I discovered one of my favorite books at London’s Word on the Water. The bookseller’s name is no joke; Word on the Water is situated on a literal barge behind King’s Cross and is a slice of heaven for bibliophiles. I was browsing inside, rocking back and forth with the low tide, when the U.K. cover of Unwell Women captured my attention: a woman turned away from the camera, a tattoo-like skeleton etched on her skin and flowers blooming around her.
I took it to Word on the Water’s dark wood and red-patterned reading nook and found myself immersed in medicine’s historical neglect of women. Elinor Cleghorn’s writing immediately captured and vexed me; I’m always looking for more stories told through a feminist lens—with bonus points if I’m learning about a topic wholly unfamiliar to me.
Unwell Women is one of twelve examples of the best women-centered nonfiction books I can confidently and wholeheartedly recommend. In the past (and in the present, too), women have been accused as witches, denied access to and understanding of their own bodies, objectified and denounced for their passions and had their legacies recast by history’s victors. From renowned linguists and historians to memoirists and celebrities, the authors on the list unveil and testify to truths about the collective experience of womanhood.
Whether they investigate the female experience in fifteenth-century aristocratic Englan,; enliven an Old New York abortionist snuffed out by male medicine or recount a writer’s journey pursuing justice for her sister, who died of femicide, each of these must-read feminist books is a call to action, their ferocity and indignation exceeded only by compassion and wit.