine is not gender-neutral, from research to treatment to diagnosis. Throughout history, flawed mindsets have paved the way for sub-par treatment, and the prevailing attitudes that still exist today have had terrible repercussions for women and their bodies. Blending fascinating examples with historical and cultural context, and reflecting on her own personal experience with healthcare, Dr Marieke Bigg explores how women's bodies have been ignored, misunderstood and misdiagnosed, whilst keeping an eye to a better future. This is a sharp and honest must-read, and an empowering tool for anyone committed to making this world safer to navigate for all.Trade ReviewAsking all the right questions about the treatment of women's bodies and more importantly, answering them. Punchy, fascinating and vital. -- Rachel ParrisA different outlook on what is getting to be a familiar refrain. Medicine is sexist! This book offers another window into the world where women's health concerns are dismissed as 'only to be expected'. Where, when dealing with women, medicine waits until a problem arises rather than find ways of preventing it. Where female problems are second class and to be endured, as opposed to men's problems, which are a matter of primary concern, and must be cured. A valuable sociological perspective on women's bodies and health and an even more valuable (and optimistic) view of a better future for all, if medical research just paid attention to women's bodies -- Gina RipponA vital subject that needs to be discussed -- Katy HesselA brilliant book...There is so much to unlearn, there is so much that also follows in terms of how medicine could support - rather than fail - half the world's population. * Helen Pankhurst *''[Marieke] is balanced in her evidence analysis, forensic in her research.' * Telegraph *'A hugely informative and quietly furious call to arms... with the skill and methodological precision of a surgeon.' * Irish Times *'Dr Marieke Bigg's searing exposé of gender bias in medicine is equal parts frustrating and comforting...a must read.' * Daily Express *'A ground-breaking new book.' * EVENING STANDARD *'She skewers the medical and scientific experts for failing to listen to women about their problems and develop treatments.' * Financial Times *

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Book Synopsis*THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*A deeply honest investigation of what it means to be a woman and a commodity from Emily Ratajkowski, the archetypal, multi-hyphenate celebrity of our time._______________'This is the book for every woman trying to place their body on the map of consumption vs control, and every woman who wants to better understand her impulses. It left me much changed' - Lena Dunham'I read these pages, breathless with recognition, and the thrill of reading a new voice telling it like it is' - Dani Shapiro'Emily Ratajkowski's first essay collection needs to be read by everyone [...] both page-turning and moving as hell' - Amy Schumer'A slow, complicated indictment of a profession and the people who propel it [...] it will deliver a more nuanced and introspective rendering of her interior than those who come to it with those surface interests might expect' - Vogue'Dazzling' - Observer'Ratajkowski brings nuanced insight to questions about empowerment versus commodification of women's bodies and sexuality. Blending cultural criticism and personal stories, My Body is smart and powerful' - Time Magazine'Raw, nuanced and beautifully written. A moving and enlightening experience to join a woman openly exploring such deep parts of her physical self via the written word. A truly impressive debut' - Emma Gannon'Excellent [...] Ratajkowski writes with curiosity, intellect and acute awareness' - Harper's Bazaar'Superb [...] it feels revolutionary' - Telegraph'I admire and envy her artistry' - Guardian_______________Emily Ratajkowski is an acclaimed model and actress, an engaged political progressive, a formidable entrepreneur, a global social media phenomenon, and now, a writer. Rocketing to world fame at age twenty-one, Ratajkowski sparked both praise and furor with the provocative display of her body as an unapologetic statement of feminist empowerment. The subsequent evolution in her thinking about our culture's commodification of women is the subject of this book.My Body is a profoundly personal exploration of feminism, sexuality, and power, of men's treatment of women and women's rationalizations for accepting that treatment. These essays chronicle moments from Ratajkowski's life while investigating the culture's fetishization of girls and female beauty, its obsession with and contempt for women's sexuality, the perverse dynamics of the fashion and film industries, and the grey area between consent and abuse.Nuanced, unflinching, and incisive, My Body marks the debut of a fierce writer brimming with courage and intelligence.Trade ReviewEmily has captured-with the acuity of an early Joan Didion investigating the culture of California-the complicated terrain of having a body people want to sell and having her own agenda she refuses to give up. Her prose is by turns honey smooth and vicious, uproarious and wounded. She knows the pain that lives in every woman and she isn't afraid to link arms and say she's been there, and that it hurts. This is the book for every woman trying to place their body on the map of consumption vs control, and every woman who wants to better understand her impulses. It left me much changed. * Lena Dunham *These powerful essays mark a blazing, unexpected literary debut. Emily Ratajkowski interrogates beauty, sex, power, objectification, fame, and betrayal-both by self and other-with lucidity and scorched-earth honesty. I read these pages, breathless with recognition, and the thrill of reading a new voice telling it like it is. * Dani Shapiro *Emily Ratajkowski's first essay collection needs to be read by everyone. She explores body politics - and the politics of her body - through a uniquely feminist lens in stories that are both page-turning and moving as hell * Amy Schumer *This irresistibly titled debut from supermodel turned writer Emily Ratajkowski fills in some of the story of just how Ratajkowski came to have one of the most famous faces in the world. But more than that, the book is invested in probing what it means to be in possession of such a face. My Body is a memoir, but it's also-like Sweetbitter or In the Land of Men-a slow, complicated indictment of a profession and the people who propel it. Ratajkowski doesn't so much direct blame at any one person or organization as paint a personal picture of what it was like for her to be young, naive, ambitious, and smart-and to feel reduced, far too often, to a collection of body parts. The book will be alluring to anyone who wants to know what it was like to dance in Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" (the cringey video that made Ratajkowski a household name) or what it was like to act alongside Ben Affleck in Gone Girl, but it will deliver a more nuanced and introspective rendering of her interior than those who come to it with those surface interests might expect. * Vogue *Raw, nuanced and beautifully written. A moving and enlightening experience to join a woman openly exploring such deep parts of her physical self via the written word. A truly impressive debut * Emma Gannon *Essential reading * Red magazine *My Body is an excellent - if we excuse the pun - body of work. Ratajkowski writes with curiosity, intellect and acute awareness... What may surprise readers is not so much the quality of the prose, which is excellent, but that it is not an easy, pop-feminism read. It's a searingly personal piece, which frequently asks more questions than it answers * Harper’s Bazaar *When her gaze is on herself it is superb. My Body is the end of Ratajkowski's disassociation. She doesn't answer the question: what is a woman for? How can she? It is a universal question. But at least she asks it, and it feels revolutionary * Telegraph *A quietly furious disquisition on flesh and capitalism * Evening Standard *Emrata's voice... carries huge weight * Independent *These well-written, thought-provoking essays are Emily's way of reasserting her control. They make for fascinating, if depressing, reading * Daily Mirror and Express *Ratajkowski... writes intimately... at time remarkably candid and raw * i News *A thought-provoking read body shaming and what empowerment really means * STELLA magazine *An honest and thoughtful first-hand take on the patriarchy and commodification of the fashion industry * The Skinny *Ratajkowski writes knowingly about the misogyny that is fundamental to the industry * New Statesman *Dazzling * Observer *Model and actress Emily Ratajkowski's compelling essay collection deep-dives feminism, sexuality and power * The Sun *The skill of this book is in the way that Ratajkowski manages to cast her experiences in the glitter-plated hills of Hollywood and LA as entirely relatable which, all things considered, is quite a feat * Litro *Ratajkowski offers a fresh perspective on an age-old problem * Financial Times *I admire and envy her artistry * Guardian *Ratajkowski's feelings of shame and embarrassment after being sexually assaulted are movingly portrayed * Sunday Times *Well worth reading * The Times *A talented writer * Press Association *Ratajkowski delves into society's obsession with image and celebrity * Vogue *My Body has become one of the defining titles of 2021 exploring the uncomfortable and ever-shifting space that commodifies and exploits women's bodies with no easy answers * Stylist *It's really interesting. Emily says things that a lot of us wouldn't say about Instagram - how she thinks about what she posts because of the likes that she gets and how that can mentally control you. It's very honest and very well-written. Sometimes when you see someone beautiful like Emily, you assume that you know her life [but you don't] * Laura Whitmore *A fascinating read * Sheerluxe *The essays in My Body are an effort to grapple with the themes of power and control in a society where the female body - or at least one that looks like hers - is a valuable commodity * The Sunday Times *My Body is both an acknowledgement and a lament that [Emily's] physique and beauty are at the heart of her fame and success * Metro *A brilliant, beautiful read * Poorna Bell *A raw, powerful and reassuring read * Cosmo *My Body is genuine, powerful, and often eerily relatable * The Critic *There's no winning, but perhaps that means there's no real losing either: Any art, any writing, any attempt to detangle ourselves from the cruel stagnation of body-shaming is progress. My Body doesn't cut as deep as I want, but it cuts all the same * Buzzfeed *If you read (and liked) her hugely popular essay for The Cut last year, then model Emily Ratajkowski's new book is sure to tickle your fancy too * Image *Many stories are heartbreaking * Yorkshire Post *Ratajkowski, now 30, writes intimately and her essays are lucid * i paper and The Scotsman *The essay provokes an interesting debate on image ownership in an age where we constantly post ourselves online; who owns a photo - the subject or the model? * Reaction *Ratajkowski takes a subject that has obsessed tabloid media for years * Sunday Independent *A compelling portrait of loneliness, loss and the spiritual cost of choosing to pick up the tools you were handed to play by someone else's rules * VICE *An accomplished debut * Image magazine *An eye-opening read * The Times *In her thoughtful essay collection, Ratajkowski discusses the power and vulnerability of beauty, her relationship with her mother, and her experience of sexual violence and having her image exploited by men * Daily Mail *These well-written essays are Emily's way of reasserting control and are thought-provoking reading * Express *A deeply honest investigation into what it means to be a woman * Image Magazine *

