#1 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER * One of the most acclaimed books of our time: an unforgettable memoir about a young woman who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University   "Extraordinary . . . an act of courage and self-invention."--The New York Times   NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW * ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR * BILL GATES'S HOLIDAY READING LIST * FINALIST: National Book Critics Circle's Award In Autobiography and John Leonard Prize For Best First Book * PEN/Jean Stein Book Award * Los Angeles Times Book Prize   Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.   "Beautiful and propulsive . . . Despite the singularity of [Westover's] childhood, the questions her book poses are universal: How much of ourselves should we give to those we love? And how much must we betray them to grow up?"--Vogue ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, O: The Oprah Magazine, Time, NPR, Good Morning America, San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, The Economist, Financial Times, Newsday, New York Post, theSkimm, Refinery29, Bloomberg, Self, Real Simple, Town & Country, Bustle, Paste, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, LibraryReads, Book Riot, Pamela Paul, KQED, New York Public Library

The New York Times bestseller, now available in paperback--an incredible true story of the top-secret World War II town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the young women brought there unknowingly to help build the atomic bomb. "The best kind of nonfiction: marvelously reported, fluidly written, and a remarkable story...As meticulous and brilliant as it is compulsively readable." --Karen Abbott, author of Sin in the Second City At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, and consumed more electricity than New York City, yet it was shrouded in such secrecy that it did not appear on any map. Thousands of civilians, many of them young women from small towns across the U.S., were recruited to this secret city, enticed by the promise of solid wages and war-ending work. What were they actually doing there? Very few knew. The purpose of this mysterious government project was kept a secret from the outside world and from the majority of the residents themselves. Some wondered why, despite the constant work and round-the-clock activity in this makeshift town, did no tangible product of any kind ever seem to leave its guarded gates? The women who kept this town running would find out at the end of the war, when Oak Ridge's secret was revealed and changed the world forever. Drawing from the voices and experiences of the women who lived and worked in Oak Ridge, The Girls of Atomic City rescues a remarkable, forgotten chapter of World War II from obscurity. Denise Kiernan captures the spirit of the times through these women: their pluck, their desire to contribute, and their enduring courage. "A phenomenal story," and Publishers Weekly called it an "intimate and revealing glimpse into one of the most important scientific developments in history." "Kiernan has amassed a deep reservoir of intimate details of what life was like for women living in the secret city...Rosie, it turns out, did much more than drive rivets." --The Washington Post

The New York Times bestselling book from Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg--"a comprehensive look inside her brilliantly analytical, entertainingly wry mind, revealing the fascinating life of one of our generation's most influential voices in both law and public opinion" (Harper's Bazaar). My Own Words "showcases Ruth Ginsburg's astonishing intellectual range" (The New Republic). In this collection Justice Ginsburg discusses gender equality, the workings of the Supreme Court, being Jewish, law and lawyers in opera, and the value of looking beyond US shores when interpreting the US Constitution. Throughout her life Justice Ginsburg has been (and continues to be) a prolific writer and public speaker. This book's sampling is selected by Justice Ginsburg and her authorized biographers Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, who introduce each chapter and provide biographical context and quotes gleaned from hundreds of interviews they have conducted. Witty, engaging, serious, and playful, My Own Words is a fascinating glimpse into the life of one of America's most influential women and "a tonic to the current national discourse" (The Washington Post).

The annotated, authorized edition of Virginia Woolf's celebrated Mrs. Dalloway, named one of Time's 100 Best Novels, features commentary by Women's Studies professor Bonnie Kime Scott. In this vivid portrait of a single day in a woman's life, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of preparation for a party while in her mind she is something much more than a perfect society hostess. As she readies her house for friends and neighbors, she is flooded with remembrances of the past--the passionate loves of her carefree youth, her practical choice of husband, and the approach and retreat of war. And, met with the realities of the present, Clarissa reexamines the choices that brought her there, hesitantly looking ahead to the unfamiliar work of growing old. From the introspective Clarissa, to the lover who never fully recovered from her rejection, to a war-ravaged stranger in the park, the characters and scope of Mrs. Dalloway reshape our sense of ordinary life making it one of the most "moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century" (Michael Cunningham). This authorized edition from the Virginia Woolf library features: Biographical Preface Chronology Introduction to the text Extensive notes Suggestions for further reading This annotated edition is the perfect companion to more fully understand Mrs. Dalloway, its importance in twentieth century literature, and Virginia Woolf's world. 

