New and Recommended Adult Nonfiction to Read During Women's History Month and Beyond

Updated March 2, 2026
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107 Days
Harris, Kamala.
Paper Book
Ace of Hearts: Lessons in Love from an Asexual Girl
Cooklin
Paper Book
Starred Review from Booklist, "this powerful account will comfort those who grew up feeling broken." What does love look like when you are not interested in sex? Growing up, Caitlin Cook knew the recipe for social success...
All the Way to the River : Love, Loss, and Liberation
Gilbert, Elizabeth
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK "A delicious mashup of narrative that's by turns harrowing and healing." -People "Entertaining, insightful, wrenching ... punch-to-the-gut powerful." -The Washington Post
Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice
Kolb, Rachel
Paper Book
A deaf writer's exploration of language, communication, and what it means to be articulate--and her journey to reclaim her voice Rachel Kolb was born profoundly deaf the same year that the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, and she grew up as part of the first...
The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage That Made an American Icon
Shapiro, Laurie Gwen
Paper Book
In 1928, a young social worker and hobby pilot named Amelia Earhart arrived in the office of George Putnam, heir to the Putnam & Sons throne and hitmaker, on the hunt for the right woman for a secret flying mission across the Atlantic. A partnership - professional and soon otherwise - was born. The...
Being Heumann : an unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist
Heumann, Judith E.
Ebook
Soon to be an Apple feature movie directed by CODA's Sian Heder and starring BAFTA-nominated actress Ruth Madeley as Judy Heumann "This important book will help ensure that every person gets a chance to live up to their full potential and will always have a place at the...
A Black women's history of the United States
Berry, Daina Ramey
Ebook
The award-winning Revisioning American History series continues with this "groundbreaking new history of Black women in the United States" (Ibram X. Kendi)--the perfect companion to An Indigenous People's History of the United States and An African American and Latinx History of the...
The Bluestockings: A History of the First Women's Movement
Gibson, Susannah
Paper Book
In England in the 1700s, a woman who was an intellectual, spoke out, or wrote professionally was considered unnatural. After all, as the wisdom of the era dictated, a clever woman--if there were such a thing--would never make a good wife. But a circle of women called the Bluestockings did...
Book of lives : a memoir of sorts
Atwood, Margaret
Paper Book
'Fat and satisfying' Observer * 'I loved it' Dua Lipa * 'Deliciously naughty' iNews * 'Beautifully told' Woman & Home * 'Spellbinding' FT * Book of the Year Guardian, Financial Times, Observer, Belfast Telegraph ...
Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old : Thoughts on Aging As a Woman
Shields, Brooke/ Bertsche, Rachel (CON)
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From generational icon Brooke Shields comes an intimate and empowering exploration of aging that flips the script on the idea of what it means for a woman to grow older Brooke Shields has spent a lifetime in the public eye....
Cancer is complicated : and other unexpected lessons I've learned
Shearer, Clea
Ebook
Care and Feeding: A Memoir
Woolever, Laurie
Paper Book
An Instant New York Times Bestseller! A candid, funny, and occasionally devastating culinary memoir of a woman making her way through the food world, navigating addiction, a cultural reckoning, and an unexpected tragedy In this moving, hilarious, and insightful...
Cher : The Memoir, Part One
Cher
Paper Book
***The Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller*** ***The Global #1 Bestseller*** The extraordinary life of Cher can be told by only one person . . . Cher herself. After more than seventy years of fighting to live her life on her own...
A different kind of power : a memoir
Ardern, Jacinda.
Paper Book
What if we could redefine leadership? What if kindness came first? Jacinda Ardern grew up the daughter of a police officer, a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt. But as prime minister she commanded worldwide respect for her empathetic leadership, made political history, and changed our assumptions...
The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex
Febos, Melissa
Paper Book
From Melissa Febos, the national bestselling author of Girlhood, comes an examination of the solitude, freedoms, and feminist heroes she discovered during a year of celibacy and a wise and transformative look at relationships and self-knowledge. "Only Melissa Febos could...
