As a child, I wasn’t an avid reader. I read most of the classics, but I didn’t always have my nose in a book and my favorite store definitely wasn’t Barnes and Noble.
However, when I went to college, I increasingly became interested in communication and storytelling. I began to read more, expand my literary interests, and crave the sensation of falling into a world outside my own.
Parallel to this hobby, I was in the midst of pursuing degrees in Communication Studies, Marketing, and Sociology. Academically, my interest in communication spanned from understanding how to tell a brand’s story to unpacking how societies decide whose information gets disseminated. I took quite a few classes on gender too and became interested in the language used to describe women and men, whose perspectives are told, and how the media plays a role in representation.
While I’m no longer reading academic works by Janie Victoria Ward or Kimberlé Crenshaw, or learning about neoliberal feminism and rhetorical criticism, I do feel my paths have converged in the books I now pick up off the shelf. This year, my goal is to read 52 books and of the 7 I’ve read so far, all but one have been written by women.
As March is Women’s History Month, I’m even more focused on centering women’s stories and supporting female authors who can introduce me to new characters, engulf me in new plots, and enlighten me with new perspectives. However, equally important to my reading these books is amplifying these voices by sharing them with others. So, below you’ll find four books I’ve read and four books I want to read in celebration of Women’s History Month. I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I have!
Books I’ve Read:
- Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
- Girl, Women, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
- Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
- The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer
