Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up rebelling against the roles I was expected to take on as a girl. I grew up not knowing that girls could fall in love with girls. I grew up with a strong sense of injustice and a desire to do something about it. The books on my list all feature strong female protagonists experiencing and/or taking on injustices of one kind or another. They are written by interesting women who write brilliantly. Some of the books are dear to me because nature provides comfort and strength beneath the chaos of human chatter, as it does for me.


I wrote

Other Girls Like Me

By Stephanie Davies,

Book cover of Other Girls Like Me

What is my book about?

My book is a coming-of-age memoir that follows the adventures of a teenage girl determined to play football, dress likeā€¦

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Secret Garden

Stephanie Davies Why did I love this book?

As someone who was told as a girl that she couldnā€™t play football or wear boysā€™ clothes, having this book on my bedside table reminded me that I could, actually. 

The heroine is a feisty, arrogant, lonely orphan transported to an unfamiliar place who comes to life as she connects with nature, rescues a sickly boy hidden along the dark corridors of a decaying stately mansion, and brings a neglected garden back to life. She doesnā€™t take no for an answer, has kindness hidden in her grief-stricken heart, is not afraid to befriend boys, and gains strength and comfort from being in nature.

Itā€™s a story I return to when Iā€™m homesick for the birds, flowers, trees, and skies of England.

By Frances Hodgson Burnett, Tasha Tudor (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

13 authors picked The Secret Garden as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a magical novel for adults and children alike

'I've stolen a garden,' she said very fast. 'It isn't mine. It isn't anybody's. Nobody wants it, nobody cares for it, nobody ever goes into it. Perhaps everything is dead in it already; I don't know.'

After losing her parents, young Mary Lennox is sent from India to live in her uncle's gloomy mansion on the wild English moors. She is lonely and has no one to play with, but one day she learns of a secret garden somewhere in the grounds that noā€¦


Book cover of Girl, Woman, Other

Stephanie Davies Why did I love this book?

The first time I tried to read this book, I had to put it down. I like grammar, and this book is having none of it. Then I tried again a few weeks later because everyone said I should. Once I got used to it, I came to appreciate this stream-of-consciousness story filled with artists, poets, writers, lesbians, love triangles, and adventures, and, at its heart, unlikely female friendships between Black women living mostly in London, with plot twists and turns deepening their interconnectedness in often astonishing ways. 

The writing is so vivid that it made me feel as if Iā€™d watched a film rather than read a book. A bright, multi-colored, hilarious, emotionally deep, socially aware, politically progressive, moving, and fast-paced film.

By Bernardine Evaristo,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Girl, Woman, Other as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE

ā€œA must-read about modern Britain and womanhood . . . An impressive, fierce novel about the lives of black British families, their struggles, pains, laughter, longings and loves . . . Her style is passionate, razor-sharp, brimming with energy and humor. There is never a single moment of dullness in this book and the pace does not allow you to turn away from its momentum.ā€ ā€”Booker Prize Judges

Bernardine Evaristo is the winner of the 2019 Booker Prize and the first black woman to receive this highest literary honor in the English language.ā€¦


Ad

Book cover of Virginia Wouldn't Slow Down!: The Unstoppable Dr. Apgar and Her Life-Saving Invention

Virginia Wouldn't Slow Down! by Carrie A. Pearson,

A delightful and distinctive picture book biography about Dr. Virginia Apgar, who invented the standard, eponymous test for evaluating newborn health used worldwide thousands of times every day.

You might know about the Apgar Score. But do you know the brilliant, pioneering woman who invented it? Born at the turnā€¦

Book cover of C+nto: & Othered Poems

Stephanie Davies Why did I love this book?

I first discovered T.S. Eliot Prize Winner Joelle Taylor through a poetry performance online. I was so moved that I immediately bought her poetry book. I found lines in this book that literally took my breath away, made me laugh out loud in recognition, or took me back to people and places dear to me. 

The poems tell stories of butch lesbians in the 1980s and 1990s, stories seldom told, and she tells them brilliantly, with heart, humor, and compassion. Joelle now has a novel out, The Night Alphabet, in which a woman gets all her tattoos connected with one single threadā€”of bloodā€”connecting her to her past, present, and futureā€”another amazing read.

By Joelle Taylor,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked C+nto as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE T S ELIOT PRIZE 2021.

The female body is a political space.

C+nto enters the private lives of women from the butch counterculture, telling the inside story of the protests they led in the '90s to reclaim their bodies as their own - their difficult balance between survival and self-expression. History, magic, rebellion, party and sermon vibrate through Joelle Taylor's cantos to uncover these underground communities forged by women.

