100 books like It's What I Do

By Lynsey Addario,

Here are 100 books that It's What I Do fans have personally recommended if you like It's What I Do. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of How to Avoid Being Killed in a Warzone

Jane Harvey-Berrick Author Of Troll: My Life in Bomb Disposal

From my list on first-hand accounts of warzones.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have no expertise in the military – I wish I did. But I have incredible respect for their work. I remember reading about the death of Oz Schmid, a bomb disposal officer who was killed in Afghanistan. It was the bravery of his widow, Christina, discussing the appalling lack of equipment and her quiet dignity that touched me profoundly. I asked myself, what can I do to help? Being a writer, I decided to write about it. I quickly realised that I needed an insider’s insight, and found Troll through Felix Fund, the bomb disposal charity. Troll and I wrote the play Later, After, seeing it performed was the proudest moment of my career. 

Jane's book list on first-hand accounts of warzones

Jane Harvey-Berrick Why did Jane love this book?

Most books about the military are written by men. But I was fascinated by this practical tip-based book by journalist Rosie Garthwaite. Wonderful anecdotes amongst real gems for staying safe in dangerous places. I also used it as research for one of my novels about a female war correspondent in Afghanistan.

By Rosie Garthwaite,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked How to Avoid Being Killed in a Warzone as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Everyone needs this book if they want to know how to get out of difficult situations whether at home or abroad. Written by Rosie Garthwaite, whose career as a journalist started in war-torn Basra, this book combines practical advice with contributions from many journalists and commentators including Rageh Omar and John Simpson, who share their own experience and advice on surviving in difficult and dangerous situations. Topics include how to avoid being misunderstood; how to avoid bombs and booby traps; how to escape from a riot; how to deal with frostbite and heat exhaustion; how to avoid trouble in sex,…


Book cover of You Don't Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War

Lorissa Rinehart Author Of First to the Front: The Untold Story of Dickey Chapelle, Trailblazing Female War Correspondent

From my list on female war correspondents.

Why am I passionate about this?

Against all odds, women journalists have built a robust tradition of telling the truth and getting to the heart of the story no matter the obstacles. In a world where the Fourth Estate is ever more crucial, the history of female reporters is all the more relevant as a source of information and inspiration for the next generation of correspondents. As a woman’s historian and passionate supporter of freedom of the press I’m always on the lookout for great histories of these intrepid reporters whose lives also happen to make for great reads. 

Lorissa's book list on female war correspondents

Lorissa Rinehart Why did Lorissa love this book?

Vietnam was a big war, as they say, and though it ended almost 50 years ago, its full story has yet to be told. However, many of its pieces lay in the much-overlooked yet incredibly nuanced reporting that women did in the war. 

Elizabeth Becker’s book explores the legacy of three of Vietnam’s unsung journalistic heroes. Each covered the war with a different angle, sense of purpose, and understanding of its—and their—place in geopolitical history. 

Becker’s vivid writing puts you next to photojournalist Catherine Leroy in the plane as she prepares to jump with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in the war’s only airborne assault. Readers can almost hear the glasses clinking with ice around the Hotel Continental pool while intellectual Frances Fitzgerald shrewdly plums the unsuspecting diplomatic class for details that she’ll weave into her groundbreaking long-form reporting on the war. And my only heart nearly stopped the minute Kate…

By Elizabeth Becker,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked You Don't Belong Here as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The long buried story of three extraordinary female journalists who permanently shattered the official and cultural barriers to women covering war.

Kate Webb, an Australian iconoclast, Catherine Leroy, a French dare devil photographer, and Frances FitzGerald, a blue-blood American intellectual, arrived in Vietnam with starkly different life experiences but one shared purpose: to report on the most consequential story of the decade.

At a time when women were considered unfit to be foreign reporters, Frankie, Catherine and Kate paid their own way to war, arrived without jobs, challenged the rules imposed on them by the military, ignored the belittlement and…


Book cover of On the Front Line: The Collected Journalism of Marie Colvin

K. Lee Lerner Author Of Government, Politics, and Protest: Essential Primary Sources

From my list on women journalists working in dangerous places.

Why am I passionate about this?

K. Lee Lerner is an author, editor, and producer of science and factual media, including four editions of the Gale Encyclopedia of Science and the Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security. His expansive writing on science, climate change, disasters, disease, and global issues has earned multiple book and media awards, including books named Outstanding Academic Titles. An aviator, sailor, and member of the National Press Club in Washington, his two global circumnavigations and portfolio of work in challenging and dangerous environments reveal a visceral drive to explore and investigate. With a public intellectual's broad palate and a scientist's regard for evidence-based analysis, Lerner dissects and accessibly explains complex issues. 

K.'s book list on women journalists working in dangerous places

K. Lee Lerner Why did K. love this book?

On the Front Line is an award-winning collection of stories by veteran war correspondent Marie Colvin. Prior to being targeted for assassination by the Syrian government in February 2012 while she covered the civil war there, Colvin's career and writing showed peerless courage in the pursuit of stories that revealed the inhumanities of war and civil strife. The book contains insightful accounts of interviews of Arafat and Gadaffi as well as her intimate reporting of fighting in Kosovo, Chechnya, East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the chaos of the Arab Spring uprisings. Blinded in one eye shrapnel while reporting on the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers, Colvin's style and legendary courage live on in this select collection of her work.

By Marie Colvin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked On the Front Line as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Veteran Sunday Times war correspondent, Marie Colvin was killed in February 2012 when covering the uprising in Syria.

On the Front Line is an Orwell Special Prize winning journalism collection from veteran war correspondent Marie Colvin, who is the subject of the movie A Private War, starring Rosamund Pike and Jamie Dornan.

Marie Colvin held a profound belief in the pursuit of truth, and the courage and humanity of her work was deeply admired. On the Front Line includes her various interviews with Yasser Arafat and Colonel Gadaffi; reports from East Timor in 1999 where she shamed the UN into…


Book cover of Disappeared: A Journalist Silenced

K. Lee Lerner Author Of Government, Politics, and Protest: Essential Primary Sources

From my list on women journalists working in dangerous places.

Why am I passionate about this?

K. Lee Lerner is an author, editor, and producer of science and factual media, including four editions of the Gale Encyclopedia of Science and the Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security. His expansive writing on science, climate change, disasters, disease, and global issues has earned multiple book and media awards, including books named Outstanding Academic Titles. An aviator, sailor, and member of the National Press Club in Washington, his two global circumnavigations and portfolio of work in challenging and dangerous environments reveal a visceral drive to explore and investigate. With a public intellectual's broad palate and a scientist's regard for evidence-based analysis, Lerner dissects and accessibly explains complex issues. 

K.'s book list on women journalists working in dangerous places

K. Lee Lerner Why did K. love this book?

June Carolyn Erlick, editor-in-chief for ReVista, the Harvard Review of Latin America, casts a seasoned journalist’s eye on the 1980 abduction of  Guatemalan journalist Irma Flaquer. Returning home, Flaquer was pulled from her car and was never seen again. Flaquer, a popular and respected journalist with an influential column, Lo Que Otros Callan or "What Others Don't Dare Write",  was also the founder of the first Guatemalan Human Rights Commission. Throughout her career, Flaquer survived beatings, car bombs, and drive-by assassination attempts that did not daunt her from doing her job as a reporter to expose Guatemalan suffering at the hands of their corrupt U.S.-backed government and the cost the Guatemalan people paid as Cold War pawns.

By June Carolyn Erlick,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

"If I die, don't cry for me—because I was fighting for what I love."—Irma Flaquer

On a quiet October evening in 1980, Guatemalan journalist Irma Flaquer, returning to her downtown apartment after a visit with her four-year-old grandson, was dragged from her car, never to be seen again. Founder of the first Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, she was a crusading reporter who did not tolerate corruption or repression. Best known for her weekly column that ran for over twenty years in various Guatemalan newspapers—Lo Que Otros Callan or "What Others Don't Dare Write"—Flaquer criticized presidents, politicians, and the heads of…


Book cover of The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice

Jessica Scott Author Of A Soldier's Promise: A Coming Home Anthology

From my list on the Iraq War that go beyond bullets.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a soldier, an author, and an army wife – the last fifteen years of my life have revolved around dealing with the fallout of the Iraq war, not only for my family but also as a soldier and a veteran. I write books because I wanted to read about people who stayed in the military after the war started. The best writing advice I ever got came from Robyn Carr who said, write the book that only you can tell. Wrestling with the legacy of a war that we as soldiers did not choose as we return home was something I deeply wanted to understand, both as an army officer and a novelist.

Jessica's book list on the Iraq War that go beyond bullets

Jessica Scott Why did Jessica love this book?

Lemmon’s book is about the reality of war for female soldiers (so obviously I’m biased)– when losing means not just going home to lick your wounds, but not having a home to go back to.

The Iraq War was a war of choice – the wars that the Daughters of Kobani are fighting are wars of necessity and survival. It’s not about dogma of saying women are just as good as men – it’s a powerful story about women who carry the same obligations of citizenship as the men around them and the drive and purpose to defend their home, their rights, and their families through violence if necessary.

It sits at the intersection of war and feminism in a way that everyone who cares about women’s rights absolutely must read. 

