This month, as we celebrate International Women’s Day and Sydney Opera House’s All About Women festival on March 8, we’ve curated a collection of stories about extraordinary women whose courage, resilience and brilliance continue to inspire and shape society.

 

A Woman’s Work
RRP $34.99

In A Woman’s Work, Elinor Cleghorn reveals the mothers, othermothers, midwives, activists, and community leaders who have shaped this extraordinary history. They include Hildegard of Bingen, the medieval nun and mystic with pioneering views about the maternal body; Mary Wollstonecraft, who laid the intellectual groundwork to release motherhood from male control; and Sojourner Truth, who drew attention to the abhorrent treatment of mothers under chattel slavery.

This is a radical and inspiring new history of mothering, and a timely reminder that the fight for reproductive freedom is far from over.

 

Herlands
RRP $36.99

Through extensive research and exclusive first-hand reporting, and inspired by her great-grandmother’s own matrilineal community in South India, Mohan introduces us to fascinating and diverse groups of women. From the controversial feminist online trolls of South Korea, to older women co-housing in Paris and North London, and the Rain Queens of South Africa, this is a truly global look at women’s community.

Essential reading for anyone interested in our collective histories, cultures, economics and governance, Herlands shows the power and possibility of new ways of living – and leading – for us all.

 

The Exceptions
RRP $24.99

These women scientists entered the work force in the 1960s during a push for affirmative action. Embarking on their careers they thought that discrimination against women was a thing of the past and that science was a pure meritocracy. Women were marginalized and minimized, especially as they grew older, their contributions stolen and erased.

Written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, The Exceptions is an intimate narrative which centres on Nancy Hopkins – a surprisingly reluctant feminist who became a hero to two generations of women in science. In uncovering an erased history, we are finally introduced to the hidden scientists who paved the way for collective change.

 

The New Age of Sexism
RRP $36.99 

In The New Age of Sexism, Sunday Times bestselling author and campaigner Laura Bates takes us deep into the heart of this rapidly evolving world. She explores the metaverse, confronts deepfake pornography, travels to cyber brothels, tests chatbots, and hears from schools in the grip of online sexual abuse, showing how our lives – from education to work, sex to entertainment – are being infiltrated by easily accessible technologies that are changing the way we live and love. What she finds is a wild west where existing forms of discrimination, inequality and harassment are being coded into the future we will all have little choice about living in – unless we seize this moment to demand change.

Gripping, courageous and eye-opening, The New Age of Sexism exposes a phenomenon we can’t afford to ignore any longer. Our future is on the line. We need to act now, before it is too late.

 

Great Women Artists
RRP $39.95

Great Women Artists reflects an era where art made by women is more prominent than ever, now available in an accessible new format! In museums, galleries, and the art market, previously overlooked female artists, past and present, are now gaining recognition and value. Featuring more than 400 artists, each represented here by a key artwork and short text, this essential volume reveals a parallel yet equally engaging history of art for an age that champions a greater diversity of voices.

 

Annie Leibovitz: Women
RRP $160.00

First published in 1999, Annie Leibovitz s landmark collection of portraits of women from all walks of life is back in print, together with a new book of photographs. The broad array of subjects reflects what women look like now: dancers, actors, astronauts, artists, politicians, farmers, writers, CEOs, philanthropists, soldiers, musicians, athletes, socialites, scientists. Together, these highly personal books feature more than 200 portraits in the unique, personal, and insightful style that is Leibovitz s trademark.

Stunningly reproduced photographs in both color and black and white represent an international who s who of women affecting positive change in the world.

 

With Her Own Hands
RRP $54.95

In this captivating work, psychologist and knitter Nicole Nehrig delves into the myriad ways that art forms such as knitting, sewing, and embroidery were and continue to be liberating for women. Throughout history, textiles have been a way for women to explore their intellectual capacities, seek economic independence, create community, process traumas, and convey powerful messages of self-expression and political protest.

With Her Own Hands is a celebration of women who have woven their own stories and created objects of beauty and significance to bring them through hardships.

 

Feeding Ghosts
RRP $79.66

In her evocative, genre-defying graphic memoir, Tessa Hulls tells the story of three generations of women in her family: her Chinese grandmother, Sun Yi; her mother, Rose; and herself.

Extensively researched and gorgeously rendered, Feeding Ghosts is Hulls’s homecoming, a vivid journey into the beating heart of one family, set against the dark backdrop of Chinese history. By turns fascinating and heartbreaking, inventive and poignant, Feeding Ghosts exposes the fear and trauma that haunt generations, and the love that holds them together.

