Women's History Month Reading List

Challenge the canon!

Since 1987, the United States has been celebrating the historical, cultural, and societal contributions of women each March during Women’s History Month. We’d like to take a moment to highlight literature written by women about women, celebrating a diverse literary canon of trailblazers documenting the female experience, autonomy, and social critique, challenging male-dominated narratives. Not only have women’s contributions to literature been historically overlooked, but their stories, perspectives, and inner lives are often distilled into tropes by male authors. Our guides have contributed some of their favorite titles below. Consider one or two (or all!) from the list to read this March.

• Possession, by A.S. Byatt

• Desperate Characters, by Paula Fox

• The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• The Wall, by Marlen Haushofer

• Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

• Geisha: A Life, by Mineko Iwasaki

• The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K Le Guin

• The World Gives Way, by Marissa Levien

• The Lost Lunar Baedeker, by Mina Loy

• The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women, by Kate Moore

• Foxfire: Stories of a Girl Gang, by Joyce Carol Oates

• The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath

• Smile, by Sarah Ruhl

• Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf

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