Kayleen Schaefer’s debut takes a personal and sociological look at the way friendships between women have developed throughout history, to become more nuanced and intimate than ever. Drawing on personal experience and interviews with friends, celebrities, writers, and historians, Schaefer renders a touching account of the importance of friendship in strengthening and supporting our life experiences.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was only the second woman to sit on the Supreme Court bench, nominated in 1993. Initially considered a moderate, RBG has now become an internet phenomenon as her lawyerly prowess has impressed and inspired thousands of young feminists. Borne out of the original Tumblr blog of the same name, Notorious RBG uses interviews with family, friends, clerks and Ginsburg herself to draw an honest, intimate, and entertaining portrait of a Justice that has devoted her career to making the world a better place.
Will Dean’s debut novel elevates the Scandi noir genre with an interesting protagonist, plenty of suspense, and a shocking conclusion.
Marie-Laure is twelve years old when the Germans occupy Paris, forcing her and her father to flee to the home of her great-uncle Etienne on the coast. Marie-Laure has been blind since she was six, so her father quickly sets to learning the town and building Marie-Laure a miniature replica so that she can find her way around – not that he allows her to leave the house, for fear of her safety. But her father is hiding a secret, and a valuable one at that. Over in Germany, the young orphan Werner is building and repairing radios and catches the attention of the military. He’s immediately enlisted and begins on a path that eventually collides with that of Marie-Laure, and changes their lives forever.
La Belle Sauvage is the first book in Philip Pullman’s second trilogy to take place in the world of His Dark Materials. Pullman describes the trilogy, named The Book of Dust, as an “equel” rather than a prequel or a sequel to the events of His Dark Materials. La Belle Sauvage takes place prior to the events of the first trilogy and follows a young innkeeper’s son, Malcolm Polstead, as he tries to protect baby Lyra from the forces that seek to do her harm. This is the story of how little Lyra ended up in the care of the scholars of Jordan College.
Living alongside the violence of Pablo Escobar’s Colombia are two young girls whose lives collide in ways that neither of them will ever forget. Seven-year-old Chula Santiago lives in a gated community in Bogotá with her sister and parents, though her father’s work often takes him out of the city. She grows up in a ‘kingdom of women’, but her kingdom is haunted by stories of the car bombs and kidnappings that go on outside the walls of her community. Petrona is a teenage girl from an invasión, an impoverished area in the hills of the city, who comes to work as a maid for the Santiagos. Chula is fascinated by Petrona’s silence and as the two grow closer, Chula herself adopts this silence, keeping Petrona’s secrets as though her life depends on it. Petrona desperately tries to steer her younger siblings away from trouble, but she soon falls for a young man who sees her wealthy employers as the perfect target.
In a future ravaged by biotechnology, Rachel scavenges to survive, even raking the fur of the giant bear, Mord, that wreaks havoc in her ruined city. It’s amongst Mord’s stinking pelt that she discovers Borne, a small sea-anenome-like creature that soon grows to be much more than he seems.
Olivia Gatwood is a poet and activist whose work both on the page and on stage empowers women to fight back. Her first anthology is an ode to teenage girlhood and growing up.
Montefiore charts the ascension and downfall of one of the most intriguing royal families in history, the Romanovs. Ruling Russia for over three centuries from 1613 until their brutal assassinations in 1917, the Romanovs spawned 18 tsars and tsarinas. Their reigns gave rise to multiple myths and legends and more than a few impostor heirs. This tome explores the political and the personal lives of this legendary dynasty.
Vagina teaches us everything we weren’t told in school, and corrects a lot of what we were told. It challenges myths and taboos, and confronts social issues related to women’s health such as period poverty, transgender rights, medical care, and FGM. Vagina seeks to re-educate everyone about an organ that over half the world’s population have but which many don’t understand at all. This lack of education creates serious issues across the world. Enright sets out to change that, by giving readers with vaginas the information they need to understand their own bodies.