Women’s History Month 2023
Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories
March is Women’s History Month in respect of International Women’s Day on March 8th. The theme this year is Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories . In honor of that, the reading recommendation list includes books that feature women across cultures, ages, and time periods.
A reminder, students, faculty, and staff can get access to Libby (the ebook and audiobook app) through CFL. Our books this month are a mix of audiobooks, ebooks, and physical books. For more information on how easy it is to start using Libby, check out our Adding UND to Libby App video.
Fiction
By Madeline Miller
physical book at CFL
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child — not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power — the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.
By Etaf Rum
ebook through Libby
In Brooklyn, eighteen-year-old Deya is starting to meet with suitors. Though she doesn’t want to get married, her grandparents give her no choice. History is repeating itself: Deya’s mother, Isra, also had no choice when she left Palestine as a teenager to marry Adam. Though Deya was raised to believe her parents died in a car accident, a secret note from a mysterious, yet familiar-looking woman makes Deya question everything she was told about her past. As the narrative alternates between the lives of Deya and Isra, she begins to understand the dark, complex secrets behind her community.
By Naomi Alderman
physical book at CFL
When a new force takes hold of the world, people from different areas of life are forced to cross paths in an alternate reality that gives women and teenage girls immense physical power that can cause pain and death.
Poetry
By Kai Cheng Thom
physical book at CFL
This extraordinary poetry collection journeys to the place where forgotten ancestors live and monstrous women roam—and where the distinctions between body, land, and language are lost. In these fierce yet tender narrative poems, Thom draws from both memory and mythology to create new maps of gender, race, sexuality, and violence. Descended from the traditions of oral storytelling, spoken word, and queer punk, Thom’s debut collection is evocative and unforgettable.
By Rupi Kaur
physical book at CFL and ebook through Libby
Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity. The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. Milk and Honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.
By Maya Angelou
physical book at CFL
These four poems, “Phenomenal Woman,” “Still I Rise,” “Weekend Glory,” and “Our Grandmothers,” are among the most remembered and acclaimed of Maya Angelou’s poems. They celebrate women with a majesty that has inspired and touched the hearts of millions.
Non-Fiction
Notorious RBG: the life and times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
By Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik
physical book at CFL
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg never asked for fame– she was just trying to make the world a little better and a little freer. But along the way, the feminist pioneer’s searing dissents and steely strength have inspired millions. This book takes you behind the myth for an intimate, irreverent look at the justice’s life and work. As America struggles with the unfinished business of gender equality and civil rights, Ginsburg stayed fierce. And if you don’t know, now you know.
The Woman Warrior: memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts
By Maxine Hong Kingston
physical book at CFL and ebook through Libby
The young Kingston lives in two worlds: the America to which her parents have immigrated and the China of her mother’s “talk stories.” Her mother tells her traditional tales of strong, wily women warriors – tales that clash with the real oppression of women. Kingston learns to fill in the mystifying spaces in her mother’s stories with stories of her own, engaging her family’s past and her own present with anger, imagination, and dazzling passion.
By Rachel Hollis
ebook through Libby
Founder of the lifestyle website TheChicSite.com and CEO of her own media company, Chic Media, Rachel Hollis has created an online fan base of hundreds of thousands of fans by sharing tips for living a better life while fearlessly revealing the messiness of her own. Now comes her highly anticipated first book featuring her signature combination of honesty, humor, and direct, no-nonsense advice.
Young Adult
By Meredith Russo
Audiobook through Libby
Amanda Hardy is the new girl in school. Like anyone else, all she wants is to make friends and fit in. However, Amanda is keeping a secret, and she’s determined not to get too close to anyone. But when she meets sweet, easygoing Grant, Amanda can’t help but start to let him into her life. As they spend more time together, she realizes just how much she is losing by guarding her heart. She finds herself yearning to share with Grant everything about herself, including her past.
By Julie Murphy
ebook through Libby
Self-proclaimed fat girl Willowdean Dickson (dubbed “Dumplin’” by her former beauty queen mom) has always been at home in her own skin. With her all-American beauty best friend, Ellen, by her side, things have always worked… until Will takes a job at Harpy’s, the local fast-food joint. There she meets Bo, a hot former jock. Will isn’t surprised to find herself attracted to Bo — but she is surprised when he seems to like her back. Instead of finding new heights of self-assurance in her relationship with Bo, Will starts to doubt herself. So she sets out to take back her confidence by doing the most horrifying thing she can imagine: entering the Miss Clover City beauty pageant Along the way, she’ll shock the hell out of Clover City — and maybe herself most of all.
By Jennifer Mathieu
physical book at CFL
Vivian Carter is fed up with a high school administration that thinks the football team can do no wrong. Fed up with sexist dress codes, hallway harassment, and gross comments from guys during class. But most of all, Viv is fed up with always following the rules. Her mom was a tough-as-nails, punk rock Riot Grrrl in the ’90s, and now Viv takes a page from her mother’s past and creates a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates. She’s just blowing off steam, but what she has started is nothing short of a girl revolution.
