The Subjection of Women


John Stuart Mill - 1869
    Mill Thought that men simply don't know what women are capable of, because we have never let them try - nobody can not make a statement without evidence. We can't stop women from trying things because they might not be able to do them. An argument based on speculative physiology is just that, speculation..."

Period. It's About Bloody Time


Emma Barnett - 2019
    Period. is an agenda-setting manifesto to remove the stigma and myths continuing to surround the female body. Bold and unapologetic, Emma Barnett is on a crusade to ignite conversation among women--and men--everywhere.

Moranifesto


Caitlin Moran - 2016
    Surely capitalism is due an upgrade or two?’When Caitlin Moran sat down to choose her favourite pieces for her new book she realised that they all seemed to join up. Turns out, it’s the same old problems and the same old ass-hats.Then she thought of the word ‘Moranifesto’, and she knew what she had to do…This is Caitlin’s engaging and amusing rallying call for our times. Combining the best of her recent columns with lots of new writing unique to this book, Caitlin deals with topics as pressing and diverse as 1980s swearing, benefits, boarding schools, and why the internet is like a drunken toddler.And whilst never afraid to address the big issues of the day – such as Benedict Cumberbatch and duffel coats – Caitlin also makes a passionate effort to understand our 21st century society and presents us with her ‘Moranifesto’ for making the world a better place.The polite revolution starts here! Please.

Fear of Flying


Erica Jong - 1973
    But, as she comes to learn, liberation and happiness are not necessarily the same thing. A literary sensation when first published in 1973, Fear of Flying established Erica Jong as one of her generation’s foremost voices on sex and feminism. Nearly four decades later, the novel has lost none of its insight, verve, or jaw-dropping wit.

Constellations


Sinéad Gleeson - 2019
    A map, a tracing of connections and a guide to looking at things from different angles. How do you tell the story of life that is no one thing? How do you tell the story of a life in a body, as it goes through sickness, health, motherhood? And how do you tell that story when you are not just a woman but a woman in Ireland? In these powerful and daring essays, Sinead Gleeson does that very thing. In doing so she delves into a range of subjects: art, illness, ghosts, grief, and our very ways of seeing. In writing that is in tradition of some of our finest writers such as Olivia Laing, Maggie O'Farrell, and Maggie Nelson, and yet still in her own spirited, warm voice, Gleeson takes us on a journey that is both personal and yet universal in its resonance.

The Portable Dorothy Parker


Dorothy Parker - 1944
    This collection ranges over the verse, stories, essays, and journalism of one of the twentieth century's most quotable authors.

Three Japanese Buddhist Monks


Saigyō
    This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists.

On the Shortness of Life


Seneca
    They have transformed the way we see ourselves—and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives—and destroyed them.Now, Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are. Penguin's Great Ideas series features twelve groundbreaking works by some of history's most prodigious thinkers, and each volume is beautifully packaged with a unique type-drive design that highlights the bookmaker's art. Offering great literature in great packages at great prices, this series is ideal for those readers who want to explore and savor the Great Ideas that have shaped the world.

Here Is New York


E.B. White - 1948
    White's stroll around Manhattan remains the quintessential love letter to the city, written by one of America's foremost literary figures. The New York Times has named Here is New York one of the ten best books ever written about the metropolis, and The New Yorker calls it "the wittiest essay, and one of the most perceptive, ever done on the city.

Misfits: A Personal Manifesto


Michaela Coel - 2021
    With insight and wit, it lays bare her journey to reclaiming her creativity and power, inviting readers to reflect on theirs.Advocating for ‘misfits’ everywhere, this timely, necessary book is a rousing and bold case against fitting in.

