Biography & autobiography / Women

King Kong Theory

von Virginie Despentes & Stephánie Benson

King Kong Theory is Despentes' candid account of how she became notorious: reviled and admired in equal measure for her rape-revenge novel turned film, Baise-Moi, she is the poster girl for modern female rebellion....

Nella Last's Peace: The Post-War Diaries Of Housewife 49

von Trustees of the Mass Observati Archives

Outwardly Nella's life was probably seen as ordinary; but behind this mask were a lively mind and a persistent pen - a pen that never gave up over almost three decades, reporting, describing, pondering, and...

Jealousy: The Other Life of Catherine M

von Catherine Millet & Helen Stevenson

After the pleasure comes the pain. The Sexual Life of Catherine M, Catherine Millet's analysis of the many forms and flavours of sexual pleasure, was internationally admired, and not just for its literary qualities....

La Grande Therese: The Greatest Swindle of the Century

von S Hilary & Hilary Spurling

While writing her biography of Matisse, which won the Whitbread Biography and Book of the Year 2005, Hilary Spurling came across the scandal that nearly destroyed the French Third Republic. Reading like a novella,...

A Secret Madness: The Story of a Marriage

von Elaine Bass

In post-war London two girls are relieved to find husbands. One lands the 1950s dream of wealth and security. The other, Elaine, endures fourteen years married to a man with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. At...

Promise Me: How a Sister's Love Launched the Global Movement to End Breast Cancer

von Nancy G. Brinker

Suzy and Nancy Goodman were more than sisters. They were best friends, confidantes, and partners in the grand adventure of life. For three decades, nothing could separate them. Not college, not marriage, not...

The Unexpected Patriot

von Shannen Rossmiller & Sue Carswell

After 9/11, when the nation was still in shock over the unprecedented attack on U.S. soil, Shannen Rossmiller, a country judge and mother of three in rural Montana, was formulating a plan. Soon she was devouring...

Not Quite Nirvana: A Skeptic's Journey to Mindfulness

von Rachel Neumann

The book is a memoir of how a skeptical, fast-talking New Yorker became Thich Nhat Hanh's editor, turned forty, realized she was aging, and slowly and reluctantly started to absorb mindfulness practice and grow...

Not Done Yet: Living Through Breast Cancer

von Laurie Kingston

Not Done Yet opens a window on one woman's journey through breast cancer treatment, recovery, recurrence, and beyond. When she found a lump in her breast in December 2005, Laurie Kingston was thirty-eight, with...

Dear Pussycat

von Helen Gurley Brown

Dear Pussycat:

Some of us find it easier to say in a letter whatever it is we want to express -- love, rage, outrage, affection, resentment, enthusiasm, a request to do a chore -- than we do person to person...

Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady

von Florence King

Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady is Florence King's classic memoir of her upbringing in an eccentric Southern family, told with all the uproarious wit and gusto that has made her one of the most admired...

Charlotte

von Kathryn Shevelow

The life of actress Charlotte Charke transports us through the splendors and scandals of eighteenth-century London and its wicked theatrical world

Her father, Colley Cibber, was one of the eighteenth century's...

To Tell the Truth Freely

von Mia Bay

Born to slaves in 1862, Ida B. Wells became a fearless antilynching crusader, women’s rights advocate, and journalist. Wells’s refusal to accept any compromise on racial inequality caused her to be labeled...

Mad Women

von Jane Maas

"Breezy and salty.” –The New York Times

“Hilarious! Honest, intimate, this book tells it as it was.” –Mary Wells Lawrence, author of A Big Life (In Advertising) and founding president of Wells Rich...

Searching for Beauty

von Cherie Burns

A fascinating portrait of the Standard Oil heirerss and legendary American trendsetter Millicent Rogers

Nobody knew how to live the high life like Millicent Rogers. Born into luxury, she lived in a whirl of beautiful...

It's All About the Dress

von Vicky Tiel

Vicky Tiel started as an “it” girl of the 1960s and has had a four decade career designing clothes that make real women look fabulous.  Her sexy, fresh hot pants and miniskirts were used by Woody Allen...

Across Many Mountains

von Yangzom Brauen

A powerful, emotional memoir and an extraordinary portrait of three generations of Tibetan women whose lives are forever changed when Chairman Mao’s Red Army crushes Tibetan independence, sending a young mother...

A Book of Secrets

von Michael Holroyd

A Time Magazine Top 10 Nonfiction book of 2011

A Publishers Weekly Best Nonfiction title for 2011

On a hill above the Italian village of Ravello sits the Villa Cimbrone, a place of fantasy and make-believe. The...

Wait for Me!

von Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire & Charlotte Mosley

Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, is the youngest of the famously witty brood of six daughters and one son that included the writers Jessica and Nancy, who wrote, when Deborah was born, “How disgusting...

Global Girlfriends

von Stacey Edgar

Start small, dream big, change lives— how one woman harnessed the power of fair trade to help women in poverty help themselves

Seven years ago, Stacey Edgar had a $2,000 tax return and a deep desire to help...