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Book Synopsis 'This rallying cry will persuade you to battle for true equality' Stylist An incendiary debut taking the world by storm, Fight Like A Girl is an essential manifesto for feminists new, old and soon-to-be. Online sensation and fearless feminist heroine, Clementine Ford is a beacon of hope and inspiration to thousands of women and girls. In the wake of Harvey Weinstein and the #MeToo campaign, Ford uses a mixture of memoir, opinion and investigative journalism to expose just how unequal the world continues to be for women. Personal, inspiring and courageous, Fight Like A Girl is an essential manifesto for feminists new, old and soon-to-be. The book is a call-to-arms for women to rediscover the fury that has been suppressed by a society that, despite best efforts, still considers feminism to be a threat. Urgently needed, Fight Like a Girl is a passionate, rallying cry that will awaken readers to the fact they are not alone and there’s a brighter future where men and women can flourish equally – and that’s something worth fighting for. Trade Review‘Her brilliant book could light a fire with its fury. It gets my synapses crackling and popping; I find I can’t sit down while reading it, so instead I pace the sitting room.’ * Pandora Sykes, Sunday Times *‘There’s a wonderful book by Clementine Ford that I advise every woman, and especially young women, to read called Fight Like a Girl.’ * Kate Beckinsale *'It's the wit and searing honesty of her own personal life laid bare where Fight Like a Girl truly shines.' * Independent.ie *‘This rallying cry will persuade you to battle for true equality, not the fake news version.’ * Stylist *‘Clementine Ford was put on this earth to give courage to the young girl inside all of us. This is an exciting, essential book from Australia’s most fearless feminist writer.’ * Laurie Penny, author of Unspeakable Things *‘Required reading for all young women in Australia... Yes, Fight Like A Girl will make you angry. It will make you feel uncomfortable. But, ultimately, it will inspire you to create change.’ * Marie Claire *'Required reading for every young man and woman, a brave manifesto for gender equality, harm minimisation and self-care.’ * The Australian *‘An intimate, though universal, call to arms... Ford’s book is a galvanizing tour de force, begging women to never give up on the most radical act of all: loving themselves wholly and completely in a world that doesn’t love them back.’ * Booklist *‘[A] fun, frank and fearless feminist manifesto...anyone hoping for an introduction to the most pressing topics in identity politics would do well to brush up under Ford's tutelage.’ * Irish Independent *‘With just the right balance of sarcasm and straightforward, informational content, writer and broadcaster Ford’s first book is one people need to read in the wake of the MeToo movement… Ford’s quick, provocative read will appeal to anyone who desires a better understanding of the complex, intersectional issues so often lumped into phrases such as rape culture.’ * Library Journal starred review *'Brilliant...it makes me want to chain myself to a barricade.' * The Sun-Herald *‘Fight Like A Girl is fuelled by Ford’s clear-eyed defiance and refusal to compromise, and by her powerful combination of personal testimony and political polemic. In the vein of Caitlin Moran’s How to be a Woman or Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist.’ * Books + Publishing *‘Clementine Ford was one of my very first formative feminist influences, initiating me into the world of feminism. She is someone whose tenacity and fearlessness I admire greatly, and she helped me along the path to becoming the humourless, bitter, lesbian feminist I am today.’ * Rebecca Shaw, writer, SBS *‘A beautiful, bittersweet journey to self-acceptance. A companion to all those still seeking to forge a sense of self. Clementine Ford has always been a bastion of shamelessness in a world that would rather see her defeated, and her book is a testament to the commitment she has to living fearlessly. I am comforted daily by her presence in the lives of young Australians, and I’m beyond thrilled that we now have her unique brilliance committed to these pages.’ * Caitlin Stasey, actor and creator of Herself.com *‘Clementine is furious and scathing when she needs to be, yet compassionate and encouraging every moment she can be. This book is both a confirmation of sisterhood and a call to arms.’ * Bri Lee, Hot Chicks with Big Brains *'The past few years have been a watershed for the elimination of violence against women in Australia, and Clementine’s voice has not only been instrumental, but has taken up a mainstream space that has aligned with and reinforced the efforts of the women’s services sector. We love her for that.' * Ada Conroy, family violence worker *'An inspiring, unapologetic, feminist manifesto that highlights with great clarity and dispassion the global socio-economic disparities that continue to exist between men and women and suggests how we can set about changing the patriarchal status quo in order to build a fairer, more egalitarian society in which women can also flourish. It’s time to change the way we all think about gender. And by doing so, create a brighter future for all humans.' -- Shirley Manson from Garbage‘The book I’ve been waiting for: an impassioned call to arms for girls of all ages.’ -- Anne Summers'With wit, insight and glorious, righteous rage, Clementine Ford lays out all the ways in which girls and women are hurt and held back, and unapologetically demands that the world do better. A passionate and urgently needed call to arms, Fight Like A Girl insists on our right to be angry, to be heard and to fight. It'll change lives.' -- Emily Maguire, author of An Isolated Incident

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'A racily written, well-researched and heart-warming account' Scots MagazineToo many historians have ignored the role of women in the '45. This book aims to redress the balance. Damn' Rebel Bitches takes a totally fresh approach to the history of the Jacobite Rising by telling fascinating stories of the many women caught up in the turbulent events of 1745-46. Drawn from original documents and letters, Maggie Craig brings their stories to life in this often touching and always engrossing reframed history.'A modern classic' The Herald 'Bold and argumentative...resounds with authority' Scotland on Sunday

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Book SynopsisThere she goes brings together seventeen women writers of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry in an anthology of travel tales to inspire, encourage and empower women adventuring through the world in different ways and stages of life. There she goes celebrates the stories of women getting on with getting from one place to another the grit, courage and determination of moving through the world with babies, with periods, with grief and loss, with the menopause, with magic and humour, with bodies that are ill or disabled or seen as foreign and Other. These are stories so often shared between women verbally but - despite the drama, excitement and humour they contain are rarely printed. This is a book offering a new perspective on what it means to be adventurous. In times where fear and worry seem so prevalent, it is a gift of courage and celebration.

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Book SynopsisThis is the catalogue of the important exhibition dedicated to Wanda Miletti Ferragamo, which focuses on female empowerment in various domains from the 1960s onward. This catalogue accompanies the exhibition Women in Balance at the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo in Florence. The project arose as a tribute to Wanda Miletti Ferragamo, who guided the Salvatore Ferragamo company from 1960 until her death in 2018. The volume aims to tell the story of the women who balanced their roles as mothers and wives with their work during the years of the Italian economic miracle and beyond. The story of Wanda Ferragamo's life is accompanied by the voices of women from diverse fields who embodied their time and helped to shape it. Focus is placed on women who have been pioneers in their fields (politics, literature, photography, cinema, art, music, business, science, and technology). This catalogue seeks to trigger reflections on gender relations in contemporary society and the balance needed to reconcile women's private lives with their passions and professional aspirations.