By Gayle Tzemach Lemmon,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The extraordinary story of the women who took on the Islamic State and won

"The Daughters of Kobani is an unforgettable and nearly mythic tale of women's power and courage. The young women profiled in this book fought a fearsome war against brutal men in impossible circumstances-and proved in the process what girls and women can accomplish when given the chance to lead. Brilliantly researched and respectfully reported, this book is a lesson in heroism, sacrifice, and the real meaning of sisterhood. I am so grateful that this story has been told." -Elizabeth Gilbert, author…


Book cover of The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World

Karen Sherman Author Of Brick by Brick: Building Hope and Opportunity for Women Survivors Everywhere

From my list on women driving change around the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been driven to help advance women and girls around the world for years, shining a light on their stories of resilience and strength, even in the most dire of circumstances. My thirty-plus-year career in global development has introduced me to hundreds of inspirational women who are changing their own lives, investing in their families, and building their communities. I am a woman for women because of them. The recommended authors are inspirational women in their own right who have used their writing to amplify the voices of other women. I hope you enjoy these books and can identify with the personal stories found in their pages. 

Karen's book list on women driving change around the world

Karen Sherman Why did Karen love this book?

“When you lift up women, you lift up humanity." These words from Melinda Gates’ book resonate deeply with my own story and experiences. Melinda gives several examples of women driving change on different levels in their families, communities, and societies. Similar to the pages in my book, Melinda shares heart-rending conversations she’s had with women all over the world and offers practical solutions for how we can get involved to make the world a better place.

By Melinda Gates,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Moment of Lift as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

How can we summon a moment of lift for human beings―and especially for women? Because when you lift up women, you lift up humanity.

For the last twenty years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this journey, one thing has become increasingly clear to her: If you want to lift society up, you need to stop keeping women down.

In this moving and compelling book, Melinda shares lessons she’s learned from the inspiring people she’s met during her work and travels…


Book cover of Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol

Nicola Nice Author Of The Cocktail Parlor: How Women Brought the Cocktail Home

From my list on books that celebrate women’s right to booze.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a commercial sociologist who studies drinking cultures by day and a cocktail lover who partakes in those same cultures by night, I have always been fascinated with the rituals and traditions of hospitality. As a child, my parents disliked taking me to restaurants because my attention would always be focused on the other diners rather than whatever was on my plate. Academically, I am fascinated by the social construction of fact and how the documentation of what we understand to be true in science or history can be heavily influenced by such factors as class, gender, and race. It’s putting these two interests together that led me to research and ultimately write a book on how women have been systematically excluded from the historical record of the cocktail.

Nicola's book list on books that celebrate women’s right to booze

Nicola Nice Why did Nicola love this book?

If there were a single riposte to the cliché that men inherently know more about booze than women, then Girly Drinks by Mallory O’Meara would be it.

Mallory is neither a drinks journalist nor a professional bartender, but she is an unstoppable force on a mission to set the record straight about women and booze. Going deep into women’s history while simultaneously reflecting on her own experiences with alcohol, she takes us on a whistle-stop tour across the ages and around the world.

Her style is witty, assertive, and just the right side of combative. I couldn’t help but fist bump the air in solidarity as she dispels myth after myth about the so-called girly drink.

By Mallory O'Meara,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Girly Drinks as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the 2022 James Beard Book Award

Nominated for the 2022 Spirited Awards

This is the forgotten history of women making, serving and drinking alcohol. Drink has always been at the centre of social rituals and cultures worldwide-and women have been at the heart of its production and consumption. So when did drinking become gendered? How have patriarchies tried to erase and exclude women from industries they've always led, and how have women fought back? And why are things from bars to whiskey considered 'masculine', when, without women, they might not exist?

With whip-smart insight and boundless curiosity, Girly…


Book cover of In Pursuit of Disobedient Women: A Memoir of Love, Rebellion, and Family, Far Away

Karen Sherman Author Of Brick by Brick: Building Hope and Opportunity for Women Survivors Everywhere

From my list on women driving change around the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been driven to help advance women and girls around the world for years, shining a light on their stories of resilience and strength, even in the most dire of circumstances. My thirty-plus-year career in global development has introduced me to hundreds of inspirational women who are changing their own lives, investing in their families, and building their communities. I am a woman for women because of them. The recommended authors are inspirational women in their own right who have used their writing to amplify the voices of other women. I hope you enjoy these books and can identify with the personal stories found in their pages. 

Karen's book list on women driving change around the world

Karen Sherman Why did Karen love this book?

Dionne’s book speaks to me on such a personal level. The story follows her journey of uprooting her family to West Africa and shares the stories of the women she meets along the way, navigating extraordinary circumstances and hardship. I, too, did this.

In 2012, my three sons and I landed in Kigali, Rwanda, where we lived for a year. Having experienced firsthand the resiliency and tenacity of women, such as those Dionne encountered, I can’t recommend In Pursuit of Disobedient Women enough to learn more about the challenges and triumphs for women across Africa.

By Dionne Searcey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In Pursuit of Disobedient Women as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When a reporter for The New York Times uproots her family to move to West Africa, she manages her new role as breadwinner while finding women cleverly navigating extraordinary circumstances in a forgotten place for much of the Western world.
 
“A story you will not soon forget.”—Kathryn Bigelow, Academy Award–winning director of The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty

In 2015, Dionne Searcey was covering the economy for The New York Times, living in Brooklyn with her husband and three young children. Saddled with the demands of a dual-career household and motherhood in an urban setting, her life was in…


Book cover of In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin

Lorissa Rinehart Author Of First to the Front: The Untold Story of Dickey Chapelle, Trailblazing Female War Correspondent

From my list on female war correspondents.

Why am I passionate about this?

Against all odds, women journalists have built a robust tradition of telling the truth and getting to the heart of the story no matter the obstacles. In a world where the Fourth Estate is ever more crucial, the history of female reporters is all the more relevant as a source of information and inspiration for the next generation of correspondents. As a woman’s historian and passionate supporter of freedom of the press I’m always on the lookout for great histories of these intrepid reporters whose lives also happen to make for great reads. 

Lorissa's book list on female war correspondents

Lorissa Rinehart Why did Lorissa love this book?

What can I say? I cried more than a few times reading Lindsey Hilsum’s humanizing and deeply personal biography of Marie Colvin. Hilsum’s brilliant portrait paints a figure that burns a little too brightly with life to live long in this world of ours. 

She took her first reporting job with UPI and then transferred to the Sunday Times where she garnered the Sunday Times where she garnered the reputation of the kind of reporter who could get stories that no one else could. She was the first to interview Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and Hilsum’s heart-pounding description put me right in the bunker with her as she nervously clicked on her tape recorder for the interview under the watchful gaze of several armed guards. From there, Colvin covered some of the 1990s' most consequential combat zones, reflecting the chaos that ensued from the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In…

By Lindsey Hilsum,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked In Extremis as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Finalist for the Costa Biography Award and long-listed for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. Named a Best Book of 2018 by Esquire and Foreign Policy. An Amazon Best Book of November, the Guardian Bookshop Book of November, and one of the Evening Standard's Books to Read in November

"Now, thanks to Hilsum’s deeply reported and passionately written book, [Marie Colvin] has the full accounting that she deserves." --Joshua Hammer, The New York Times

The inspiring and devastating biography of Marie Colvin, the foremost war reporter of her generation, who was killed…


Book cover of On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist

Lorissa Rinehart Author Of First to the Front: The Untold Story of Dickey Chapelle, Trailblazing Female War Correspondent

From my list on female war correspondents.

Why am I passionate about this?

Against all odds, women journalists have built a robust tradition of telling the truth and getting to the heart of the story no matter the obstacles. In a world where the Fourth Estate is ever more crucial, the history of female reporters is all the more relevant as a source of information and inspiration for the next generation of correspondents. As a woman’s historian and passionate supporter of freedom of the press I’m always on the lookout for great histories of these intrepid reporters whose lives also happen to make for great reads. 

Lorissa's book list on female war correspondents

Lorissa Rinehart Why did Lorissa love this book?

Pour yourself a double before cracking open Clarissa Ward’s outstanding memoir. A polyglot who seems to have been imbued with very little fear from birth, Ward has an incredible capacity to find the heart of the story, whether it’s in the middle of Moscow or the center of a Bangladeshi river. As a reader, her experiences and prose swept me along as she dove into some of the world’s most consequential combat zones. 

But wrapped in this non-stop adrenaline rush is a rare account of the cost of this kind of life on reporters. More than any of the other books on this list, Ward explores the toll born by combat journalists. With heartrending detail, she delves into the death of so many friends and colleagues who made up her world that seemed to crumble a little more with each of their passings. Equally moving are her nuanced descriptions of…

By Clarissa Ward,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked On All Fronts as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist beautifully outlines . . . what it means to seek the truth. It gave me a new faith in the power of reporting.” —Oprah Winfrey

The recipient of multiple Peabody and Murrow awards, Clarissa Ward is a world-renowned conflict reporter. In this strange age of crisis where there really is no front line, she has moved from one hot zone to the next. With multiple assignments in Syria, Gaza, Ukraine, and Afghanistan, Ward, who speaks seven languages, has been based in Baghdad, Beirut, Beijing, and Moscow. She has seen and documented the…


Book cover of How to Avoid Being Killed in a Warzone
Book cover of You Don't Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War
Book cover of On the Front Line: The Collected Journalism of Marie Colvin

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