A Women’s History Month Book Roundup from Author Christina Baker Kline

Women’s History Month was invented more than 40 years ago as a way to acknowledge the contribution of women throughout history and contemporary society. Though it seems a little anachronistic now (shouldn’t every month be Women’s History Month?), I’m delighted to have a reason to celebrate ten recent, new, and upcoming books by women and about women—books that highlight women’s strength, complexity, determination, and ability to reinvent themselves.

Some of the books I chose provide heart-stopping glimpses into the past. Some focus on coming of age in today’s complicated world. Some revolve around families: those we are born into and those we choose. Some are about immigration and acculturation. And, bonus, two of these books may inspire you to dive into a few classics you’ve always wanted to read or re-read (also by women!).

While researching and writing my latest novel, The Exiles, about the British convict women who transformed Australian society in the 19th century, I was inspired by these words from Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall: “The writer of history must try to work authentically, hearing the words of the past, but communicating in a language the present understands.” 

Two novels I chose beautifully illustrate this idea. In Night Wherever We Go, six enslaved women on a Texas plantation risk everything with a bold plan to survive. Their voices are vivid, varied, and powerful. Gilded Mountain, the story of a young woman in a 1900s Colorado mining town, is so immersive, so richly imagined that reading it feels akin to time travel.

According to new findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, teen girls, “engulfed in a growing wave of violence and trauma,” are showing record levels of feeling sad or hopeless. Two books on my list, both about young women on the brink of adulthood, delve into stories that illuminate these findings. Acceptance, a fierce and uncompromising memoir by a foster kid who beat the odds and went to Harvard, exposes the ways society fails its most vulnerable. My Last Innocent Year, set on a college campus, is a searing coming-of-age novel about womanhood, power, and privilege.

Both Fellowship Point, about the lifelong friendship between two octogenarian women who summer on the coast of Maine, and Little Monsters, a contemporary drama set on Cape Cod that draws on the Biblical tale of Cain and Abel, are sharply observed novels about complicated family dynamics and the ways they affect our entire lives. They’re also about nature sanctuaries, coastal living, and how long-buried memories and secrets inevitably come to light, transforming the present.

These two debut novels could not be more different in subject matter and scope. But both are timely and timeless, spanning decades and continents as they address the burden of inheritance and the lives we choose to make for ourselves. Banyan Moon, which moves from 1960s Vietnam to the swamplands of Florida, explores the traumatic legacy of war and the complexity of cultural assimilation. The Dig, a modern-day retelling of Antigone with Bosnian refugees in Minnesota, combines the propulsive pacing of a thriller with the intimacy of a family drama, playing out in ways that reveal both surprising plot turns and a sense of inevitability.

Have you wanted to read, or re-read, George Eliot’s 19th century masterpiece Middlemarch, or Virginia Woolf’s early 20th century classic Mrs. Dalloway, but need a little push? These slim volumes by Pamela Erens and Robin Black—part memoir, part literary criticism—are ideal companions to those classics. Probing, insightful, and accessible, they take readers behind the scenes of the creative process. Reading them is like having a private book club with your smartest friend.

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Christina Baker Kline is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eight novels, including The Exiles, Orphan Train, and A Piece of the World, and the author/editor of five nonfiction books. She is published in more than 40 countries; her books are taught in universities, colleges, and high schools.