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Book SynopsisA vibrant history of English landscape preservation over the last 150 years, told through the lives of four remarkable womenTrade Review“As Kelly demonstrates, the achievements of these four preservationists deserve to be remembered and indeed celebrated. . . . Kelly’s book is rich with insights into their motivations. . . . As well as exploring their lives and activism, Kelly guides the reader through the landscapes that they fought to preserve.”—PD Smith, The Guardian“Matthew Kelly celebrates four women whose work created the organisations and attitudes to conservation we take for granted today. . . . I am proud to have worked in their shadows and grateful to Prof Kelly for telling their stories.”—Fiona Reynolds, Country Life“An essential and delightful read. . . . With an engaging, accessible, page-turning style, Matthew Kelly reveals an innate awareness of his reader as he illuminates the achievements of these four extraordinary women.”—Katharine Norbury, BBC Countryfile“One thing that Covid lockdown made us appreciate was the importance of being outdoors. . . . How timely, then, that Matthew Kelly has written an account of four redoubtable rural activists. . . . According to Kelly’s thorough examination of these women’s efforts, the two least known appear to be the ones who fought their corner hardest.”—Camilla Swift, Spectator“[A] deeply researched examination of the battles fought to protect the landscape.”—Will Smith, Cumbria Life“An inspiring look at connections between people, place and period.”—BBC History Magazine“A welcome celebration of environmental heroes who deserve to be better known.”—BBC History Revealed“Kelly’s book dives deeply and effectively into the archives to describe this band of high-born troublemakers. . . . Many millions enjoy the fruit of their campaigning every year.”—Boyd Tonkin, Times Literary Supplement“[an] intriguing group biography ... Kelly’s prose draws vitality from his subjects’ conviction that in alienating ourselves from nature, we curb our own happiness.” —Hephzibah Anderson, The Observer“Kelly’s book is rich with insights… As well as exploring their lives and activism, Kelly guides the reader through the landscapes that they fought to preserve.”­—Oldie “At last, the full and proper place of these women in the narrative of English conservation is established. And how much we can learn from them! As Kelly describes in his meticulously researched book, revealing intricate detail and fresh insight with every page, each was driven by a mix of personal passion, moral fervour and a sharp and often piercing intellect. We owe them so much. And now, thanks to Matthew Kelly, their story is told.”—Dame Fiona Reynolds, former director general of the National Trust“The National Trust owes a debt particularly to Octavia Hill and Beatrix Potter, and the work we do today stands on the shoulders of all that they made possible. What unites all four women’s stories is the firm belief in the benefits of nature for people. That’s a mission with enduring relevance, and it drives me now just as it drove Octavia in the 19th century.”—Hilary McGrady, director general of the National Trust“A fascinating account of four courageous women who, often against the odds, helped to save the countryside and our access to it. This important book describes their motivations, influence, frustrations, and victories—and ensures that they are not forgotten.”—Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the Open Spaces Society

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Book SynopsisRise Sister Rise is a call to arms for our sacred feminine to rise up, tell the truth, and lead. From Rebecca Campbell, a writer, mystic, devotional creative, and visionary who supports hundreds of thousands of people to connect with their soul and weave the sacred back into their everyday life.It is for those who agreed at soul level to be here at this stage in history to lead this global shift that the mystics of the ages have predicted: the return of the mother and the rise of the feminine. Rebecca says: Rise for you, rise for me, when you rise first you rise for She. Many of us have spent much of our working lives "making it" in a man’s world, leaning on patriarchal methods of survival in order to succeed, dulling down our intuition, and ignoring the fierce power of the feminine. We have ignored the cycles of the feminine in order to survive in a patriarchal linear system – but now the world has changed.Here Are Some of the Chapters in Rise, Sister Rise:Part I - Rebecca's Story · The Unbinding· The Wise Women· Work Baby· Shakti Rising· Returning to Avalon· Tools for Your Rising Part II - Birthing A New Age· We Were Made for These Times· Shakti Always Rises· The Holy Grail is Within YouPart III - Remembering Our Cyclic Nature · You Are Spirit Earthed· You'll Find Your True Nature in Nature· When Whispers Turn into ShoutsPart IV - Unbinding the Wise, Wild Woman· The Suppression of the Female Voice· The Mystic Always Rises · Finding Mary· The Return of the MagdalenesPart V - Redefining Sisterhood· The Reunion· The Ones Who Came Before Us· When Women Circle· Your Constellation of Sisters· Calling in Your SistersPart VI - Doing the Work· What Is Rising in You?· Rising Feminine Archetypes· New World RIsing Birthed by You· Let the Universe Use You· Be a Clear Channel· A Prayer for Times of Remembering· It's Not Your Job to Save the World · Keep on Rising“I’m a super-fan of Rebecca Campbell... Rebecca guides her reader to step into their authentic power so that they can live and lead at their highest potential.”– Gabrielle Bernstein, New York Times bestselling author of Miracles NowRise Sister Rise is a transmission that calls the innate divine feminine wisdom to rise. It is about healing the insecurities, the fears, and the inherited patterns that stop people from trusting the Shakti (power) and wisdom (intuition) that effortlessly flows through them.It's about recognizing all of the ways we have been keeping ourselves contained and restrained in effort to dim to fit into a certain archetype. It’s about co-creating a whole new archetype – someone who does not keep themself small in order to make others feel more comfortable.Full of activations, spiritual tools, calls to action, contemplative questions, rituals, and confrontational exercises, this inspirational book teaches that it is safe to let Shakti rise, safe to trust your intuition, and safe to take leaps of faith – because in healing ourselves we are healing the world.“You have an ancient wisdom within you that is waiting for you to remember, hear, and heed it. These Rise Sister Rise calls to action have been carefully designed to assist you in reclaiming your voice, unbinding your power, unlocking your wisdom, unleashing your true nature, and aligning yourselves with the sacred flow of all of Life.”Rise Sister Rise.Love, Rebecca xTrade ReviewI'm a super-fan of Rebecca Campbell [...] Rebecca guides her reader to step into their authentic power so that they can live and lead at their highest potential. -- Gabrielle Bernstein, New York Times bestselling author of Miracles Now Rebecca Campbell is a modern day High Priestess led by the Divine. I've never in my life met anyone who shines like she does. -- Kyle Gray, author of Raise Your Vibration

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Book SynopsisHow can you live as a confident woman of faith? Strong, a 90-day devotional by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Bevere, will inspire you to strengthen your relationship with God as you go deeper in your study of the Bible. A beloved Bible study teacher, Lisa invites you to find your strength, not from trying harder or doing more but through a deep and devoted relationship with God and from knowing and following Him. Each of the 90 devotions featured in Strong includes Scripture reflections, and biblical teaching from Lisa, a prayer, and an anthem of strength.Devotional topics include: Relational healing Contentment Redeeming regret The strength of rest How to be both powerful and gentle  With its gorgeous two-color design, Strong is a beautiful gift for your sisters, friends, prayer partners, mothers, or any woman who loves God. Lisa''s heartfelt and str

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Book SynopsisWhat did your face look like before your parents were born? Who are you? What is your true self? These are the questions in Ruth Ozeki's mind as she challenges herself to spend three hours gazing into her own reflection, recording every thought and detail.What follows are a lifetime's worth of meditations on race, ageing, family, death, the body, self-doubt and, finally, acceptance. In this profound encounter with memory and the mirror, Ozeki weaves together personal history, professional experience, Zen philosophy, Japanese culture and more to paint a rich, intimate and utterly unique portrait of a life as told through a face.Trade ReviewStrange in the best sense, plus funny, moving and deeply wise * * San Francisco Chronicle * *The Face, as with the best of literary nonfiction, incorporates elements of memoir and essay, conjecture and meditation, allowing the reader to accompany each author as [she] creates a text that is utterly unique and universally affecting . . . funny, sad and profound * * Los Angeles Review of Books * *Throughout Ozeki's essay her refreshing and cultivated wisdom leads us through the mind of a compassionate, grounded human and a writer of real integrity * * Electric Literature * *One of those perfect books you can read in an afternoon, but think about for days and days afterward * * Book Riot * *Praise for The Book of Form and Emptiness: Heart-breaking and heart-healing - a book to not only keep us absorbed but also to help us think and love and live and listen. No one writes quite like Ruth Ozeki and The Book of Form and Emptiness is a triumph -- MATT HAIGPraise for A Tale for the Time Being: This is one of the most deeply moving and thought-provoking novels I have read in a long time. In precise and luminous prose, Ozeki captures both the sweep and detail of our shared humanity, moving seamlessly between Nao's story and our own -- MADELINE MILLERA triumph . . . Ozeki explores what it means to be human in this moment, right now (Nao). Her novel is saturated with love, ideas and compassion. In short, an absolute treat * * Sunday Times * *A Tale for the Time Being is a timeless story. Ruth Ozeki beautifully renders not only the devastation of the collision between man and the natural world, but also the often miraculous results of it. She is a deeply intelligent and humane writer who offers her insights with a grace that beguiles. I truly love this novel -- ALICE SEBOLDIngenious and touching, A Tale for the Time Being is also highly readable. And interesting: the contrast of cultures is especially well done -- PHILIP PULLMANA beautifully interwoven novel about magic and loss and the incomprehensible threads that connect our lives. I just finished it, and loved it -- ELIZABETH GILBERT

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Book SynopsisWhen the Yetis are kicked out of their treehouse, it’s up to the Roanokes to win their home back from the Sasquatches that took it over by beating them at roller derby. You just gotta learn to roll with the punches! When the yetis are kicked out of their humble treehouse abode, it’s up to Jo, April, Mal, Molly and Ripley to get them back where they belong amongst the trees...and not leeching the camp’s power and making all the ice cream melt. To get the sasquatches to clear out, though, the Roanoke girls will have to challenge them to a roller derby match! This New York Times bestseller and multiple Eisner-Award and GLAAD-award winning series is written by Shannon Watters and Kat Leyh (Super Cakes) and illustrated by Carolyn Nowak.

