My 50 favorite reads by and about amazing women

A friend recently asked if anyone had book recommendations for books by or about women for #WomensHistoryMonth and #IWD2023.?

::interlaces and cracks fingers::

Since I read almost exclusively non-fiction by or about amazing women these days, I do have a bit of a list. Most of these I've read in the last few years; I've been on a mission to find out more of women's history I didn't learn in school.

My partner Ron Richardson also has taken to giving me a bio of an amazing woman for the holidays every year, so he's helping me discover content I wouldn't have found otherwise.

Because I am curious about women who aren't like me, it's a bit of a mix. I'm listing everything from bios of real-life spies, queens, and pirates to stories from entrepreneurs and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).?

Wanna read about a trans civil rights activist who befriended Eleanor Roosevelt? Or who the first women doctors were and how they got into medicine? Or how a Black woman became not the first Black woman millionaire but the first woman millionaire? Or how the last queen of Hawai’i conscientiously fought but ultimately lost her archipelago’s independence? Maybe the unsung cryptologists who saved lives in WWII is your thing, or perhaps you’ll be enticed by the story of the woman who grew up in but left Westboro Baptist Church.?

There are also non-fiction books by amazing women diving into race, linguistics, me too, and a truly delightful book on testosterone. I hope you enjoy.?

And if you have books you think I should read, I’m always looking for more material. So leave ‘em in the comments!?

Bios of amazing politicians and activists

1. This Is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman by Ilhan Omar
2. Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon
3. Use the Power You Have: A Brown Woman's Guide to Politics and Political Change by Pramila Jayapal
4. Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker by Stacy A. Cordery
5. Crusade for Justice: the Autobiography of Ida B. Wells by Ida B. Wells
6. I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World by Malala Yousafzai
7. First: Sandra Day O’Connor by Evan Thomas
8. The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice by Patricia Bell-Scott

Bios of amazing women in STEM

1. The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
2. Enchantress of Numbers (Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace) by Jennifer Chiaverini?
3. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
4. Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Change the World of Medicine by Olivia Campbell
5. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Bios of amazing artists/performers, and writers

1. Josephine Baker’s Last Dance by Sherry Jones
2. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
3. The Passion of Artemesia by Susan Vreeland

Bios of amazing entrepreneurs

1. The Black Rose: The Dramatic Story of Madam C.J. Walker, America's First Black Female Millionaire by Tananrive Due
2. Bend Not Break: a Life in Two Worlds by Ping Fu

Bios of amazing survivors

1. Educated: a Memoir by Tara Westover
2. Haben: the Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law by Haben Girma
3. She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
4. Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land
5. All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles
6. Unfollow: a Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church by Megan Phelps-Roper
7. Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement by Tarana Burke
8. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
9. The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

Spies, pirates, and queens

1. Pirate Queen: The Life of Grace O’Malley, 1530-1603 by Judith Cook
2. The Magnificent Matriarch: Ka’ahumanu, Queen of Hawaii by Kathleen Dickenson Mellen
3. Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s Last Queen the Sugar Kings, and America’s First Imperial Adventure by Julia Flynn Siler
4. Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen by Queen Lili‘uokalani
5. Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang
6. Code Name Lise: The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII's Most Highly Decorated Spy by Larry Lottis
7. Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: the Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler by Lynne Olson
8. Pirate Women: the Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas by Laura Sook Duncombe
9. Code Girls, the Untold Story of the American Women Code Breaker of WWII by Liza Mundy

Non-fiction about trailblazing women

1. The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore
2. The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed How We Live by Danielle Dreilinger
3. Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: the Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR by Lisa Napoli

Non-fiction by amazing women

1. Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks
2. Wordslut: a Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell
3. A Black Woman’s History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry
4. The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power by Deirdre Mask
5. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
6. So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
7. Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich
8. She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor
9. Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society by Cordelia Fine
10. Before and After: the Incredible?Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society by Judy Christie
11. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Dr. Robin DiAngelo

Fiction by amazing women

• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston