If you want #shelfie goals, you need some good stacks (of books) to line them with. Luckily, female authors are busting out badass books in droves. Get your hands and eyes on these!! We have.
1. The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown
Meryl Streep sped through this book and we know why. The Vanity Fair Diaries is the story of an Englishwoman barely out of her twenties who arrives in New York City with a dream. That woman is Tina Brown, who, between the years of 1979 to 2001 she was the editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. Lucky for readers, during her eight year magical ride as editor-in-chief at Vanity Fair, she kept a daily diary. Today they provide an incendiary portrait of the flash and dash and power brokering of the Excessive Eighties in New York and Hollywood.
2. Women at Work Interviews from the Paris Review
Women at Work, the first anthology from the Paris Review Editions imprint, features interviews with Margaret Atwood, Simone de Beauvoir, Elizabeth Bishop, Joan Didion, Isak Dinesen, Hilary Mantel, Toni Morrison, Jan Morris, Grace Paley, Dorothy Parker, Claudia Rankine, and Marguerite Yourcenar. Intimate, deep, full of surprises, these classic interviews will be a source of inspiration and instruction to writers, students, and anyone else who cares about the creative process, or about the specific challenges faced by creative women.
Enough said. Speaking of Joan... She's always going to make our list.
3. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
An oldie but a goodie. Didion deals with the death of her husband and daughter in this tearful tale of the year following their deaths. And for anyone who hasn't checked out the Didion Doc on Netflix yet, we've found your Saturday night.
4. Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
The New York Times Best Seller is on top of her craft in this novel that explores the whole range of human emotion through the intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others.
Plus, it's about feuding sisters. Little dramatic reading never hurt anyone's imagination.
5. I've Got This Round: More Tales of Debauchery by Mamrie Hart
One of our fave funny women, Mamrie Hart is releasing her second book this Feb! In I've Got This Round, readers will find the same shameless honesty and I'll-try-anything-once spirit they loved in Hart’s New York Times bestseller You Deserve a Drink. Mamrie doubles down on her strong female friendships, her willingness to engage in shenanigans, and her inimitable candor, taking the reader along for a wild and unforgettable journey through adulting.
6. Rookie on Love edited by Tavi Gevinson
A single-subject anthology about the heart's most powerful emotion, edited by Rookie's EIC Tavi Gevinson. Featuring exclusive, never-before-seen essays, poems, comics, and interviews from contributors like Jenny Zhang, Emma Straub, Hilton Als, Janet Mock, John Green, Rainbow Rowell & Gabourey Sidibe.
7. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Winner of a National Book Award for Fiction, Jesmyn's beautiful and haunting novel is about three generations and the ghosts that haunt them. It tells the story of Jojo, a young black Mississippi boy raised by his grandparents, who is forced to become a man far before he should because his mother is a drug addict, his father is in jail, and his baby sister needs a guardian.
8. Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
In her 7 essays that punctuate exactly what you feel when getting mansplained, Rebecca takes men to task. Two of the book’s most powerful essays (“Men Explain Things To Me” and “#YesAllWomen”) are exactly what you need to read. Traditional gender roles? Nah fam.
9. It's Messy: On Boys, Boobs, and Badass Women by Amanda de Cadenet
In this deeply personal collection of essays, creator of the The Conversation Amanda de Cadenet shares the hard-won advice and practical insights she’s gained through her experiences as businesswoman, friend, wife, and mother. Part manual, part manifesto, this intimate, hilarious, and insightful collection of essays challenges stereotypes and social norms, and examines the universal experiences relevant to women today.
Take it from her-- we certainly have.
10. Her Bodies and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Our first pick this January for our Book Club! To kick it off this January we are starting Carmen Maria Machado's “Her Body and Other Parties," the author's debut book of short stories. A finalist for the National Book Award, the eight fables are a startling and at times unsettling cross between feminist fiction, as the stories deal with worlds in which women literally and metaphorically fade away, and science fiction
What are you reading on? Share below!
right and cover photo credit: Adenorah