In the 1970s, feminist slogans proclaimed "Sisterhood is powerful," and women's historians searched through the historical archives to recover stories of solidarity and sisterhood. However, as feminist scholars have started taking a more intersectional approach--acknowledging that no woman is simply defined by her gender and that affiliations like race, class, and sexual identity are often equally powerful--women's historians have begun to offer more varied and nuanced narratives.     The ten original essays in U.S. Women's History represent a cross-section of current research in the field. Including work from both emerging and established scholars, this collection employs innovative approaches to study both the causes that have united American women and the conflicts that have divided them. Some essays uncover little-known aspects of women's history, while others offer a fresh take on familiar events and figures, from Rosa Parks to Take Back the Night marches.   Spanning the antebellum era to the present day, these essays vividly convey the long histories and ongoing relevance of topics ranging from women's immigration to incarceration, from acts of cross-dressing to the activism of feminist mothers. This volume thus not only untangles the threads of the sisterhood mythos, it weaves them into a multi-textured and multi-hued tapestry that reflects the breadth and diversity of U.S. women's history.  

The thirteen critical and well-documented chapters of Women, Work and Activism examine women's labor struggle from late nineteenth-century Portuguese mutual societies to Yugoslav peasant women's work in the 1930s, and from the Catalan labor movement under the Franco dictatorship to workplace democracy in the United States. The authors portray women's labor activism in a wide variety of contexts. This includes spontaneous resistance to masculinist trade unionism, the feminist engagement of women workers, the activism of communist wives of workers, and female long-distance migration, among others. The chapters address the gendered involvement of working people in multiple and often precarious and unstable labor relations and in unpaid labor, as well as the role of the state and other institutions in shaping the history of women's labor. The book is an innovative contribution to both the new labor history and feminist history. It fully integrates the conceptual advances made by gender historians in the study of labor activism, driving home critiques of Eurocentric historiographies of labor to Europe while simultaneously contributing to an inclusive history of women's labor-related activism wherever to be found. Examining women's activism in male-dominated movements and institutions, and in women's networks and organizations, the authors make a case for a new direction in gender history.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2020 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES * THE WASHINGTON POST * NPR * PEOPLE * TIME MAGAZINE * VANITY FAIR * GLAMOUR New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century 2021 WOMEN'S PRIZE FINALIST "Bennett's tone and style recalls James Baldwin and Jacqueline Woodson, but it's especially reminiscent of Toni Morrison's 1970 debut novel, The Bluest Eye." --Kiley Reid, Wall Street Journal "A story of absolute, universal timelessness . . . For any era, it's an accomplished, affecting novel. For this moment, it's piercing, subtly wending its way toward questions about who we are and who we want to be...." - Entertainment Weekly From The New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white. The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect? Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins. As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise.

Women make up almost half of the nation's workforce, yet research shows that they continue to hold a lower percentage of corporate board seats compared to men. Research highlights advantages to gender diverse boards, and some countries have taken steps to increase board gender diversity. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires companies to disclose certain information on board diversity. This book examines the representation of women on boards of U.S. publicly-traded companies and factors that may affect it; and selected stakeholders views on strategies for increasing representation of women on corporate boards. Furthermore, this book discusses women in combat, and includes a discussion of the impact of women in Congress as well as historical information.

Winner of the Josephine Miles-PEN Oakland Book Award Winner of the MAAH Stone Book Award A Rolling Stone Best Music Book of the Year A Pitchfork Best Music Book of the Year "Brooks traces all kinds of lines, finding unexpected points of connection inviting voices to talk to one another, seeing what different perspectives can offer, opening up new ways of looking and listening by tracing lineages and calling for more space." -New York Times An award-winning Black feminist music critic takes us on an epic journey through radical sound from Bessie Smith to Beyoncé. Daphne A. Brooks explores more than a century of music archives to examine the critics, collectors, and listeners who have determined perceptions of Black women on stage and in the recording studio. How is it possible, she asks, that iconic artists such as Aretha Franklin and Beyoncé exist simultaneously at the center and on the fringe of the culture industry? Liner Notes for the Revolution offers a startling new perspective on these acclaimed figures-a perspective informed by the overlooked contributions of other Black women concerned with the work of their musical peers. Zora Neale Hurston appears as a sound archivist and a performer, Lorraine Hansberry as a queer Black feminist critic of modern culture, and Pauline Hopkins as America's first Black female cultural commentator. Brooks tackles the complicated racial politics of blues music recording, song collecting, and rock and roll criticism. She makes lyrical forays into the blues pioneers Bessie Smith and Mamie Smith, as well as fans who became critics, like the record-label entrepreneur and writer Rosetta Reitz. In the twenty-first century, pop superstar Janelle Monae's liner notes are recognized for their innovations, while celebrated singers Cécile McLorin Salvant, Rhiannon Giddens, and Valerie June take their place as cultural historians. With an innovative perspective on the story of Black women in popular music-and who should rightly tell it-Liner Notes for the Revolution pioneers a long overdue recognition and celebration of Black women musicians as radical intellectuals.

A stunning modern translation of a Buddhist classic that is also one of the oldest literary texts in the world written by women. The Therīgāthā is one of the oldest surviving literatures by women, composed more than two millennia ago and originally collected as part of the Pali canon of Buddhist scripture. These poems were written by some of the first Buddhist women--therīs--honored for their religious achievements. Through imaginative verses about truth and freedom, the women recount their lives before ordination and their joy at attaining liberation from samsara. Poems of the First Buddhist Women offers startling insights into the experiences of women in ancient times that continue to resonate with modern readers. With a spare and elegant style, this powerful translation introduces us to a classic of world literature.

We think we know the story of women's suffrage in the United States: women met at Seneca Falls, marched in Washington, D.C., and demanded the vote until they won it with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. But the fight for women's voting rights extended far beyond these familiar scenes. From social clubs in New York's Chinatown to conferences for Native American rights, and in African American newspapers and pamphlets demanding equality for Spanish-speaking New Mexicans, a diverse cadre of extraordinary women struggled to build a movement that would truly include all women, regardless of race or national origin. In Recasting the Vote, Cathleen D. Cahill tells the powerful stories of a multiracial group of activists who propelled the national suffrage movement toward a more inclusive vision of equal rights. Cahill reveals a new cast of heroines largely ignored in earlier suffrage histories: Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin, Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkala-Sa), Laura Cornelius Kellogg, Carrie Williams Clifford, Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, and Adelina "Nina" Luna Otero-Warren. With these feminists of color in the foreground, Cahill recasts the suffrage movement as an unfinished struggle that extended beyond the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. As we celebrate the centennial of a great triumph for the women's movement, Cahill's powerful history reminds us of the work that remains.

Shirley was the second published novel by Charlotte Bronte, after Jane Eyre. It is a social novel set against the backdrop of the Luddite uprisings in Yorshire after the Napoleonic Wars, particularly in the depressed textile industry. The novel's heroine is given a boy's name by her father, who expected a son. The novel's popularity turned the distinctly male name Shirley into a distinctly female one.

Looking beyond the national leadership of the suffrage movement, an acclaimed historian gives voice to the thousands of women from different backgrounds, races, and religions whose local passion and protest resounded throughout the land. For far too long, the history of how American women won the right to vote has been told as the tale of a few iconic leaders, all white and native-born. But Susan Ware uncovered a much broader and more diverse story waiting to be told. Why They Marched is a tribute to the many women who worked tirelessly in communities across the nation, out of the spotlight, protesting, petitioning, and insisting on their right to full citizenship. Ware tells her story through the lives of nineteen activists, most of whom have long been overlooked. We meet Mary Church Terrell, a multilingual African American woman; Rose Schneiderman, a labor activist building coalitions on New York's Lower East Side; Claiborne Catlin, who toured the Massachusetts countryside on horseback to drum up support for the cause; Mary Johnston, an aristocratic novelist bucking the Southern ruling elite; Emmeline W. Wells, a Mormon woman in a polygamous marriage determined to make her voice heard; and others who helped harness a groundswell of popular support. We also see the many places where the suffrage movement unfolded--in church parlors, meeting rooms, and the halls of Congress, but also on college campuses and even at the top of Mount Rainier. Few corners of the United States were untouched by suffrage activism. Ware's deeply moving stories provide a fresh account of one of the most significant moments of political mobilization in American history. The dramatic, often joyous experiences of these women resonate powerfully today, as a new generation of young women demands to be heard.

