Books for Women’s History Month
March is Women’s History Month!
February 23, 2023
March is Women’s History Month! This month highlights the contributions women have made to history, science, culture, and contemporary society.
Want to read more about women in history? Check out our previous lists (2021 | 2022), our list for Women’s Equality Day that focuses on women’s right to vote, our list on Women in War, or our list remembering Supreme Court Justice and champion of women’s rights Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Plus, don’t miss out on the exhibits, films, and book talks available on the official Women’s History Month website.
In this list:
Biography and Memoir
Fearless
Harriet Quimby, A Life Without Limit
Don Dahler
In the spirit of the bestseller Fly Girls comes the definitive and compelling true story of Harriet Quimby, the first American woman to receive a pilot’s license.
Manifesto
On Never Giving Up
Bernardine Evaristo
From the bestselling and Booker Prize winning author of “Girl, Woman, Other”, Bernardine Evaristo’s memoir of her own life and writing, and her manifesto on unstoppability, creativity, and activism.
The Case Of The Married Woman
Caroline Norton And Her Fight For Women’s Justice
Antonia Fraser
Relates the story of nineteeth-century English poet Caroline Norton, who was denied access to her children by her husband after a sensational trial for adultery, and fought tirelessly for the rights of married women and mothers, resulting in the passage of the Infant Custody Act of 1839.
Shy
The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs Of Mary Rodgers
Mary Rodgers, Jesse Green
These memoirs of the theater star, author of books for young people, and chairman of the Juilliard School serve as both an eyewitness account from the Golden Age of American musical theater and a tale of a woman striving for a meaningful life.
Agent Josephine
American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy
Damien Lewis
This story of the world’s richest and most glamorous entertainer looks at her heroic stint during World War II as an Allied spy in occupied France and her efforts to combat Nazism.
Non-Fiction
In Defense Of Witches
The Legacy Of The Witch Hunts And Why Women Are Still On Trial
Mona Chollet
A celebrated feminist writer explores three types of women who were accused of witchcraft and persecuted, seeking to unite the mythic image of the witch with modern women who seek to live life on their own terms.
Screaming On The Inside
The Unsustainability Of American Motherhood
Jessica Grose
Weaving together her personal journey with scientific, historical and contemporary reporting, a New York Times opinion writer dismantles 200 years of unrealistic parenting expectations and empowers today’s mothers to make choices that actually serve themselves, their children and their communities.
If You Want Something Done
Leadership Lessons From Bold Women
Nikki Haley
The former Governor and Ambassador to the United Nations offers examples of women who we able to succeed in the face of obstacles, from famous names such as Margaret Thatcher and Gold Meir, to lesser known leaders.
Wise Gals
The Spies Who Built The Cia And Changed The Future Of Espionage
Nathalia Holt
From the New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket Girls comes the never-before-told story of a small cadre of influential female spies in the precarious early days of the CIA–women who helped create the template for cutting-edge espionage (and blazed new paths for equality in the workplace) in the treacherous post-WWII era.
Code Name Blue Wren
The True Story Of America’s Most Dangerous Female Spy–And The Sister She Betrayed
Jim Popkin
Describes the true crime story of Ana Montes, a superstar of the U.S. Intelligence community who had recently won a prestigious fellowship at the CIA was arrested and publicly exposed as a secret agent for Cuba.
Secrets Of The Sprakkar
Iceland’s Extraordinary Women And How They Are Changing The World
Eliza Reid
Exploring lessons learned from the sprakkar (outstanding women), the sitting First Lady of Iceland shares her remarkable insight in the roles of Icelandic women in business, politics, the home and more, showing why Iceland is one of the best places in the world to be a woman.
Black Women Will Save The World
An Anthem
April Ryan
The trailblazing White House correspondent reflects on 2020 and the unprecedented role of African American women in helping to uphold democracy and recalls her own personal journey from working-class Baltimore to the pinnacle of her profession.
Taste Makers
Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food In America
Mayukh Sen
America’s modern culinary history told through the lives of seven pathbreaking chefs and food writers. Who’s really behind America’s appetite for foods from around the globe? This group biography from an electric new voice in food writing honors seven extraordinary women, all immigrants, who left an indelible mark on the way Americans eat today.
The Sewing Girl’s Tale
A Story Of Crime And Consequences In Revolutionary America
John Wood Sweet
A riveting historical drama that tells the story of the first rape trial on record in American history and the fault lines of class privilege and gender bias that it exposed, showing how much has changed over two centuries and how much has not.
My Mother’s War
The Incredible True Story Of How A Resistance Fighter Survived Three Concentration Camps
Eva Taylor
Drawing on an astonishing archive of letters, which revealed life during wartime, a true story follows a beautiful, young Dutch resistance fighter and underground war hero who spent two years in three concentration camps during World War II.