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Book SynopsisThis provocative cultural critique of the imperative to be happy draws on the work of feminist, black, and queer critics showing how happiness is used to justify social oppression.Trade Review“Ahmed’s analyses are spot-on and provocative. . . . Ahmed’s analysis of this and other topics is unpredictable and engaging.” - Heather Seggel, The Gay & Lesbian Review“Ahmed's language is a joy, and her work on each case study is filled with insight and rigor as she doggedly traces the social networks of dominance concealed and congealed around happiness. . . . The Promise of Happiness is an important intervention in affect studies that crucially approaches one of the major assumptions guiding social life: the assumption that we need to be happy.” - Sean Grattan, Social Text“. . . [F]ascinating and important, both in showing us how to read some keytexts differently and in showing how to think more carefully about happinessand its politics. . . . [T]here is a perverse happiness to be taken from readingsuch an interesting book about the insufficiency of happiness.” - Richard Ashcroft, Textual Practice“The Promise of Happiness bridges philosophy and cultural studies, phenomenology and feminist thought—providing a fresh and incisive approach to some of the most urgent contemporary feminist issues. Ahmed navigates this bridge with a voice both clear and warm to convey ideas that are as complex as they are intimate and accessible. Her treatment of affect as a phenomenological project provides feminist theorists a way out of mind-body divides without reverting to essentialisms, enabling Ahmed to attend to intersectional and global power relations with acuity and originality.” - Aimee Carrillo Rowe, Signs“The Promise of Happiness is richly valuable not only for its discussion of utilitarianism but also for its broader deconstruction of the workings of happiness in a range of works of philosophy, literature, and social science. Whereas other feminist theorists also occasionally cast a critical eye toward happiness, or raise consciousness of female unhappiness, Ahmed has produced a volume that is unparalleled in its sustained and extensive expose´ of the entanglements between discourses of happiness and oppression.” - Andrea Veltman, Hypatia“Ahmed enhances feminism’s critical toolbox by guiding us to regard affect as a cipher for society as we track how it produces and is produced by politics. ... Ahmed draws on feminism to potentially enhance the quality of life for her readers, who are offered mindful practices of relinquishing attachment to various ideals in a text that is neither Pollyannaish nor depressing.” - Naomi Greyser, Feminist Studies“At a time when happiness studies are all the rage and feminism is accused of destroying women’s happiness, Sara Ahmed offers a bold critique of the consensus that happiness is an unconditional good. Her new book asks searching questions about the nature of the good life, making its case in a wonderfully pellucid prose. What a paradox that a defense of the kill-joy should be such a pleasure to read! This timely, original, and intellectually expansive book is sure to trigger a great deal of debate.”—Rita Felski, University of Virginia“What could be more naturalized and less subject to ideological critique than happiness? How are we to get critical perspective on it? Through her readings of texts and films, Sara Ahmed shows how this might work. By revealing the complexity and ambivalence of happiness, she intervenes in several fields—including queer and feminist theory, affect studies, and critical race theory—in a genuinely new and exciting way.”—Heather K. Love, author of Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History “The Promise of Happiness is an extraordinary text that should become a mainstay of affect studies and that serves as a strikingly powerful model of astute cultural critique. Ahmed offers an insightful study of our preoccupation with and desire for happiness.” -- Jenna Supp-Montgomerie * Women's Studies Quarterly *“Expand[s] the political horizons of feeling and cultural politics with exciting complexity . . . brilliant.” -- Sarah Cefai * Cultural Studies Review *“By unpacking the attribution of happiness to specific choices and lives, Ahmed encourages us to consider how ‘the promise of happiness’ serves as a moral imperative. A stimulating and—dare I say—pleasurable read, the book may not have a happy ending, but it does propose what might happen instead.” -- Kestryl Cael Lowrey * Lambda Literary Review *“Fascinating and important, both in showing us how to read some key texts differently and in showing how to think more carefully about happiness and its politics. . . . [T]here is a perverse happiness to be taken from reading such an interesting book about the insufficiency of happiness.” -- Richard Ashcroft * Textual Practice *“The Promise of Happiness is richly valuable not only for its discussion of utilitarianism but also for its broader deconstruction of the workings of happiness in a range of works of philosophy, literature, and social science. Whereas other feminist theorists also occasionally cast a critical eye toward happiness, or raise consciousness of female unhappiness, Ahmed has produced a volume that is unparalleled in its sustained and extensive expose´ of the entanglements between discourses of happiness and oppression.” -- Andrea Veltman * Hypatia *“The Promise of Happiness bridges philosophy and cultural studies, phenomenology and feminist thought—providing a fresh and incisive approach to some of the most urgent contemporary feminist issues. Ahmed navigates this bridge with a voice both clear and warm to convey ideas that are as complex as they are intimate and accessible. Her treatment of affect as a phenomenological project provides feminist theorists a way out of mind-body divides without reverting to essentialisms, enabling Ahmed to attend to intersectional and global power relations with acuity and originality.” -- Aimee Carrillo Rowe * Signs *“Ahmed enhances feminism’s critical toolbox by guiding us to regard affect as a cipher for society as we track how it produces and is produced by politics. ... Ahmed draws on feminism to potentially enhance the quality of life for her readers, who are offered mindful practices of relinquishing attachment to various ideals in a text that is neither Pollyannaish nor depressing.” -- Naomi Greyser * Feminist Studies *“Ahmed's language is a joy, and her work on each case study is filled with insight and rigor as she doggedly traces the social networks of dominance concealed and congealed around happiness. . . . The Promise of Happiness is an important intervention in affect studies that crucially approaches one of the major assumptions guiding social life: the assumption that we need to be happy.” -- Sean Grattan * Social Text *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Why Happiness, Why Now? 1 1. Happy Objects 21 2. Feminist Killjoys 50 3. Unhappy Queers 88 4. Melancholic Migrants 121 5. Happy Futures 160 Conclusion: Happiness, Ethics, Possibility 199 Notes 225 References 283 Index 301

