Women are expected to be many things to many people, often at the expense of self-care, mental health, and recognition. In honor of Women's History Month, we have compiled a list of books by women, for women, about women. These books highlight the stories of women past and present, written to empower, challenge, inspire, and give us courage. These books also invite us to consider how we tell and celebrate our own story, encouraging us to make our voices heard and valued. Through these stories of womanhood, explore the critical and complex roles women play in honoring the past, enriching the present, and shaping the future.
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Celebrate Women's Stories
Few women artists feature prominently in the history of art, and even fewer who are mothers. Are motherhood and creativity at odds, or are other factors at play? The Mother Artist twines intimate meditations on motherhood with portraits of the work, lives, and studios of mother artists, placing us in the company of women from the past and the present who persevere in both art and caregiving.
Nothing in Shannon Harris's secular upbringing prepared her to enter the world of conservative Christianity. Soon her husband's bestselling book I Kissed Dating Goodbye helped inspire a national purity movement, and Shannon's identity became "pastor's wife." The Woman They Wanted recounts the remarkable story of her courtship with Joshua Harris, her grappling with conservative Christianity's patriarchy and narrow definition of womanhood, and her journey to break free and reclaim a more authentic version of herself.
The women have something to say. In this powerful and needed collection, editor Angela P. Dodson brings together the voices of more than thirty-five accomplished women writers on the topic of violence and injustice against Black men. Each lends her voice to shine a new light on the injustices and dangers Black men face daily, and how women feel about the vulnerability of our sons, husbands, brothers, fathers, uncles, friends, and other males we care about as they navigate a world that often stereotypes and targets them.
Born into a family legacy of Buddhist spirituality in Việt Nam, Nhi Yến Đỗ Trần immigrated to the US at age ten. Budding Lotus in the West follows her journey and unveils the complexities of how Buddhist teachings are used in America. With her unique Vietnamese American feminist perspective, debut author Trần critically addresses gender equality, ethical dilemmas, and modern interpretations of Buddhist teachings.
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Black women are heading to college in record numbers, and more and more Black women are teaching in higher education. But the very structure of higher education ensures that we're still treated as guests, outsiders to the institutional family—outnumbered and unwelcome. In Black Women, Ivory Tower, Dr. Jasmine Harris shares her own experiences attempting to be a Vassar girl and reckoning with a lack of legacy and agency. Moving beyond the "data points," Dr. Harris examines the day-to-day impacts on Black women as individuals, the longer-term consequences to our professional lives, and the generational costs to our entire families.
Black girls are leading, organizing, advocating, and creating. They are starting nonprofits. Building political coalitions. Promoting diverse literature. Fighting cancer. Improving water quality. Working to prevent gun violence. From Khristi Lauren Adams, author of the celebrated Parable of the Brown Girl, comes Unbossed, a hopeful and riveting inquiry into the lives of eight young Black women who are agitating for change and imagining a better world.
Also available is Black Girls Unbossed, a companion title for young readers published by our sister imprint, Beaming Books.
Write and Celebrate Your Own Story
Explore how your self-image and daily habits shape your relationships with others in The Love Habit (LOVE: Learn, Optimize, Validate, Experience). Bestselling author and relationship expert Rainie Howard says you have the power to break free of unhealthy cycles and to blossom into the best version of yourself. The Love Habit shows you how through chapters offering insights on embracing a love-based approach to your habits.
You can find peace, whether or not you forgive those who harmed you. Feeling pressured to forgive their offenders is a common reason trauma survivors avoid mental health services and support. You Don't Need to Forgive is an invaluable resource for trauma survivors and their clinicians who feel alienated and even gaslighted by the toxic positivity and moralism that often characterizes attitudes about forgiveness in psychology and self-help.
Dive deeper with the You Don't Need to Forgive journal for trauma survivors and discussion guide for mental health clinicians.
Millions of us are desperately trying to rewrite our past by unconsciously repeating it--unknowingly reenacting the traumatic events in our lives in an effort to complete unfinished business or undo what was done to us. These unconscious efforts to undo trauma only bring more pain and psychological damage. In Put Your Past in the Past, renowned psychotherapist Beverly Engel offers the first accessible and comprehensive book on emotional reenactments with powerful strategies to help us truly heal our past by attending to our original wounds and embracing self-compassion.
Once you begin looking for joy, you can find it pretty much anywhere. In Jennifer McGaha's fifty-fifth year, she began to take note of simple, everyday things that struck her as beautiful or humorous or intriguing and kept a list of all the accomplishments, large and small, that actually mattered to her. These observations became her Joy Document, a radical act of reclaiming joy and an exercise in paying attention. Full of wit, heart, and reflective questions to help readers create their own joy documents, The Joy Document is a welcome companion for midlife transformation.
Join Karen Walrond in this intriguing investigation into how we can reclaim aging, cultivate joy, and resist ageism. In Radiant Rebellion, Walrond helps us radiantly rebel against the fads and assumptions that hold us back, redefine the adventure of getting older, and create a shining future of expanded potential. We might even raise a little hell while we're at it!
Shelia Burlock, Sylvia Burlock, Melissa Burlock
Learn how to love and care for your natural hair spiritually and practically. Uplifting and authentic, My Divine Natural Hair helps Black women embrace the God-created beauty of natural hair through inspirational readings and salon chair guidance on how to heal, consistently care for, and grow their coils.
The Enneagram for Black Liberation
For too long, conversations about the Enneagram and its personality types have been centered on and by whiteness. In The Enneagram for Black Liberation, certified Enneagram teacher and trained psychotherapist Chichi Agorom reclaims the Enneagram as a powerful tool for Black women to rediscover our wholeness and worth that existed long before systems of supremacy told us we weren't enough. Centering freedom, ease, and rest for Black women, Agorom invites each of us to claim the Enneagram as our tool for resilience-building in the continued fight for liberation. This paperback edition includes a new guide to practicing freedom.
To view all of our books and resources, visit broadleafbooks.com.