 

The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t a Guy at All, Vol. 1
RRP $34.99

Fashionable and upbeat high schooler Aya falls head over heels for an employee at a local CD shop. He s got an air of mystery about him, always dressed well, and has impeccable taste in music. Little does she know this supposedly male employee is actually her female classmate Mitsuki! Mitsuki generally keeps to herself, but since her seat is right next to Aya s, she can’t help but be extremely aware of the other’s crush. Revealing the truth is out of the question but perhaps getting closer to Aya wouldn’t be so bad…

 

 

Kiki’s Delivery Service
RRP $32.99

‘Everyone has some type of magic inside them. . .’

On her thirteenth birthday Kiki must decide whether she’s going to leave home with her cat Jiji in tow and move to a town without another witch. She knows she has to use her magic to make a living, but Kiki’s no good at potions or spells…

Can Kiki learn to control her magic and make her own way in the world?

 

 

 

My Mum is a Bird
RRP  $24.99

A delightfully absurd and touching story about celebrating differences and loving your family – feathers and all.

Today is Parents’ and Carers’ Day at school. I don’t want to bring anyone, but my mum is coming anyway.

She is a bird.

With hand-drawn artwork from beloved illustrator Evie Barrow, Angie Cui’s debut picture book, My Mum is a Bird, is sure to swoop into your heart.

 

She Wolves
RRP $24.99

Long before gender diversity became a corporate buzzword, a generation of women quietly infiltrated one of the world’s most exclusive – and male-dominated – clubs: Wall Street.

From the typing pools of the 1960s to the trading floors of the 1980s, these women navigated a brash, bawdy world that was built to exclude them. Along the way, they challenged entrenched sexism and racism, reshaping the financial industry from the inside out.

She Wolves is a vivid portrait of the women who dared to dream big, who re-wrote the rules and shook the foundations of power.

 

Economica
RRP $34.99

Humanity’s journey from poverty to prosperity is filled with men who have become household names. But how many female entrepreneurs, merchants and industrialists can you name?

Economica places women at the centre of the story of economic growth. Starting in the Stone Age and continuing to the present day, it takes the reader through the key economic milestones of the past twelve millennia – from the birth of farming to the advent of computing – all told through the experiences of women as well as men.

 

The Story of Art without Men
RRP $45.00

Journey through history, from the Renaissance to the Second World War, and across the globe, from Cornwall to Manhattan, Nigeria, Japan and more, to discover the stories of women who changed the world with their incredible art. You’ll learn about the extraordinary lives of freedom fighters, game changers and adventurers – and be astounded by the art they made, with its striking landscapes, hidden messages and calls for women’s rights.

Based on the bestselling book The Story of Art Without Men, this version includes breathtaking illustrations and a host of new art and artists to discover.

 

Sisters of Scandal
RRP$ $34.99

Did you know that women occupy only 0.5 per cent of the historical record? Diving into the lives of queens, witches, bitches and It Girls throughout the ages – from Cleopatra, Marie Antoinette and Mata Hari to the British PM’s secret weapon: Pamela Churchill Harriman – this is a fabulously illustrated compendium of those women (from the well-known to the more obscure) who broke boundaries, rules and occasionally limbs, to carve out their place in the male-dominated history books.

From Alva Vanderbilt’s $6 million ball to Empress Sisi’s meat mask, we look at the boldest, most indecent and totally unruly things that pissed men off enough they simply HAD to write them down!

 

Women Who Ruled the World
RRP $49.99

Female kings have always been a rarity, an oddity, or an undesirable outcome. In almost all places on the globe a male ruler was preferred to a woman, with female inheritance vanishingly rare and frequently disputed. In spite of this, women have secured crowns – or fought for them – over several millennia. This scintillating book tell the story of the female kings: women who risked everything, sometimes unwillingly, to find a place in a man’s world.

Women Who Ruled the World covers an exhilarating expanse of time and space: from the lush oases of Ancient Egypt to the cherry blossomed islands of Japan, from the 19th century Queens of Madagascar who defied French attempts to colonise them to Tamar the Great, who presided over a golden age in Georgia. This ground-breaking book casts a global eye over five millennia of queenship, a truly remarkable feat of historical skill and breadth of knowledge.

 

Ankami
RRP $32.99

Debra Dank had long been desperate to visit the National Archives, to paint a fuller picture of her family, to add flesh to the name-bones and the few precious stories she possessed. What she discovered would shatter everything she thought she knew about her family and her past.