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Book SynopsisKhadija was the first believer, to whom the Prophet Muhammad often turned for advice. At a time when strongmen quickly seized power from any female Muslim ruler, Arwa of Yemen reigned alone for five decades. In nineteenth-century Russia, Mukhlisa Bubi championed the rights of women and girls, and became the first Muslim woman judge in modern history. After the Gestapo took down a Resistance network in Paris, British spy Noor Inayat Khan found herself the only undercover radio operator left in that city. In this unique history, Hossein Kamaly celebrates the lives and achievements of twenty-one extraordinary women in the story of Islam, from the formative days of the religion to the present.Trade Review‘Here in all their gutsy glory are women whose voices have not received the prominence that is their due within the story of Islam… A History of Islam in 21 Women is an act of reclamation on several fronts. For Muslim women, it provides an empowering and exhilarating genealogy of strong forebears whom they can connect to their contemporary journeys of empowerment. For Western readers, it exposes the untruths that have characterized Muslim women as deferential beings in need of rescue.’ * New York Times *‘Resurrecting a history that has been repeatedly bludgeoned, exploited and buried.’ * Middle East Eye *‘Kamaly skilfully and sensitively negotiates the matrix of history, gender and language through the lived realities of 21 remarkable Muslim women. The result is a rich, vibrant and meticulously researched exposition that instinctively unpacks the intersectional context Muslim women have occupied from the sixth century to the present day.’ * Critical Muslim *‘[A] solid starting reference for those interested in women and Islamic studies, accessible and well-suited for both high school and college-level readers.’ * Library Journal *‘In the same format as author Jenni Murray’s similarly titled books on women in British and world history, Islamic studies scholar Kamaly presents capsule biographies of his choices of 21 women significant in the world of Islam…a straightforward history-in-portraits.’ * Booklist *‘With grace and erudition, Kamaly vividly captures key moments in the long and varied history of the Muslim world, bringing to life some of the extraordinary women…who made that history and transformed our world.’ -- Lila Abu-Lughod, Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor, Columbia University, and author of Do Muslim Women Need Saving?‘In a highly readable and engaging book, Hossein Kamaly invites us to rethink the history of Islam by narrating the lives and achievements of twenty-one remarkable women, from the birth of the religion to the present. This is a much-needed corrective to conventional masculinist Muslim history.’ -- Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Professorial Research Associate, SOAS, University of London‘This book takes readers on a thrilling journey into the lives of twenty-one women in Islamic history. In tightly written, lucid, and highly readable chapters, Kamaly offers an informative and rich survey of some of the key women who crafted and shaped the history of Islam from its very foundations to our modern age. This book is a rich source for any reader interested in the history of Islam, and it should be required reading in any introductory course on Muslims and their religion or culture.’ -- Khaled Abou El Fadl, Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Professor in Islamic Law, UCLA School of LawTable of ContentsIntroduction 1 Khadija (ca. 560–619): The First Believer 2 Fatima (ca. 612–633): Prophet Muhammad’s Flesh and Blood 3 Aisha (ca. 615–678): “Get Half of Your Religion From Her” 4 Rabia al-Adawiyya (ca. 717–801): The Embarrassment of Riches, and its Discontents 5 Fatima of Nishapur (ca. 1000–1088): Keeper of the Faith 6 Arwa of Yemen (ca. 1050–1138): The Queen of Sheba Redux 7 Terken Khatun (ca. 1205–1281): Doing Well and Doing Good 8 Shajara’-al-Durr (d. 1257): Perils of Power, Between Caliphs and Mamluks 9 Sayyida al-Hurra of Tétouan (ca. 1492 –ca. 1560): The Free Queen 10 Pari Khanum (1548–1578): A Golden Link in the Safavid Chain of Command 11 Nur Jahan (1577–1645): Light of the World 12 Safiye Sultan (ca. 1550–ca. 1619): A Mother of Many Kings 13 Tajul-Alam Safiatuddin Syah (1612–1675): Diamonds Are Not Forever 14 Tahereh (ca. 1814–1852): Heroine or Heretic? 15 Nana Asmau (1793–1864): Jihad and Sisterhood 16 Mukhlisa Bubi (1869–1937): Educator and Jurist 17 Halidé Edip (ca. 1884–1964): Author of the New Turkey 18 Noor Inayat Khan (1914–1944): The Anxiety of Belonging 19 Umm Kulthum (ca. 1904–1975): Lodestar of Union 20 Zaha Hadid (1950–2016): Curves in Glass and Concrete 21 Maryam Mirzakhani (1977–2017): The Princess of Mathematics Afterword Notes Further Reading Bibliography Acknowledgments Index

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Book SynopsisMaria Mies is a Marxist feminist scholar who is renowned for her theory of capitalist patriarchy, which recognizes third world women and difference. She is a professor of sociology at Cologne University of Applied Sciences, but retired from teaching in 1993. Since the late 1960s she has been involved with feminist activism. In 1979, at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, she founded the Women and Development programme. Her other titles published by Zed include The Lace Makers of Narsapur (1982), Women: The Last Colony (1988), The Subsistence Perspective (1999) and Ecofeminism (2014).Trade ReviewCompelling. One of the most ambitious projects undertaken by a feminist scholar in recent years. * Deniz Kandiyoti, SOAS, University of London *In Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale, Maria Mies drew connections between two structures of domination that had previously been viewed separately. In showing the convergence between patriarchy and capitalism, she has pushed intellectual boundaries, and has enriched feminism, women's struggles, and movements for social and economic justice. If you want to understand the roots of the economic crisis, and of violence against women, read this book. If you want to create alternatives and participate in shaping living economies, read this book. Patriarchy and Accumulation is essential reading for all, more so today than when it was first written. * Dr. Vandana Shiva, founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology and director at the International Forum on Globalization *Maria Mies' vision is huge, the scale of her project breathtakingly bold. * New Internationalist *Feminist theory at its very best. * Off Our Backs *A major contribution to authentic development theory and practice. Women cannot hope for justice from a mode of production built on subordination either as housewife in the West or cheap labour in the third world. Mies produces an alternative feminist concept of labour and some strategic elements of its implementation. The critique is compelling. * World Development *Table of ContentsForeword by Silvia Federici Preface to the critique influence change edition Introduction 1. What is Feminism? 2. Social Origins of the Sexual Division of Labour 3. Colonization and Housewifization 4. Housewifization International: Women and the International Division of Labour 5. Violence Against Women and the Ongoing Primitive Accumulation of Capital 6. National Liberation and Women's Liberation 7. Towards a Feminist Perspective of a New Society

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Book SynopsisThe Number 1 Bestseller''A captivating account of lives previously ignored'' Sunday IndependentIreland in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was not a good place to be a woman. Among the wave of emigrants from Ireland to North America were many, many young women who travelled on their own, hoping for a better life. Some lived lives of quiet industry and piety. Others quickly found themselves in trouble - bad trouble, and on an astonishing scale.Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick, creators of the celebrated ''Bad Bridget'' podcast, have unearthed a world in which Irish women actually outnumbered Irish men in prison, in which you could get locked up for ''stubbornness'', and in which a serial killer called Lizzie Halliday was described by the New York Times as ''the worst woman on earth''. They reveal the social forces that bred this mayhem and dysfunction, through stories that are brilliantly strange, sometimes funny, and often moving. From sex workers and thieves to kidnappers and killers, these Bridgets are young women who have gone from the frying pan of their impoverished homeland to the fire of vast North American cities.Bad Bridget is a masterpiece of social history and true crime, showing us a fascinating and previously unexplored world.______''An important, impeccably researched though eminently readable book that charts new territory . . . this could yet be the book of 2023'' Irish Examiner''I just loved it!'' Ryan Tubridy''Fascinating'' Irish TimesTrade ReviewA fascinating account of an aspect of the diaspora that is rarely given attention . . . Farrell and McCormick have created a captivating account of lives previously ignored * Sunday Independent *This book not only shows Farrell and McCormick's dedication to original historical research, but also their respect for the women they studied as complex individuals who were often placed in difficult situations. * RTÉ Culture Guide *An important, impeccably researched though eminently readable book that charts new territory . . . this could yet be the book of 2023 -- Clodagh Finn * Irish Examiner *Fascinating * Irish Times *I just loved it . . . this is a book that will enrich any bookshelf around the country -- Ryan TubridyThe emigration story we mostly tell ourselves is a bright, shiny one to which Bad Bridget now adds invaluable corrective shading. Its haul of previously underused primary source material will ... allow us to tell it with more nuance and complexity, and truth. -- Vona Groarke * Irish Times *‘Bad Bridget is rich in detail and thorough in research. By giving a voice to these Irish women history has neglected, Farrell and McCormick disrupt the romanticised narrative of Irish immigration to North America that is prominent in popular culture today.’ -- Christina Bishop * New Statesman *A lively, entertaining, if also at times incredibly sobering read, Bad Bridget provides a richly evocative account of the experiences of Irish female emigrants who found themselves on the wrong side of the law in nineteenth-century North America.Bad Bridget deftly handles its archival material to create a remarkably accessible social history.… this is a valuable work of social history that offers a vibrant reconstruction of a familiar terrain – Irish immigration to North America – from a fresh and enlightening perspective, that of Irish female criminals. -- Christina Morin * Women's History Association of Ireland *At the heart of this riveting book, though, there are insightful glimpses into the lives of Irish women who were criminalised for trying to survive. -- Caelainn Hogan * Irish Independent *

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Book SynopsisThe rebirth of the feminine surrounds us in many forms--from the global movement for women's rights to a renewed interest in feminine spirituality, the Goddess, and the Divine Mother. What is the spiritual meaning of this rebirth? What is the feminine divine? Who is she? The feminine divine has had many names in many cultures: Ishtar in Babylon, Inanna in Sumeria, Athena, Hera, Demeter, and Persephone in Greece, Isis in Egypt, Durga, Kali, and Lakshmi in India. She is the Shekinah of the Cabalists, and the Sophia of the Gnostics. To Steiner, she is Anthroposophia (or Divine Wisdom), who descended from the spiritual world and passed through humanity to become now the goal and archetype of human wisdom in the cosmos. This book contains most of Steiner's statements on Sophia. We see him midwifing the birth of the Sophia, the new Isis, and divine feminine wisdom, in human hearts on earth. Each chapter explores the mystery of the various relationships of Sophia: Sophia and Isis, Sophia and the Holy Spirit, Sophia and Mary, the mother of Jesus (and Mary Magdalene), Sophia and the Gnostic Achamod, and Sophia and the New Isis. Above all, in a remarkable way, Steiner makes clear the relationship of Christ and Sophia. Contents: * Introduction by Christopher Bamford * Prologue: Living Thinking * Thinking Is an Organ of Percpetion * Thinking Unites Us with the Cosmos * The Holy Spirit and the Christ in Us * Sophia, the Holy Spirit, Mary, and Mary Magdalene * The Virgin Sophia and the Holy Spirit * Mary and Mary Magdalene * Sophia Is the Gospel Itself* Wisdom and Health * The Nature of the Virgin Sophia and of the Holy Spirit * Isis and Madonna * Wisdom and Love in Cosmic and Human Evolution * The Being Anthroposophia * The Gifts of Isis * From the Fifth Gospel * Sophia and Achamoth * The Legend of the New Isis * The Search for the New Isis * Sophia and Pistis * Michael, Sophia, and Marduk * A Christmas Study: The Mystery of the Logos

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Book SynopsisThe unlikely history of women's empowerment through widowhood

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Book SynopsisSHE: A CELEBRATION OF RENEGADE WOMEN is a dazzling celebration of inspirational women by Harriet Hall.

