International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women and to mark the occasion we're drawing attention to some of our previously published books which celebrate such individuals.
Wild Women: And their Amazing Adventures over Land Sea and Air edited by Mariella Frostrup
From Constantinople to Crimea; from Antarctica to the Andes. Throughout history adventurous women have made epic, record-breaking journeys under perilous circumstances. Whether escaping constricted societies back home or propelled by a desire for independence, footloose females have ventured to the four corners of the earth and recorded their exploits for posterity.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Yeongdo, Korea 1911. In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then Isak, a Christian minister, offers her a chance of salvation: a new life in Japan as his wife.
Following a man she barely knows to a hostile country in which she has no friends, no home, and whose language she cannot speak, Sunja's salvation is just the beginning of her story.
Through eight decades and four generations, Pachinko is an epic tale of family, identity, love, death and survival.
Unquiet Women: From the Dusk of the Roman Empire to the Dawn of the Enlightenment by Max Adams
From Wynflæd, the Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who owned male slaves and badger-skin gowns, to Mary Astell, the philosopher who out-thought John Locke, this is a kaleidoscopic study of women's history before the Enlightenment changed everything. In this rigorous work of rescue and recovery, their voices can be heard across the centuries – still passionate and still strong.
No Modernism without Lesbians by Diana Souhami
The extraordinary story of how a singular group of women in a pivotal time and place – Paris, Between the Wars – fostered the birth of the Modernist movement.
Sylvia Beach, Bryher, Natalie Barney, and Gertrude Stein. A trailblazing publisher; a patron of artists; a society hostess; a groundbreaking writer. They were all women who loved women. They rejected the patriarchy and made lives of their own – forming a community around them in Paris.
The Fragrance of Tears: My Friendship with Benazir Bhutto by Victoria Schofield
Schofield's memoir provides first-hand insights into Bhutto's transformation from Oxford undergraduate to political activist, prisoner and politician against the backdrop of an increasingly turbulent region. Drawing on diaries and letters, Schofield narrates with affection and emotional honesty the trajectory of her close and enduring bond with one of the most charismatic and controversial figures in South Asian politics – and a woman whose life and career were defined by tragedy.
Woman of Substances by Jenny Valentish
Journalist Jenny Valentish takes a gendered look at drugs and alcohol, using her own story to light the way. Mining the expertise of 35 leading researchers, clinicians and psychiatrists, she explores the early predictors of addictive behaviour, such as trauma, temperament and impulsivity.
The Story: Love, Loss & The Lives of Women: 100 Great Short Stories edited by Victoria Hislop
Featuring an all star cast of authors including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Angela Carter, Margaret Drabble, Penelope Fitzgerald, Miranda July, Doris Lessing, Katherine Mansfield, Alice Munro, Dorothy Parker and Virginia Woolf, THE STORY is the biggest and most beautiful collectino of women's short fiction in print today.
Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters by Laura Thompson
They were the Mitford sisters: Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah. Born into country-house privilege, they became prominent as 'bright young things' in the high society of interwar London. Then, as the shadows crept over 1930s Europe, the stark – and very public – differences in their outlooks came to symbolise the political polarities of a dangerous decade.
All the books are availble now in hardback, paperback and ebook.
