10 Must-Read Books by Women For National Women’s Month
March is a month of celebrating the strength, cleverness, and authenticity of women. As the National Women’s Month waves hello, here is a list of books that are engaging and thoughtful written by strong women from the past and the present that will surely inspire and empower. This is the time to celebrate all the amazing women in your life including yourself!
NON-FICTION
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Eat, Pray, Love is a memoir that chronicles the author’s trip around the world and the things that she discovered, which illustrates an example of self-fulfillment in the present. Elizabeth Gilbert was in her early 30s when it seemed that she had everything that she needed: a home, a husband, and a successful career. However, she was unhappy in her marriage and this ultimately led to a divorce. Gilbert then embarked on a journey to find herself.
She spent four months in Italy where she ate and enjoyed life (“Eat”) then three months in India where she journeyed to find her spirituality (“Pray”) and ended the year in Indonesia where she fell in love with a Brazilian businessman (“Love”).
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Becoming is a deeply personal experience of the former first lady of the United States Michelle Obama. The book chronicles her roots, how she found her voice, her time in the White House, her campaign and her role as a mother. The book is divided into three sections: Becoming Me, Becoming Us, and Becoming More.
The book combines deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling that follows Obama as s woman of soul and substance who has defied expectations and her story inspires us to do the same.
Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
This New York Times bestseller tells the story of four African-American NASA mathematicians who helped achieve one of the greatest feats in the space program. Even before John Glenn and Neil Armstrong, a group of dedicated mathematicians or “human computers” calculated numbers that would help launch rockets and astronauts into space.
Hidden Figures follows the life stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden through the Civil Rights era, the Space era, the Cold War, the movement for gender equality and how their work changed the face of NASA and the entire country.
I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education when the Taliban took control of Pakistan’s Swat Valley. It was in 2012 at the age of 15 where she almost paid the ultimate price. While few expected her to survive, Yousafzai miraculously recovered and embarked on an extraordinary journey from Northern Pakistan to the United Nations Headquarters in New York. At 16, Yousafzai not only became a global symbol of peaceful protest but also the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
I Am Malala chronicles Yousafzai’s tale from when her family was uprooted by global terrorism, her fight for girls’ education and of her brave parents whose fierce love for their daughter shined in a society that prizes sons.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings is the powerful and poetic autobiography of renowned poet, Maya Angelou. The book is set to touch the hearts and change the minds of those who read it.
The story follows the life of Angelou as she and her brother are sent to live with their grandmother in a small Southern town. As a child, she had to endure abandonment, prejudice and personal attacks. Years later, Angelou learns that self-love, the kindness of others, and the ideas of great authors will give her freedom instead of imprisonment.
FICTION
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre follows the experience of the titular heroine from her growth to adulthood to falling in love with a certain Mr. Rochester. The story focuses on Eyre’s moral and spiritual development told in an intimate first-person narrative that is colored by a psychological intensity.
With a strong sense of Christian morality at its core, the book has elements of social criticism and approached the topics of class, sexuality, religion, and feminism.
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
The Invention of Wings is set in the 19th century and follows the story of Hetty, an urban slave who years for a life beyond the walls that enclose her. The story is set in motion when Hetty becomes the handmaid of Sarah Grimke—the daughter of the wealthy Grimke family who, from an early age, knew that she was meant to do something more but is shut down by the limits imposed on women. Through their years together, both of them will have to endure loss, sorrow, crushed hopes, betrayal, and ostracism before Sarah finds her place as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements.
In all, The Invention of Wings is a story of hope, daringness, freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world that will surely inspire you in your own journey.
The Bell Jar by Slyvia Plath
The Bell Jar is known to be the only novel written by American author and poet, Sylvia Plath. The novel is a shocking, realistic, and intensely emotional novel about a woman spiraling into insanity.
The story follows the brilliant and successful Esther Greenwood who is slowly going under. The Bell Jar takes readers into Esther’s breakdown with an intensity that makes her insanity real and even rational. This haunting classic explores the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche.
Watch Us Rise by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan
Watch Us Rise follows Jasmine and Chelsea who have grown sick of how women are treated so they set up a Women’s Rights Club. The two posts everything online such as poems, essays, and even responses to racial macroaggressions. Soon, the club goes viral but even with the amount of positive support that they receive, they are targeted by trolls that led to their shut down.
However, Jasmine and Chelsea are prepared to risk everything for their voices and that of other young women to be heard.
In the Country by Mia Alvar
In the Country vividly gives voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. This follows exiles, immigrants, and wanderers who uproot their families from the Philippines to begin new lives elsewhere and sometimes, going back again. The story follows a pharmacist in New York, a Filipina teacher in Bahrain, a college student and her brother who works as a laborer in Saudi Arabia, and a journalist and a nurse who face unspeakable trauma in the political turmoil of the country in the 70s and 80s.
The novel calls to those who have ever searched for a place to call home. In the Country explores the universal experience of loss, displacement, and the longing to connect across borders.
Which of these books are you going to read this month? Don’t forget to share it with us in the comments below!