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Book SynopsisEarly in their lives, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando chose ice hockey to be the sport they wanted to pursue. They didn’t let the absence of girls hockey teams get in their way—they just played on boys teams. Nor did they let competitive adversity on the ice stop them on their way to a thrilling gold-medal victory at the 2018 Olympics, the United States’ first gold medal in women’s ice hockey in 20 years. They also did not allow roadblocks and discrimination off the ice deter them from taking on the big business of elite international and Olympic sports. The success of Monique, Jocelyne, and their team thrust them into the center of the fray in the struggle for gender equity, whether for women in hockey and in sports in general, or in society at large. In Dare to Make History, the Lamoureux twins chronicle their journey to the pinnacle of their sport, the challenges of competing as elite athletes while becoming new mothers, their efforts along with almost 150 other hockey players to start a new professional women’s hockey league, their training to come back for the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, and their contributions as role models championing the dreams of future generations of girls in sports, education, and the workplace. This is their inspiring story—the story of all girls and women, as well as boys and men, who simply want a level playing field.Trade Review“This book takes you on Jocelyne and Monique’s wild ride to success and what it took to get there. It’s more than a story about hockey or sports. It’s more than a story of hard work, determination, and embracing adversity. This is a story of clear and serious purpose." - Mika Brzezinski, Co-host, MSNBC’s Morning Joe "Parents who want their children to succeed in sports will find this book instructive, but more importantly, parents who want their children to succeed in life as good, honest, and brave humans will find this book invaluable and truly inspirational.” - Heidi Heitkamp, Former US Senator (D-ND) “For anyone looking for a blueprint on how to turn hard work into gold, this is an extraordinary story about a family believing in one another. The Lamoureux twins champion a cause bigger than themselves—fighting for gender equity. These stories leave you wanting more.” - Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Track & Field Olympic Champion "Beyond the twins’ gripping account at the 2018 Olympics, they explain that winning Gold was just part of the journey. They accomplished their goal of leaving the game in a more equitable place for the girls who would come after them. They are champions in life!” - Julie Foudy, ESPN analyst, Two-time World Cup and Olympic Soccer Champion "Dare to Make History is a compelling story of grit, resiliency, and living your core values. Monique and Jocelyne share their inspirational story of chasing Olympic gold and putting that dream on the line to fight for equity in hockey. After having to play with boys and facing discrimination throughout their youth hockey years, Monique and Jocelyne demanded more equal opportunities and a culture change within the sport. At the doorstep of the Olympics, they risked it all to further the cause of equality. Through confidence and determination, these women fought to make the journey easier for the next generation of women hockey players. This book will motivate you to advocate and cheer 'for the ones left behind'—the young women still struggling for their own sheet of ice. I am inspired by Monique, Jocelyne and the rest of the US women’s hockey team and their efforts to address inequalities in the sport. These young women created new paths, fans, and dreams within the sport of hockey. Dare to Make History is a reminder that we have the ability and obligation to drive change for the betterment of the next generation." - Valerie Camillo, President of Business Operations, Philadelphia Flyers “For all these [athletic] accomplishments, it is their work off the ice that they chose to highlight in this memoir: not only their efforts to succeed in a male-dominated sport, but also to change hockey so that the girls who came after them would have an easier time than they did.” – Kirkus Reviews “It’s a powerful story of athletic perseverance, teamwork, and hard-earned victory—and so much more. The book also details the twins’ battle for gender equity in a male-dominated sport and society. The authors provide a behind-the-scenes look at how their demands for more equitable treatment from USA Hockey (USAH)—and their refusal to accept anything less than equitable treatment—changed the game forever and are changing society as well.” – Publishers Weekly "Most of us know that Monique and Jocelyne Lamoureux were exceptional hockey players who led the United States to the Olympic gold medal in 2018. What we did not know is how exceptional they are as storytellers. What an incredible story they tell in Dare to Make History, challenging built-in bias to become great, fighting for equity even it if meant risking everything, overcoming obstacle after obstacle to be the best in the world. This is a goosebump narrative told with seriousness, fun, humor and the enduring message that dreams can come true if you never stop believing in them." - Buzz Bissinger, New York Times Bestselling Author, Friday Night Lights "The book tells the inspiring story of their rise to become gold medal-winning hockey players in the 2018 Olympics and their ongoing fight for gender equity within a male-dominated sport and society...Having already achieved many of their early aspirations and goals, the Lamoureux twins wanted to leave the game better than they entered it by creating opportunities and equity for generations to come." – Fansided "It’s a comprehensive, exciting account of their careers that also lends valuable insight into how the sport of women’s hockey has grown and shifted over that timespan. And it’s told by two people who not only witnessed that growth but put in so much effort themselves to help foster it." – The Ice Garden "Dare to Make History: Chasing a Dream and Fighting for Equity is everything you are hoping for in a memoir, it explains the highs and lows of personal life while also reflecting on how each sister rose to fame in the women’s hockey world. From the beginning, both attribute many of their qualities to their parents constantly having them focus on being good people on and off the ice, even giving credit to their mom for sparking their desire to play for Team USA in the Olympics. Readers will get an intimate look into the lives of two transcendent women who have faced adversity throughout their careers. Monique and Jocelyne detail everything from their early youth hockey days playing with the boys, their successful high school and college careers, to their decision to fight for equity with USA Hockey. Throughout the story it is clear just how dedicated and selfless their efforts are to ensure young girls will have a better future in hockey than ever before." – Women’s Hockey Life

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Book Synopsis"Beautifully written, searingly honest, and deeply affecting ... when the book ended, I only wanted more" - Roxane Gay"Ford is a writer for the ages, and Somebody's Daughter will be a book of the year" - Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed"Truly a classic in the making" - John Green, author of The Fault in Our StarsAn Oprah bookThroughout her adolescence, Ashley Ford doesn't know how to deal with the worries that keep her up at night. If only she could turn to her father for his advice and support. But he's in prison, and she doesn't know what he did to end up there. After being raped by her ex-boyfriend, Ashley desperately searches for her sense of self. Then, her grandmother reveals the truth about her father's incarceration... and Ashley's world is turned upside down.Ashley embarks on a powerful journey to find the connections between who she is and what she was born into, discovering that, however much we might try to untether ourselves from a painful past, the ties that bind families together are the strongest ones of all."Sure to be one of the best memoirs of 2021" - Kirkus Reviews"A heart-wrenching coming-of age story" - Time"Her coming-of-age story gets at how to both acknowledge and break away from what we're born into" - Cosmopolitan"A beautiful, delicate memoir... a journey toward true and powerful selfhood" - ElleTrade Review'Ashley C. Ford's wrenchingly brilliant memoir Somebody's Daughter is truly a classic in the making. Ford's writing is so richly observed and so suffused with love and yearning that I kept forgetting to breathe while reading it.' - John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars'Somebody's Daughter takes the idea of a coming-of-age story and smashes it on its head. A masterpiece of acceptance and exploration, of growth and forgiveness, and - maybe most importantly of all - learning how not to forgive. This is a story of boundaries and looking back on w hat has happened with a kind but understanding eye. Ashley C. Ford's talent is on full display, as is her heart.' - Isaac Fitzgerald, author of How to Be a Pirate'Ashley C. Ford went deep into the well of herself and her history and came back to the light with the book now in your hands. A piercing interrogation of who we are and who we are to the people laying claim to us, Somebody's Daughter is hard-earned storytelling, yes, but also an opportunity for each of us to illuminate the ties that bind, entangle and connect us to one another.' - Saeed Jones, author of How We Fight for Our Lives'Ashley C. Ford is not just a beautiful writer, she is a brilliant, thoughtful and compassionate writer. The book is an achingly honest account of a complicated childhood. There is heartache and grief but above all Somebody's Daughter is the portrait of someone determined to love deeply and to love well. Someone determined to honor the person they are meant to be. Someone with the cleareyed courage and kindness to tell their story in service of a greater truth. We are so lucky Ashley chooses to share her wisdom with the world. I haven't stopped thinking about this book since I closed it and neither will you.' - Aminatou Sow, coauthor of Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close