Femina : a new history of the middle ages through the women written out of it
Ramirez, Janina
Paper Book
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER **LONGLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE** 'Janina Ramirez is a born storyteller, and in Femina she is at the peak of her powers. This is bravura narrative history underpinned by passionate advocacy for the women...
A flower traveled in my blood : the incredible true story of the grandmothers who fought to find a stolen generation of children
Cohen Gilliland, Haley
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2025 * THE WASHINGTON POST'S 5 BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF 2025 * THE ATLANTIC'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2025 * THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY'S BEST BOOKS OF 2025 * TIME MAGAZINE'S BEST BOOKS OF 2025 * NPR'S BEST BOOKS...
The harder I fight, the more I love you : a memoir
Case, Neko
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AN APPLE BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH Singer-songwriter Neko Case paints a vivid portrait of an extraordinary life--one forged through a poverty-stricken childhood, obsessive desire, bursts of comedy, and...
I Identify as Blind: A Brazen Celebration of Disability Culture, Identity, and Power
Lachi
Paper Book
Lachi is an award-winning musician and an unapologetic activist who awakens the world to this truth: Disability is an identity worth brazenly celebrating. In her book, Lachi spotlights how disabled people have to be driven, persistent, perceptive, and highly adaptable just to get through any given...
Joan of Arc : a life transfigured
Harrison, Kathryn.
Paper Book
The profoundly inspiring and fully documented saga of Joan of Arc, the young peasant girl whose "voices" moved her to rally the French nation and a reluctant king against British invaders in 1428, has fascinated artistic figures as diverse as William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Voltaire, George...
Language as Liberation: Reflections on the American Canon
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
Nobel laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Beloved Toni Morrison investigates Black characters in the American literary canon and the way they shaped the nation's collective unconscious. In a dazzling series of lectures from her tenure as a professor at Princeton...
The Look
Obama, Michelle.
Paper Book
A marriage at sea : a true story of love, obsession, and shipwreck
Elmhirst, Sophie
Paper Book
THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER & ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025 A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2025 ALSO NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2025 BY NPR, VOGUE, TIME MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORKER, AND MORE "This is nonfiction that...
Matriarch: A Memoir
Knowles, Tina
Paper Book
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A glorious chronicle of a life like none other--enlightening, entertaining, surprising, empowering--and a testament to the world-changing power of Black motherhood "A beautiful and brave story of strong women, fierce mothering, and the...
Memorial Days
Brooks, Geraldine.
Paper Book
The missing thread : a women's history of the ancient world
Dunn, Daisy
Paper Book
One of The Smithsonian's 10 best history books of 2024 One of BBC History Magazine's best books of 2024 "Thoroughly researched and sprightly.... a complete history of the [Mediterranean world] with the women added back in, as they always should have been."<...
Mother Mary comes to me
Roy, Arundhati
Paper Book
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER FOYLES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 AUDIBLE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 BLACKWELL'S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 WINNER OF THE GOOGLE PLAY BEST OF 2025 AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 LONGLISTED...
New women in the old west : from settlers to suffragists, an untold American story
Gallagher, Winifred
Paper Book
A riveting history of the American West told for the first time through the pioneering women who used the challenges of migration and settlement as opportunities to advocate for their rights, and transformed the country in the process. Drawing on an extraordinary collection of research, including...
Nobody's Girl : A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The unforgettable memoir by the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the woman who dared to take on Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell "Make no mistake: this is a book about power, corruption, industrial-scale sex abuse and the way in which...
Notes on heartbreak
Lord, Annie
Paper Book
Notes to John
Didion, Joan
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * An extraordinary work from the author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights In November 1999, Joan Didion began seeing a psychiatrist because, as she wrote to a friend, her family had had "a rough few years....
On Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women's Sports
Brennan, Christine
Paper Book
Instant New York Times Bestseller! A news-making and electrifying portrait of sports phenomenon Caitlin Clark, whose dramatic ascendance in college basketball and now in the WNBA has captured the attention of media and fans unlike any other female team-sport athlete in...
Bound: a memoir of making and remaking
Ballard, Maddie & Wright, Emma Dai'an (Illus).
Paper Book
The radium girls : the dark story of America's shining women
Moore, Kate (Writer and editor)
Paper Book
A New York Times BestsellerA LibraryReads Next PickAn Indie Next PickWritten with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" element of radium in early 20th-century American factories. Their courage and tenacity led to...
Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain's Queen Without a Crown (Original)
Foster, Ann
Paper Book
*A Washington Post Notable Book for February!* The dramatic, absolutely outrageous story of Caroline of Brunswick, a beloved icon of the Regency era, who uplifted the voice of the public and unabashedly defied society's expectations, yet was shockingly robbed of...
The ride of her life : the true story of a woman, her horse, and their last-chance journey across America
Letts, Elizabeth
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER .The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Horse and The Eighty-Dollar Champion presents a "heartwarming and engaging folk-hero biography" (Kirkus Reviews) of a woman who fulfilled her lifelong wish to see the Pacific Ocean by riding...
Sister wife : a memoir of faith, family, and finding freedom
Woolley, Christine Brown
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From TLC's Sister Wives star Christine Brown Woolley, a groundbreaking and heartfelt memoir about living in a family like no other and finding the strength to leave polygamy--and the only life she's known--behind.
The sisterhood / The Secret History of Women at the CIA
Mundy, Liza
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A "rip-roaring" (Steve Coll), "staggeringly well-researched" (The New York Times) history of three generations at the CIA, "electric with revelations" (Booklist) about the women who fought to become operatives, transformed spycraft, and tracked down Osama bin...
Sisterhood of ravensbruck, the
Olson, Lynne
Paper Book
For decades after World War II, histories of the French Resistance were written almost exclusively by men and largely ignored the contributions of women. Many current overviews of the subject continue to underplay the extent and importance of women's participation in the Resistance, treating the...
The Six : The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts
Grush, Loren
Paper Book
"Vivid." --The Guardian * "Engrossing." --Booklist * "Suspenseful, meticulously observed, enlightening." --Margot Lee Shetterly, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Figures In this account of America's first women astronauts "Grush...
Star of the Show: My Life on Stage
Parton, Dolly.
Paper Book
That's a great question, I'd love to tell you
Myers, Elyse
Ebook
Thirty below : the harrowing and heroic story of the first all-women's ascent of Denali
Randall, Cassidy
Paper Book
The gripping story of a group of female adventurers and their treacherous pioneering ascent of Denali. Excerpted in Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and Men's Journal, and named one of the most noteworthy books of the month by the Washington Post ...
We should all be feminists
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
Ebook
**DREAM COUNT, the searing, exquisite new novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is out now!** A personal and powerful essay from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the bestselling author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun. 'I would like to ask that we begin to dream about and plan for a...
When women ruled the world : six queens of Egypt
Cooney, Kara
Paper Book
This riveting narrative explores the lives of six remarkable female pharaohs, from Hatshepsut to Cleopatra--women who ruled with real power--and shines a piercing light on our own perceptions of women in power today. Female rulers are a rare phenomenon--but thousands of years ago...
A woman of no importance : the untold story of the American spy who helped win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Paper Book
A New York Times BestsellerIn 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her." The target in their sights was Virginia Hall, a Baltimore socialite who talked her way into Special Operations Executive, the spy...
Women in white coats : how the first women doctors changed the world of medicine
Campbell, Olivia M.
Paper Book
For fans of Hidden Figures and Radium Girls comes the remarkable story of three Victorian women who broke down barriers in the medical field to become the first women doctors, revolutionising the way women receive health care.

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