Ankami is written from the perspective of those left behind, those who search always for the faces of stolen and lost Aboriginal children, now known only through a few cruel, thoughtless words written by a violent pastoral manager and a paternalistic colonial administrator, a footnote in a yellowed letter. Ankami is a book like no other, a searing, unforgettable and deeply human account of sorrow and incomprehensible loss, and the essential power of memory.

 

Radium Girls
RRP $24.99

As the First World War spread across the world, young American women flocked to work in factories, painting clocks, watches and military dials with a special luminous substance made from radium. It was a fun job, lucrative and glamorous – the girls shone brightly in the dark, covered head to toe in dust from the paint. However, as the years passed, the women began to suffer from mysterious and crippling illnesses. It turned out that the very thing that had made them feel alive – their work – was slowly killing them: the radium paint was poisonous. Their employers denied all responsibility, but these courageous women – in the face of unimaginable suffering – refused to accept their fate quietly, and instead became determined to fight for justice.

Drawing on previously unpublished diaries, letters and interviews, The Radium Girls is an intimate narrative of an unforgettable true story. It is the powerful tale of a group of ordinary women from the Roaring Twenties, who themselves learned how to roar.

 

Mythica
RRP $36.99

Contrary to perceptions built up over three millennia, ancient history is not all about men – and it’s not only men’s stories that deserve to be told.

In Mythica Emily Hauser tells, for the first time, the extraordinary stories of the real women behind some of the western world’s greatest legends. Following in their footsteps, digging into the history behind Homer’s epic poems, piecing together evidence from the original texts, recent astonishing archaeological finds and the latest DNA studies, she reveals who these women – queens, mothers, warriors, slaves – were, how they lived, and how history has (or has not – until now) remembered them.

A riveting new history of the Bronze Age Aegean and a journey through Homer’s epics charted entirely by women – from Helen of Troy, Briseis, Cassandra and Aphrodite to Circe, Athena, Hera, Calypso and Penelope – Mythica is a ground-breaking reassessment of the reality behind the often-mythologized women of Greece’s greatest epics, and of the ancient world itself as we learn ever more about it.

 

Convent Wisdom
RRP $34.99

Convent Wisdom is your guide to navigating the chaos of the modern world with help from history’s most fascinating nuns. Struggling with money? Saint Teresa and her fellow Carmelites have some divine budgeting hacks. Drowning in FOMO while scrolling through social media? Mary of Jesus of greda’s miraculous ability to be in two places at once might teach you how to finally keep up. Lost in the digital dating pool? Benedetta Carlini’s treatise on the seven ways to spot a lesbian nun may offer unexpected insights.

Blending rigorous research with pop culture and personal anecdotes throughout, best friends Ana Garriga and Carmen Urbita lift the veil on monastic life so you can better conquer today’s anxiety-ridden, hyper-connected world. From procrastination to imposter syndrome, friendship drama to creativity slumps, the nuns of Convent Wisdom are here to guide you with a wink and a prayer.

 

A History of the World in 80 Lost Women
RRP $24.99

In A History of the World in 80 Lost Women, Olivia Meikle and Katie Nelson restore women’s stories to their rightful place in world history.

Based on the acclaimed podcast, What’s Her Name, this is a truly global history that weaves together biographies of incredible women spanning six continents and thousands of years, from Ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire to imperial China, the Americas and post-war Europe. This book tells a captivating and funny, thought-provoking and deeply researched historical narrative. Drawing on years of study and interviews with dozens of experts, this is an insightful and enthralling look at the trailblazing women you may not have heard of (but should have).

 

Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries
RRP $24.99

Moving, illuminating and deeply personal, Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries is for everyone who has ever questioned how history is made. In this alternative and inspiring history, Kate Mosse shines a light on nearly 1,000 women from across the globe whose names and achievements deserve to be celebrated, not forgotten: – Rachel Carson, mother of the modern environmental movement – Ethel Smyth, unheralded British composer and virtuoso – Anne Bonny, legendary eighteenth-century pirate and rogue – Pauli Murray, ground-breaking US civil rights activist and lawyer – Sophia Jex-Blake, pioneering nineteenth-century doctor – Doria Shafik, Egyptian poet and women’s liberation leader – Cornelia Sorabji, trailblazing Indian women’s rights campaigner – Shirley Chisholm, the first female US presidential candidate And as she researches the lives of these ground-breaking women, Kate embarks on a detective story to uncover a forgotten literary superstar in her own family, reflecting the desire of so many people to trace their own roots . . .