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Book SynopsisThe ebook edition of this title is Open Access and freely available to read online. Women more often than men take care of their ageing relatives together with their own children or grandchildren. These Sandwich Generation (SG) women constitute an expanding vulnerable group on the labour market at higher risk of discrimination, work-family conflict, burnout, and withdrawal from the labour market and unemployment. Working Women in the Sandwich Generation helps present a clearer view of how to support this group both now and in the future. Beginning with a presentation of quantitative and qualitative research that sheds light on the SG situation in Poland, Finland and Flanders, this volume provides insights into various components from the SG life domains such as personal development and learning, connection to the labour market, coping strategies, resources, and energy drainers. In the second part the book provides tools for SG women, their supervisors, educators, and coaches to help manage challenging situations and improving wellbeing at work. Working Women in the Sandwich Generation then introduces the results of international comparative research the purpose of which was to identify and characterise the SG in five European countries before concluding with recommendations for supervisors and policy makers in supporting SG women.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Mervi Rajahonka, Dorota Kwiatkowska-Ciotucha, Miet Timmers, Urszula Załuska, and Kaija Villman Part A. Theories Chapter 1. How Do They Manage? Coping Strategies of the Working Sandwich Generation in Flanders; Miet Timmers and Veerle Lengeler Chapter 2. 45+ Polish Women at Home and in the Labour Markets; Dorota Kwiatkowska-Ciotucha and Urszula Załuska Chapter 3. Sandwich Generation Women in Search for Meaningful Work and Life; Mervi Rajahonka and Kaija Villman Part B. Tools and Cases Chapter 4. Family Supportive Supervisors Behaviour for the Sandwich Generation: Considerations for Training Practice; Miet Timmers and Tim Gielens Chapter 5. Tools Developed in and Lessons Learned From the Time4Help Project in Poland; Dorota Kwiatkowska-Ciotucha and Urszula Załuska Chapter 6. Cases and Lessons Learned From the ‘Time4Help’ Project in Finland; Kaija Villman and Mervi Rajahonka Part C. International Comparative Research Chapter 7. Sandwich Generation in the Workplace – International Comparative Research; Dorota Kwiatkowska-Ciotucha and Urszula Załuska Part D. Conclusion Chapter 8. Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations; Mervi Rajahonka, Dorota Kwiatkowska-Ciotucha, Miet Timmers, Urszula Załuska, and Kaija Villman

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Book SynopsisIn her apron and rubber gloves, a smile lipsticked permanently across her face, the woman of the Fifties has become a cultural symbol of all that we are most grateful to have sloughed off. A homely compliant creature, she knows little or nothing of sex, and stands no chance at all of having a career. She must marry or die. But what if there was another side to the story?In this book Rachel Cooke tells the story of ten extraordinary women whose pioneering professional lives - and complicated private lives - paved the way for future generations. Muriel Box, film director. Betty Box, film producer. Margery Fish, plantswoman. Patience Gray, cook. Alison Smithson, architect. Sheila van Damm, rally car driver and theatre owner. Nancy Spain, journalist and radio personality. Joan Werner Laurie, editor. Jacquetta Hawkes, archaeologist. Rose Heilbron, QC.Plucky and ambitious, they left the house, discovered the bliss of work, and ushered in the era of the working woman.Trade ReviewInspirational, warm and witty * Daily Mail *A gallery of vividly drawn portaits - witty, poignant, inspiriting - that opens up a new front in our understanding of the "lost" Fifties -- David Kynaston, author of Modernity BritainRachel Cooke shines a new light in an elegantly original way into the 1950s and especially into the role of women therein. By cleverly focussing on the lives of several extraordinary women, she manages to produce a social history which is highly absorbing and richly informative. A very enjoyable and distinctive book -- Kate AtkinsonThere is warmth and lightness of spirit to this book: it is witty, intelligent, kind and poignant. Cooke exudes love and knowledge of people, gardens, food, art . . . she leaves you wanting more * The Times *Vastly entertaining, cannily researched and sharply perceptive * Telegraph *Eloquent, concise, fair-minded, witty and elegant . . . Her Brilliant Career is the perfect book with which to celebrate Virago's 40 years of championing feminist writing -- Amanda Craig * Independent on Sunday *Ten fascinating biographies for the price of one, and an exuberant dig into a decade which we've rather grassed over. Her Brilliant Career is a vivid, witty, affectionate page-turner about some amazing lost heroines -- Melanie Reid * The Times *Rachel Cooke's fantastic, clever, funny, illuminating book about 10 remarkable women -- India Knight * Sunday Times *What a treat . . . Thank you, Rachel Cooke, for finding, and judiciously commenting on, these women insouciant of feminism and strangers to guilt (which 'had not yet been invented'); for succinct scene-setting of the 1950s with phrases like 'Cue mambo on the juke-box'; and for never once using the dread word "feisty" * Oldie *Cooke is one of the outstanding British journalists of her generation -- Sebastian Faulks * New York Times *Cooke writes with such zest about such interesting lives * Guardian *Her Brilliant Career is a corrective, a hurrah for the oldies. Despite barriers that dwarf those that persist today, plenty of gutsy women rode the Fifties unthwarted and unclenched. Ms Cooke takes an exuberant gallop through the careers and private lives of ten of them in Britain * The Economist *

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Book SynopsisThe colorful "Punk Professor", new-wave musician, and critic/filmmaker spins a dazzling survey of women in punk, from the genre's inception in 1970s London to the current voices making waves around the globe. As an industry insider and pioneering post-punk musician, Vivien Goldman's perspective on music journalism is unusually well-rounded. In Revenge of the She-Punks, she probes four themes-identity, money, love, and protest-to explore what makes punk such a liberating art form for women. With her visceral style, Goldman blends interviews, history, and her personal experience as one of Britain's first female music writers in a book that reads like a vivid documentary of a genre defined by dismantling boundaries. A discussion of the Patti Smith song "Free Money," for example, opens with Goldman on a shopping spree with Smith. Tamar-Kali, whose name pays homage to a Hindu goddess, describes the influence of her Gullah ancestors on her music, while the late Poly Styrene's daughter reflects on why her Somali-Scots-Irish mother wrote the 1978 punk anthem "Identity," with the refrain "Identity is the crisis you can't see." Other strands feature artists from farther afield (including in Colombia and Indonesia) and genre-busting revolutionaries such as Grace Jones, who wasn't exclusively punk but clearly influenced the movement while absorbing its liberating audacity. From punk's Euro origins to its international reach, this is an exhilarating world tour.

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Book SynopsisFrom a trusted advisor and devoted friend of Mother Teresa comes a “powerful” (The Washington Free Beacon) firsthand account of the miraculous woman behind the saint and a book that is “rich in reflection on contemporary sanctity” (George Weigel).Mother Teresa was one of the most admired women of the 20th century, and her memory continues to inspire charitable work around the world. She believed the greatest need of a human being is to love and be loved. In 1948, she founded the Missionaries of Charity to work directly with the very poorest of Calcutta. From the efforts of one woman entering the slums of Entally, the Missionaries of Charity grew into an organization operating soup kitchens, health clinics, hospices, and shelters in 139 countries, at no cost to any government or to those who served. In 2016, she became Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Author Jim Towey had been a high-flying Congressional staffer and lawyer in the 1980s until a brief meeting with Mother Teresa illuminated the emptiness of his life. He began volunteering at one of her soup kitchens and using his legal skills and political connections to help the Missionaries of Charity. When Mother Teresa suggested he take up shifts at her AIDS hospice, Towey realized he was all in. Soon, he gave up his job and possessions and became a full-time volunteer for Mother Teresa. He traveled with her frequently, arranged her meetings with politicians, and handled many of her legal affairs. To Love and Be Loved is an “inspiring and joyful” (Kirkus Reviews) firsthand account of Mother Teresa’s last years, and the first book ever to detail her dealings with worldly matters. We see her gracefully navigate the opportunities and challenges to leadership, the perils of celebrity, and the humiliations and triumphs of aging. We also catch her indulging in chocolate ice cream, making jokes about mini-skirts, and telling the President of the United States he’s wrong. Above all, we see her extraordinary devotion to God and to the very poorest of His children. Mother Teresa taught Towey to be more prayerful, less selfish, more humble, less worldly, move in love with God, and less in love with himself. Her lessons are here for all to share.