This is the original 1818 text of Frankenstein. In 1831, the more popular edition of Frankenstein appeared. In this later version, the story was heavily revised by Mary Shelley who was under pressure to make the book more conservative. The 1831 edition tends to be the one most widely read now but many scholars prefer the 1818 text, arguing that it preserves the spirit of Shelley's original publication. The 1818 edition also includes a preface by Shelley explaining the origins of Frankenstein.

A radical feminist history and street art resource for inspired readers! This book combines short biographies with striking and usable stencil images of thirty women--activists, anarchists, feminists, freedom-fighters, and visionaries. It offers a subversive portrait history which refuses to belittle the military prowess and revolutionary drive of women, whose violent resolves often shatter the archetype of woman-as-nurturer. It is also a celebration of some extremely brave women who have spent their lives fighting for what they believe in and rallying supporters in climates where a woman's authority is never taken as seriously as a man's. The text also shares some of each woman's ideologies, philosophies, struggles, and quiet humanity with quotes from their writings or speeches. The women featured are: Harriet Tubman, Louise Michel, Vera Zasulich, Emma Goldman, Qiu Jin, Nora Connolly O'Brien, Lucia Sanchez Saornil, Angela Davis, Leila Khaled, Comandante Ramona, Phoolan Devi, Ani Pachen, Anna Mae Aquash, Hannie Schaft, Rosa Luxemburg, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Lolita Lebron, Djamila Bouhired, Malalai Joya, Vandana Shiva, Olive Morris, Assata Shakur, Sylvia Rivera, Haydée Santamaría, Marie Equi, Mother Jones, Doria Shafik, Ondina Peteani, Whina Cooper, and Lucy Parsons.

Before the Second World War and long before the second wave of feminism, Virginia Woolf argued that women's experience, particularly in the women's movement, could be the basis for transformative social change. Grounding Virginia Woolf's feminist beliefs in the everyday world, Naomi Black reclaims Three Guineas as a major feminist document. Rather than a book only about war, Black considers it to be the best, clearest presentation of Woolf's feminism. Woolf's changing representation of feminism in publications from 1920 to 1940 parallels her involvement with the contemporary women's movement (suffragism and its descendants, and the pacifist, working-class Women's Co-operative Guild). Black guides us through Woolf's feminist connections and writings, including her public letters from the 1920s as well as "A Society," A Room of One's Own, and the introductory letter to Life As We Have Known It. She assesses the lengthy development of Three Guineas from a 1931 lecture and the way in which the form and illustrations of the book serve as a feminist subversion of male scholarship. Virginia Woolf as Feminist concludes with a discussion of the continuing relevance of Woolf's feminism for third-millennium politics.

An insightful portrait of Austen's friend and fellow writer Anne Lefroy and the society that surrounded these two literary women.In this insightful new biography of Anne Lefroy, Judy Stove investigates the life of a writer who had a direct and undeniable influence on the life and works of Jane Austen. Jane shared some of her earliest writings with Anne, who became a devoted confidant; it is believed that their friendship was an essential component in their creativity. As a published female writer, Anne was an immense source of inspiration to Jane as she developed her own talents.Judy Stove, a member of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, brings a wealth of insight to this illuminating history of a literary friendship. She has uncovered fascinating snippets of information relating to Anne Lefroy's circle, and her book addresses developments across a period of great social and political change. Setting Lefroy's life in context, she looks at the war against Napoleon and illustrates evolutions in healthcare as well as changes in religious beliefs and practices that shaped the world of these remarkable women.

