Women are artists, writers, and scientists. Women are actors, lawyers, and politicians. Women are entrepreneurs, judges, and war heroes. Women are anything they want to be.
This Women’s History Month, we’re celebrating our foremothers who paved the way for all those who came after them, and also celebrating the women who are currently changing the world with the power of their work.
In her late twenties, Amber Tamblyn experienced a crisis of character while trying to break out of the confines of the acting career she’d forged as a child in order to become the writer and director she dreamed of being as an adult. She grabbed hold of her own destiny and entered into what she calls an Era of Ignition–namely, the time of self-reflection that follows in the wake of personal upheaval and leads to a call to action and positive change. In the process of undergoing this metaphysical metamorphosis, she realized that our country was going through an Era of Ignition of its own. At once an intimate meditation and public reckoning, Era of Ignition is a galvanizing feminist manifesto, narrated by Tamblyn herself, that is required listening for everyone attempting to understand the world we live in and help change it for the better.
Figuring explores the complexities of love and the human search for truth and meaning through the interconnected lives of several historical figures across four centuries. Stretching between these figures is a cast of artists, writers, and scientists—mostly women, mostly queer—whose public contribution have risen out of their unclassifiable and often heartbreaking private relationships to change the way we understand, experience, and appreciate the universe. Emanating from these lives are larger questions about the measure of a good life and what it means to leave a lasting mark of betterment on an imperfect world: are achievement and acclaim enough for happiness? Is genius? Is love?
This intimate, inspiring, and authoritative audiobook biography of Sandra Day O’Connor, America’s first female Supreme Court justice, draws on exclusive interviews and first-time access to Justice O’Connor’s archives. Women and men who want to be leaders and be first in their own lives—who want to learn when to walk away and when to stand their ground—will be inspired by O’Connor’s example. This is a remarkably vivid and personal portrait of a woman who loved her family, who believed in serving her country, and who, when she became the most powerful woman in America, built a bridge forward for all women.
In 1941 a thirty-one-year-old Frenchwoman, a young mother born to privilege and known for her beauty and glamour, became the leader of a vast intelligence organization—the only woman to serve as a chef de résistance during the war. Strong-willed, independent, and a lifelong rebel against her country’s conservative, patriarchal society, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was made for the job. No other French spy network lasted as long as Alliance, or supplied as much crucial intelligence—including providing American and British military commanders with a map of the beaches and roads on which the Allies would land on D-Day. Now, in this dramatic account of the war read by acclaimed narrator Kimberly Farr, listeners can hear the fascinating story of a woman who stood up for her nation, her fellow citizens, and herself.
If stories of resistance, spies, and the women who have long been central to intelligence networks are your latest fascination, also be sure to check out A Woman of No Importance. Based on new and extensive research, Sonia Purnell has for the first time uncovered the full secret life of Virginia Hall—an astounding and inspiring story of heroism, spycraft, resistance, and personal triumph over shocking adversity. A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking audiobook of how one woman’s fierce persistence helped win the war.
Beyoncé. Her name conjures more than music, it has come to be synonymous with beauty, glamour, power, creativity, love, romance and sex appeal. Her performances are legendary, her album releases events. She is not even forty but she has already rewritten the Beyoncé playbook more than half a dozen times. She is consistently provocative, political, and surprising. Artist, business woman, mother, daughter, sister, wife, black feminist–Queen Bey is endlessly fascinating.
Bestselling author and first time narrator Laurie Halse Anderson is known for the unflinching way she writes about, and advocates for, survivors of sexual assault. Now, inspired by her fans and enraged by how little in our culture has changed since her groundbreaking novel Speak was first published twenty years ago, she has written a poetry memoir that is as vulnerable as it is rallying, as timely as it is timeless. Searing and soul-searching, this important memoir is a denouncement of our society’s failures and a love letter to all the people with the courage to say #MeToo and #TimesUp, whether aloud, online, or only in their own hearts. Shout speaks truth to power in a loud, clear voice– and once you hear it, it is impossible to ignore. Read more about Laurie Halse Anderson’s decision to share her own story.