  

Life Lessons From Historical Women
RRP $24.99

Taking inspiration from the thriving self-help genre, Morton reasons that the greatest lessons can be taken from the female forebears who have come before – women whose actions inspire purpose, creativity and rebellion… without a side of pseudo psychology and judgement…

Covering the full gamut of the female experience, and women from all corners of history and the globe, Life Lessons from Historical Women includes chapters on ‘How To Thrive’ with Judith Kerr, ‘Think Like an Entrepreneur’ with Mary Seacole, and ‘How Not to Give a F*ck’ with the famous suffragette martyr Emily Davison.

Whether it’s what we can learn from the first woman to summit Everest or the trailblazing ladies who confirm that pockets have always been must-have in women’s clothing, Eleanor writes with humour and a sincere respect for our history, and imparts valuable lessons for the modern female.

 

Wild Swans, Fly
RRP $37.99

Fly, Wild Swans is the follow-up to Wild Swans and brings the story of Jung’s family – along with that of China – up to date. The book is in many ways Jung’s love letter to her mother. It is inevitably also about her grandmother and father, both of whom died tragically in the Cultural Revolution but are often recalled in this book. In fact, the past is never far away in Jung’s subsequent life. It has shaped her, and moulded the present China, and what’s more, it promises to herald the future.

China is now at another watershed moment with the era of Chairman Xi Jinping greatly affecting the lives of Jung and her mother. Fly, Wild Swans is Jung’s heartfelt response to that experience, and a book filled with drama, love, curiosity and incredible history – both personal and global. Ultimately uplifting, told in Jung’s clear, honest and compelling voice, it is memoir writing at its best.

 

Love, Sex & Frankenstein
RRP $34.99

Eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley has fled London with her lover, Percy Shelley, and her sister, Claire. Tormented by Shelley’s betrayals, haunted by the loss of their baby and suspicious of her sister’s intentions, Mary seeks a refuge.

But Lord Byron’s villa, lying under ash-shrouded skies, feels more like a trap.
When Byron suggests each guest write a supernatural tale, Mary is as drawn to the challenge as she is, unexpectedly, to Byron himself.

An idea begins to form in her mind… spilling out of her in thick, black ink.

A thing given life is before her. But is she in control, or is it?

 

Black Magic (Weird Girls)
RRP $24.99

In a quiet medieval city, alone in his shadowy chambers, Dirk Renswoude worships the devil. Then the wind brings the young scholar Theirry to his door. Could this beautiful man share his dark obsession? Under a hushed midnight sky, the pair swear themselves to the black arts, and to one another.

Yet Dirk shies away at the slightest touch. He will not discuss his past. As the duo hex their way across moonlit woodlands and learned cities, it becomes clear that Dirk will stop at nothing to live the life he desires, while concealing one precious secret.

 

Elizabeth Harrower
RRP $39.99

Elizabeth Harrower wrote some of the most intense, original and highly regarded novels of the twentieth century. Then she abruptly stopped writing in the 1970s and became one of the most puzzling mysteries of Australian literature. Why didn’t she continue? Harrower gave evasive answers to friends and interviewers, and only since her death in 2020 has a deeper search been possible.

In this definitive biography, renowned journalist and writer Susan Wyndham grapples with the elusive Harrower. She immerses us in the author’s tumultuous family, her complex friendships with Patrick White, Christina Stead, Kylie Tennant and Shirley Hazzard, and her timeless probing of the human spirit in five remarkable novels.

Drawing on time spent with Harrower, revealing analysis of her fiction and new research, Wyndham unmasks a literary legend.

 

Average at Best
RRP $34.99

Average At Best is a powerful, funny, and deeply honest memoir about embracing mediocrity if you want to get anything done. As the creator of Pub Choir® – a global phenomenon that unites complete strangers to connect, laugh, and make beautiful music – Astrid takes you behind the curtain as she unflinchingly stares down her dizzying highs, her crushing lows, and everything in between.

From almost becoming a nun (seriously) to committing unspeakable crimes against a chip packet, this joyful, inspired debut traverses the divide between confidence and doubt, performance and authenticity. Because most things happen between the extremes. This is an imperfect perfectionist’s account of how all of it counts in the end.

 

A Different Kind of Power : A memoir
RRP $55.00

When Jacinda Ardern became prime minister at age thirty-seven, the world took notice. But it was her compassionate, powerful response to the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks, resulting in swift gun-control reforms, that exemplified a new kind of leadership-one that is caring and effective. She guided New Zealand through unprecedented challenges-a volcanic eruption, a major biosecurity breach, and a global pandemic-and advanced visionary new policies to address climate change, reduce child poverty, and secure historic international trade deals. She did this all while juggling first-time motherhood in the public eye.