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Book SynopsisOver 50 empowering speeches celebrating women in their own words through extracts and commissioned illustrations, spanning throughout history up to the modern day. Table of ContentsIntroductionElizabeth I, On the Spanish Armada, 1588Fanny Wright, Of Free Inquiry Considered as a Means for Obtaining Just Knowledge, 1829Maria Stewart, Farewell Address, 1833Angelina Grimke, Anti-Slavery Speech, 1838Sojourner Truth, Ain't I A Woman?, 1851Victoria Woodhull, The Principles of Social Freedom, 1871Sarah Winnemucca, Indian Affairs Statement, 1884Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Solitude of Self, 1892Mary Church Terrell, What it Means to be Colored in the Capital of the United States, 1906Ida B. Wells, This Awful Slaughter, 1909Countess Markievicz, Women, Ideals and the Nation, 1909Marie Curie, Nobel Prize Lecture: Radium and the New Concepts in Chemistry, 1911Emmeline Pankhurst, Freedom or Death, 1913Nellie McClung, Should Men Vote?, 1914Jutta Bojsen-Moller, Victory for Votes, 1915Emma Goldman, Address to the Jury, 1917Nancy Astor, Maiden Speech in Parliament, 1920Margaret Sanger, The Morality of Birth Control, 1921Virginia Woolf, Professions for Women, 1931Huda Sha'arawi, Speech at the Arab Feminist Conference, 1944Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, A Talk About Women, 1949Eva Peron, Speech to the Descamisados, 1951Helen Keller, The Life and Legacy of Louis Braille, 1952Eleanor Roosevelt, The United Nations as a Bridge, 1954Shirley Chisholm, Equal Rights for Women, 1969Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Argument in Frontiero v. Richardson, 1973Sylvia Rivera, Y'all Better Quiet Down, 1973Simone Veil, Speech to Parliament on Abortion Law, 1974Indira Gandhi, True Liberation of Women, 1980Margaret Thatcher, The Lady is Not For Turning, 1981Ursula K. LeGuin, A Left-Handed Commencement Speech, 1983Barbara McClintock, Nobel Lecture, 1983Corazon Aquino, Speech During the Joint Session of the US Congress, 1986Naomi Wolf, A Woman's Place, 1992Severn Cullis-Suzuki, Address to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, 1992Wilma Mankiller, Commencement Address, 1992Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture, 1993Hillary Clinton, Remarks for the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, 1995Wangari Maathai, Nobel Lecture, 2004J.K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement Speech, 2008Angela Merkel, Speech to the US Congress, 2009Sheryl Sandberg, Barnard College Commencement Address, 2011Ellen Jonson Sirleaf, Nobel Lecture, 2011Asmaa Mahfouz, The Vlog that Helped Spark the Egyptian Revolution, 2011Manal al-Sharif, The Drive for Freedom, 2012Julia Gillard, The Misogyny Speech, 2012Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Prize Lecture, 2014Emma Watson, UN Speech on HeForShe, 2014Jane Goodall, Caring for the Earth - Reasons for Hope, 2016Michelle Obama, Speech at the Democratic National Convention, 2016Gloria Steinem, Women’s March Speech, 2017Beatrice Fihn, Nobel Lecture, 2017Alicia Garza, An Ode to Black Women, 2017Maya Lin, SVA Commencement Address, 2018 More Women to Inspire Read All About It! Credits Acknowledgements

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Book SynopsisWith in-depth explorations of six contemporary American and British films and shows, this pioneering volume spotlights black female characters who play central, subversive roles in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.Trade ReviewWhere No Black Woman Has Gone Before does not pretend to be a comprehensive account of black women in speculative film and television, as Mafe makes clear, but it is the first book-length study of black femininity in this area...By attending to the visual and linguistic coding of black and female characters, Mafe exposes biases less explicit than plain exclusion. * Times Literary Supplement *Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before initiates a dialogue about black women in speculative film and television...a compelling contribution to the scholarship on speculative cinema and television, and will serve well scholars, students, and teachers in the field. * Journal of American Culture *Mafe's coda strikes a good balance between reflection and optimism while pointing to possible future directions black women in television and film may go. Mafe's goal of bringing light to subversive portrayals in speculative film and television is laudable and well executed. * Popular Culture Studies Journal *Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before makes a genuine contribution as a pioneering effort in the study of race and gender in sf film and television. * Science Fiction Studies *Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before is concise and accessible with five well-written and theorized chapters…Mafe's narrow focus on representations of black women in non 'obvious block buster films' and in supporting roles raises insightful and useful points about the difference between superficial dismissible black female characters versus complex well-rounded black female characters...Mafe's arguments are sound and her reading of the texts convincing. * Journal of Popular Culture *Ambitious...Mafe’s argument highlights the need for more black female characters in speculative fiction...this text is a first step in the analysis of black female characters in speculative fiction and how difficult it is to find representation when the examples are few and far between. * Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts *[Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before] contributes to the discourse of race and genre in scholarship by expanding upon the complex position of black female characters in film and television that come under the broad banner of 'speculative fiction'...The strength of Mafe's book…lies in her way of reading these films and the black female characters in them. She endorses a mode of spectatorship that allows the conservative and radical tendencies of these films to exist side by side. By doing so, she suggests ways in which black female protagonists can be deconstructive figures, but also open spaces for new styles and tropes in sf. * Science Fiction Film and Television *Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: To Boldly Go Chapter 1. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World: 28 Days Later Chapter 2. Last One Standing: Alien vs. Predator Chapter 3. The Black Madonna: Children of Men Chapter 4. Thank Heaven for Little Girls: Beasts of the Southern Wild Chapter 5. Intergalactic Companions: Firefly and Doctor Who Coda: Final Frontiers Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisBelinda (1801) tackles issues of gender and race in a manner at once comic and thought-provoking. Braving the perils of the marriage market, Belinda learns to think for herself as the examples of her friends prove singularly unreliable.Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of Maria Edgeworth Belinda Appendix Explanatory notes

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Book SynopsisCaitlin Moran is the eldest of eight children, home-educated on a council estate in Wolverhampton, believing that if she were very good and worked very hard, she might one day evolve into Bill Murray.She published a children's novel, The Chronicles of Narmo, at the age of 16, and became a columnist at The Times at 18. She has gone on to be named Columnist of the Year six times. At one point, she was also Interviewer and Critic of the Year - which is good going for someone who still regularly mistypes the' as hte'. Her multi-award-winning bestseller How to Be a Woman has been published in 28 countries, and won the British Book Awards' Book of the Year 2011. Her two volumes of collected journalism, Moranthology and Moranifesto, were Sunday Times bestsellers, and her novel, How to Build a Girl, debuted at Number One, and is currently being adapted as a movie. She co-wrote two series of the Rose d'Or-winning Channel 4 sitcom RaTrade Review"I adore, admire and - more - am addicted to Caitin Moran's writing" Nigella Lawson "I have been waiting for this book my whole life" Claudia Winkleman "This might just be the funniest intelligent book ever written .. Moran's work packs a feminist punch in a way that Germaine Greer and an entire army of female eunuchs could never do, because she writes about things we've all done, thought, and said - but not quite so eloquently...the book everyone will be talking about" Stylist "Moran's writing sparkles with wit and warmth. Like the confidences of your smartest friend" Simon Pegg "It would almost be unkind to call this an important book, because what it mostly is is engaging, brave and consistently, cleverly naughtily funny, but actually it is important that we talk about this stuff" -- Katy Guest Independent on Sunday

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Book SynopsisA TOP BOOK FOR 2024 IN: THE OBSERVER, INDEPENDENT, SUNDAY TIMES AND BOOKSELLER''He understands only the women he invents the others not at all''Thomas Hardy is one of the most beloved and most-read British authors. His influence on literature and the minds of his readers is singular. But how is it that the novelist who created some of the most memorable and modern female characters in literature had such troubled relationships with real women?In this highly innovative book, acclaimed biographer Paula Byrne re-examines Hardy's life through the eyes of the women who made him mother, sisters, girlfriends, wives, muses. The story veers from shocking scenes such as his obsession with the sight of a woman hanged, to poignant vignettes of unfulfilled passion, to fascinating details of working women's lives in the nineteenth century.Hardy Women is the story of how the magnificent fictional women he invented would not have been possible without the hardship and hardiness of the real ones who Trade Review EARLY PRAISE FOR HARDY WOMEN ‘Absorbing… a treat for Hardy fans and unhappy wives’ The Times ‘Novelist and poet Thomas Hardy created some of literature’s most enduring female characters . . . but it is the real women who shaped the life of the tortured genius that a book vividly reanimates’ Independent 'By turns infuriating and inspiring, but always fascinating, this page-turner of a book offers a genuinely fresh perspective on one of Victorian Britain’s most famous writers' Gareth Russell, author of The Palace ‘A fascinating re-examination of the life of Thomas Hardy through the eyes of the women who profoundly influenced him-his mother, his sisters, girlfriends, wives and muses. Drawing on access to some neverbefore-seen passages in Hardy's journals, she shows that it is through these hardy women that we can truly appreciate his much-loved works’ The Bookseller, Editor’s Choice

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