Heiresses
The Lives Of The Million Dollar Babies
Laura Thompson
Heiresses is about the lives of the rich, who, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said are “different.” But it is also a bigger story about how all women fought their way to equality, and sometimes even found autonomy and fulfillment.
Roe
The History Of A National Obsession
Mary Ziegler
The leading U.S. expert on abortion law charts the many meanings associated with Roe v. Wade during its fifty-year history.
Fiction
Woman On Fire
Lisa Barr
Tasked with locating a painting called Women on Fire stolen by the Nazis more than 75 years earlier, rising young journalist Jules Roth teams up with the artist’s grandson to find it before a cunning gallerist, who gets everything she wants, does.
City Of Incurable Women
Maud Casey
In a fusion of fact and fiction, nineteenth-century women institutionalized as hysterics reveal what history ignored.
The Porcelain Moon
A Novel Of France, The Great War, And Forbidden Love
Janie Chang
In 1918 France, in the final days of the First World War, Pauline Deng, a young Chinese woman escaping an arranged marriage, is taken in by secretive Camille Roussel and becomes bound to this woman forever when they are forced to make a terrible decision.
The Great Mrs Elias
Barbara Chase-Riboud
The author of the award-winning Sally Hemings now brings to life Hannah Elias, one of the richest black women in America in the early 1900s, in a novel swirling with atmosphere and steeped in history. Based on a true story.
That Summer In Berlin
Lecia Cornwall
During the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Viviane Alden, with her trusty camera, must find proof that Germany is rearming and teams up with a journalist to expose the truth until she becomes a pawn in a deadly game that brings her closer than she ever thought possible to the brink of war.
The Woman With The Cure
Lynn Cullen
A riveting novel based on the true story of the woman who stopped a pandemic, from the bestselling author of Mrs. Poe.
Bloomsbury Girls
Natalie Jenner
Three woman in post-war England working in a rare book store interact with era-appropriate literary figures including Daphne Du Maurier and Samuel Beckett as they each try to find their way in a rapidly-changing world.
Code Name Sapphire
Pam Jenoff
A woman must rescue her cousin’s family from a train bound for Auschwitz in this riveting tale of bravery and resistance, from the bestselling author of The Lost Girls of Paris.
The House Of Eve
Sadeqa Johnson
From the award-winning author of Yellow Wife, a daring and redemptive novel set in 1950s Philadelphia and Washington, DC, that explores what it means to be a woman and a mother, and how much one is willing to sacrifice to achieve her greatest goal.
Her Secret War
Pam Lecky
A great WWII-era historical fiction that has it all: mystery, suspense, history, espionage, action, and a dash of romance all wrapped up into an addictive and intriguing novel.
The Three Lives Of Alix St Pierre
Natasha Lester
Tells the tale of an orphan turned World War II spy turned fashion icon in Paris.
The Snow Hare
Paula Lichtarowicz
In this “riveting, heartfelt” novel of love and consequences (Heather Morris, New York Times bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz), a woman dreams of becoming a doctor until World War II leads her instead into an astonishing love, and a fateful choice.
Marmee
Sarah Miller
In 1861, Margaret March, with her husband serving as an army chaplain, finds the comfort and security of her four daughters resting on her shoulders alone as she faces financial hardships, secrets and tragedy, in this revealing retelling of Little Women from the perspective of the beloved matriarch known as Marmee.
Take My Hand
Dolen Perkins-Valdez
In 1973 Montgomery, Alabama, Civil Townsend, a young black nurse working for the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, grapples with her role when she takes two young girls into her heart and the unthinkable happens, and nothing will ever be the same for any of them.
The Girls In Navy Blue
Alix Rickloff
In 1968, when young divorcee Peggy Whitby inherits her great-aunt Blanche’s beach cottage, she begins receiving cryptic postcards addressed to Blanche, a former yeomanette, all dated from 1918, drawing her into a mystery that could reveal a truth she maynot be prepared to handle.
Angels Of The Resistance
Noelle Salazar
A young girl living in a Dutch farmhouse in 1940 and grieving the death of her baby sister joins the Nazi Resistance and is trained to collect information, in the new novel from the best-selling author of The Flight Girls.
Daughters Of The New Year
E.M. Tran
In New Orleans, three daughters of a former beauty queen and Vietnamese refugee obsessed with zodiac signs are trying to go about their modern lives, but begin to encounter strange glimpses of long-buried secrets from their ancestors.
Small Acts Of Defiance
A Novel Of WWII And Paris
Michelle Wright
In this stunning debut WWII novel, Lucie and her mother are trapped in a German-occupied Paris where Lucie uses her artistic talents to perform small acts of defiance, forcing her to decide how far she will go to protect her friends and defend the rights of others.