Jacinda Ardern is a model for anyone who has ever doubted themselves or has aspired to lead with compassion, conviction, and courage. A Different Kind of Power is more than a political memoir; it’s an insight into how it feels to lead, ultimately asking – What if you, too, are capable of more than you ever imagined?

 

Indignity
RRP $36.99

The acclaimed author of Free returns with an imaginative investigation into dignity and historical injustice through the story of a family.

By turns epic and intimate, profound and gripping, Indignity explores what it means to survive in an age of extremes. It reveals the fragility of truth, both personal and political, and the cost of decisions made against the tide of history. Through secret police reports of communist spies, court depositions, and Ypi’s memories of her grandmother, we move between present and past, archive and imagination, fact and fiction. Ultimately, she asks, what do we really know about the people closest to us? And with what moral authority do we judge the acts of previous generations?

 

Queens at War
RRP $36.99

The fifteenth century was a turbulent age – the Hundred Years War between England and France, and the Wars of the Roses dominated the lives of people both inside and out of the royal courts.

Joan of Navarre, Katherine of Valois, Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Wydeville and Anne Neville were the queens who stood by England’s sovereigns, caught up in wars that changed the course of their lives, and the course of history. They were also formidable women who defied the limitations of their times, often living out the brutal consequences of their determination.

Alison Weir uncovers their stories in this final volume of her ground-breaking series on the queens of medieval England. Queens at War is a stunning culmination of research by a historian at the full extent of her powers and gripping account of five women on the throne.

 

If Not, Winter
RRP $29.99

During her life on the island of Lesbos, Sappho is said to have composed nine books of lyrics. Only one poem has survived complete. In If Not, Winter, Carson presents all the extant fragments of Sappho’s verse, employing brackets and white space to denote missing text – allowing the reader to imagine the poems as they were written.

Carson says of her method of translation: ‘I like to think that, the more I stand out of the way, the more Sappho shows through.’ And certainly her translation illuminates Sappho’s reflections on love and desire, her companions and rivals, the goddess Aphrodite, her own daughter, Kleis. If Not, Winter gives us an extraordinary ancient poet brought alive by a brilliantly empathetic contemporary poet. Complete with Carson’s introduction and notes, it will become the standard translation of Sappho for our time.

 

How Women Became Poets
RRP $37.99

When Sappho sang her songs, the only word that existed to describe a poet was a male one aoidos, or ‘singer-man’. The most famous woman poet of ancient Greece, whose craft was one of words, had no words with which to talk about who she was and what she did. In How Women Became Poets, Emily Hauser rewrites the story of Greek literature as one of gender, arguing that the ways the Greeks talked about their identity as poets constructed, played with, and broke down gender expectations that literature was for men alone. Bringing together recent studies in ancient authorship, gender, and performativity, Hauser offers a new history of classical literature that redefines the canon as a constant struggle to be heard through, and sometimes despite, gender.

 

Worthy of the Event
RRP $34.99

Set against a backdrop of trans life that begins with her own transition in the 1960s, Vivian Blaxell takes us on a witty and expansive sweep through history, from Australia to Japan, to Hawai’i to Mexico, to heretofore unmapped regions of the mind. In seven devastatingly intelligent parts, her essay covers a vast range in time and space – from the arson of a Japanese temple to a transformative encounter with a coral reef, from Nietzsche and Hegel to Indigenous metaphysics, from a perplexing relationship with a beautiful man to the unknowable minds of animals. Fleshy and philosophical, searching and exalted, utterly distinctive and assured, Worthy of the Event belatedly establishes Vivian Blaxell as one of the major writers of her generation.

 

Like Love
RRP $24.99

The collection is a portrait of a time, an anarchic party rich with wild guests, a window into Nelson’s own development as a writer, and a testament to the profound sustenance offered by art and artists.

Arranged chronologically, Like Love shows the writing, thinking, feeling, reading, looking and conversing that occupied Nelson while writing iconic books such as Bluets and The Argonauts. As such, it is a portrait of a time, an anarchic party rich with wild guests, a window into Nelson’s own development and a testament to the profound sustenance offered by art and artists.Like Love is a portrait of a time, an anarchic party rich with wild guests, a window into Nelson’s own development as a writer, and a testament to the profound sustenance offered by art and artists.