Part-memoir and part-conjecture, Taylor explores sexuality and gender in poetry that is lyrical, expansive, imagistic, epic and intimate. C+nto is a love poem, a riot, a late night,ā€¦


Book cover of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Stephanie Davies Why did I love this book?

I read this book before Iā€™d found words to describe the impact on my teenage self of living in a patriarchal world that didnā€™t allow me to do things I wanted to because I was a girlā€”and that insisted I do things I didnā€™t want to. I read it before Iā€™d heard the word feminist used other than as an insult. But the essentially feminist spirit of the novel touched me deeply. 

I raced through the book, hoping that this single mother whoā€™d fled an alcoholic and abusive husband with her child would make it out alive, that sheā€™d find her people, and that sheā€™d get justice. Years later, I saw the book described as the first feminist novel, and for good reasonā€”written in Victorian England, no less. 

By Anne Brontƫ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'

A beautiful edition of Anne Bronte's most enduring novel, to accompany her sisters' greatest books in Penguin Clothbound Classics.

Gilbert Markham is deeply intrigued by Helen Graham, a beautiful and secretive young woman who has moved into nearby Wildfell Hall with her young son. He is quick to offer Helen his friendship, but when her reclusive behaviour becomes the subject of local gossip and speculation, Gilbert begins to wonder whether his trust in her has been misplaced. It is only when she allows Gilbert to read her diary that theā€¦


Ad

Book cover of Coyote Weather

Coyote Weather by Amanda Cockrell,

Coyote weather is the feral, hungry season, drought-stricken, and ready to catch fire. Itā€™s 1967, and the American culture is violently remaking itself while the country is forcibly sending its young men to fight in a deeply unpopular war.

Jerry has stubbornly made no plans for the future because heā€¦

Book cover of I Capture the Castle

Stephanie Davies Why did I love this book?

Who can resist a story that begins, ā€œI write this sitting in the kitchen sink. My feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining board, which I have padded with our dogā€™s blanket and the tea-cozyā€? Especially when you know the author also wrote 101 Dalmations

I loved this coming-of-age story for the teenage narratorā€™s quirky, elegant writing. Sheā€™s an aspiring novelist, ā€œcapturingā€ the characters around her in her diary. Sheā€™s largely left to her own devices, along with her two siblings, on the grounds of a remote castle, with a bohemian stepmother and a distant father suffering from writerā€™s block. Itā€™s a light, farcical story, tinged with sadness, set in the English countryside and featuring another unlikely female protagonist breaking the mold. 

By Dodie Smith,

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked I Capture the Castle as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

One of BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World.

A wonderfully quirky coming-of-age story, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, author of The Hundred and One Dalmatians is an affectionately drawn portrait of one of the funniest families in literature.

Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is illustrated by Ruth Steed, and features an afterword by publisher Anna South.

The eccentric Mortmain family have been rattling around in aā€¦


Explore my book šŸ˜€

Other Girls Like Me

By Stephanie Davies,

Book cover of Other Girls Like Me

What is my book about?

My book is a coming-of-age memoir that follows the adventures of a teenage girl determined to play football, dress like a boy, and fight apartheid in South Africa despite living in a conservative Hampshire village in the 1970s. Her quest to make the world a better place takes her, at the age of 23, to Greenham Common Womenā€™s Peace Camp to protest US nuclear weapons.

Here, Stephanie embarks on a series of adventuresā€”from a break-in to a nuclear research center to a doomed love affair with a punk rock singer in a girl band. But the sense of community she finds is challenged when she faces tragedy at homeā€”and she is forced to uncover strengths she didnā€™t know she had.

Book cover of The Secret Garden
Book cover of Girl, Woman, Other
Book cover of C+nto: & Othered Poems

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,893

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

šŸ“š You might also likeā€¦

Book cover of Everything We Had: A Novel of the Pacific Air War November-December 1941

Everything We Had by Tom Burkhalter,

War is coming to the Pacific. The Japanese will come south within days, seeking to seize the oil- and mineral-rich islands of the Dutch East Indies. Directly astride their path to conquest lie the Philippines, at that time an American protectorate. 

Two brothers, Jack and Charlie Davis, are part ofā€¦

Book cover of Love and Chocolate

Love and Chocolate by Linda Shenton Matchett,

Ilsa Krause and her siblings are stunned to discover their father left massive debt behind upon his death. To help pay off their creditors, she takes a job at Beckā€™s Chocolates, the company her father despised. To make matters worse, her boss is Ernst Webber, her high school love whoā€¦

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in gardens, feminism, and alcoholism?

Gardens 45 books
Feminism 367 books
Alcoholism 108 books