The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified on July 9, 1868, identified all legitimate voters as "male." In so doing, it added gender-specific language to the U.S. Constitution for the first time. Suffrage Reconstructed considers how and why the amendment's authors made this decision. Vividly detailing congressional floor bickering and activist campaigning, Laura E. Free takes readers into the pre- and postwar fights over precisely who should have the right to vote. Free demonstrates that all men, black and white, were the ultimate victors of these fights, as gender became the single most important marker of voting rights during Reconstruction. Free argues that the Fourteenth Amendment's language was shaped by three key groups: African American activists who used ideas about manhood to claim black men's right to the ballot, postwar congressmen who sought to justify enfranchising southern black men, and women's rights advocates who began to petition Congress for the ballot for the first time as the Amendment was being drafted. To prevent women's inadvertent enfranchisement, and to incorporate formerly disfranchised black men into the voting polity, the Fourteenth Amendment's congressional authors turned to gender to define the new American voter. Faced with this exclusion some woman suffragists, most notably Elizabeth Cady Stanton, turned to rhetorical racism in order to mount a campaign against sex as a determinant of one's capacity to vote. Stanton's actions caused a rift with Frederick Douglass and a schism in the fledgling woman suffrage movement. By integrating gender analysis and political history, Suffrage Reconstructed offers a new interpretation of the Civil War?era remaking of American democracy, placing African American activists and women's rights advocates at the heart of nineteenth-century American conversations about public policy, civil rights, and the franchise.

"The Mysterious Affair at Styles" The Queen of Crime Introduces Her Most Enduring Creation. Agatha Christie's debut novel, *The Mysterious Affair at Styles*, introduces the world to Hercule Poirot, the eccentric Belgian detective who would become one of the most beloved characters in fiction. Set in the English countryside, the novel follows Poirot as he investigates the murder of Emily Inglethorp, a wealthy elderly woman. With a cast of suspicious characters, all with their own secrets and motives, Poirot must use his keen observation skills and razor-sharp intellect to untangle the web of lies and deceit. As he meticulously examines the evidence and interrogates the suspects, Poirot uncovers a shocking truth that will leave you guessing until the very end. "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" is a classic locked-room mystery that is as timeless and suspenseful today as it was when it was first published in 1920. It is a must-read for fans of Agatha Christie and detective fiction in general. Here are some additional notes: The novel was adapted into a film in 1980 and a television series in 1990. The book has been translated into more than 40 languages and has sold over 100 million copies worldwide. It is considered one of the greatest detective novels of all time.

Why the gender gap persists and how we can close it. For years women have made up the majority of college-educated workers in the United States. In 2019, the gap between the percentage of women and the percentage of men in the workforce was the smallest on record. But despite these statistics, women remain underrepresented in positions of power and status, with the highest-paying jobs the most gender-imbalanced. Even in fields where the numbers of men and women are roughly equal, or where women actually make up the majority, leadership ranks remain male-dominated. The persistence of these inequalities begs the question: Why haven't we made more progress? In Glass Half-Broken, Colleen Ammerman and Boris Groysberg reveal the pervasive organizational obstacles and managerial actions—limited opportunities for development, lack of role models and sponsors, and bias in hiring, compensation, and promotion—that create gender imbalances. Bringing to light the key findings from the latest research in psychology, sociology, organizational behavior, and economics, Ammerman and Groysberg show that throughout their careers—from entry-level to mid-level to senior-level positions—women get pushed out of the leadership pipeline, each time for different reasons. Presenting organizational and managerial strategies designed to weaken and ultimately break down these barriers, Glass Half-Broken is the authoritative resource that managers and leaders at all levels can use to finally shatter the glass ceiling.

2016 Choice Outstanding Academic Title From Eleanor Roosevelt to feminist icon Gloria Steinem to HIV/AIDS activist Dazon Dixon Diallo, women have assumed leadership roles in struggles for social justice. How did these remarkable women ascend to positions of influence? And once in power, what leadership strategies did they use to deal with various challenges?    Junctures in Women's Leadership: Social Movements explores these questions by introducing twelve women who have spearheaded a wide array of social movements that span the 1940s to the present, working for indigenous peoples' rights, gender equality, reproductive rights, labor advocacy, environmental justice, and other causes. The women profiled here work in a variety of arenas across the globe: Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards, New York City labor organizer Bhairavi Desai, women's rights leader Charlotte Bunch, feminist poet Audre Lorde, civil rights activists Daisy Bates and Aileen Clarke Hernandez, Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai, Nicaraguan revolutionary Mirna Cunningham, and South African public prosecutor Thuli Madonsela. What unites them all is the way these women made sacrifices, asked critical questions, challenged injustice, and exhibited the will to act in the face of often-harsh criticism and violence.   The case studies in Junctures in Women's Leadership: Social Movements demonstrate the diversity of ways that women around the world have practiced leadership, in many instances overcoming rigid cultural expectations about gender. Moreover, the cases provide a unique window into the ways that women leaders make decisions at moments of struggle and historical change.