A History of Britain in 21 Women


Jenni Murray - 2016
    To say that it’s high time that it was defined by its women falls some way short of an understatement.Jenni Murray draws together the lives 21 women to shed light upon a variety of social, political, religious and cultural aspects of British history. In lively prose Murray reinvigorates the stories behind the names we all know and reveals the fascinating tales behind those less familiar, ultimately producing a unique history of Britain that is as long-overdue as it is absorbing. From famous queens to forgotten visionaries, and from great artists to our most influential political actors, A History of Britain in 21 Women is a veritable feast of page-turning history.A History of Britain in 21 Women will profile Boudicca, Aphra Behn, Elizabeth I (this chapter will also feature Anne Boleyn and Mary Queen of Scots), Fanny Burney, Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft, Constance Markievicz, Nancy Astor, Ada Lovelace, Caroline Herschel, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, Emmeline Pankhurst, Gwen John, Rosalind Franklin, Ethel Smyth, Margaret Thatcher, Nicola Sturgeon, Mary Quant, Barbara Castle and Mary Somerville.

Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto


Jessa Crispin - 2017
    . . or so the feminists keep insisting. But somewhere along the way, the movement for female liberation sacrificed meaning for acceptance, and left us with a banal, polite, ineffectual pose that barely challenges the status quo. In this bracing, fiercely intelligent manifesto, Jessa Crispin demands more.Why I Am Not A Feminist is a radical, fearless call for revolution. It accuses the feminist movement of obliviousness, irrelevance, and cowardice—and demands nothing less than the total dismantling of a system of oppression.

My Own Story


Emmeline Pankhurst - 1914
    Written at the onset of the First World War, My Own Story brings attention to Pankhurst's cause while defending her decision to cease activism until the end of the war. Notable for its descriptions of the British prison system, My Own Story is an invaluable document of a life dedicated to others, of a historical moment in which an oppressed group rose up to advocate for the simplest of demands: equality.Born in a politically active household, Emmeline Pankhurst was introduced to the women's suffrage movement at a young age. In 1903, she founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), an organization dedicated to the suffragette movement. As their speeches, rallies, and petitions failed to make headway, they turned to militant protest, and in 1908 Emmeline was arrested for attempting to enter Parliament to deliver a document to Prime Minister H.H. Asquith. Imprisoned for six weeks, she observed the horrifying conditions of prison life, including solitary confinement. This experience changed her outlook on the struggle for women's suffrage, and she increasingly saw imprisonment as a means of radical publicity. Over the next several years, she would be arrested seven times for rioting, destroying property, and assaulting police officers, and while in prison staged hunger strikes in order to gain the attention of the press and political establishment. My Own Story is a record of one woman's tireless advocacy for the sake of countless others.With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Emmeline Pankhurst's My Own Story is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

Lonesome Traveler


Jack Kerouac - 1960
    Standing on the engine of a train as it rushes past fields of prickly cactus; witnessing his first bullfight in Mexico while high on opium; catching up with the beat night life in New York; burying himself in the snow-capped mountains of north-west America; meditating on a sunlit roof in Tangiers; or falling in love with Montmartre and the huge white basilica of Sacré-Coeur – Kerouac reveals the endless diversity of human life and his own high-spirited philosophy of self-fulfilment.

Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings


Shirley Jackson - 2015
    Since her death in 1965, her place in the landscape of twentieth-century fiction has grown only more exalted.As we approach the centenary of her birth comes this astonishing compilation of fifty-six pieces—more than forty of which have never been published before. Two of Jackson’s children co-edited this volume, culling through the vast archives of their mother’s papers at the Library of Congress, selecting only the very best for inclusion.Let Me Tell You brings together the deliciously eerie short stories Jackson is best known for, along with frank, inspiring lectures on writing; comic essays about her large, boisterous family; and whimsical drawings. Jackson’s landscape here is most frequently domestic: dinner parties and bridge, household budgets and homeward-bound commutes, children’s games and neighborly gossip. But this familiar setting is also her most subversive: She wields humor, terror, and the uncanny to explore the real challenges of marriage, parenting, and community—the pressure of social norms, the veins of distrust in love, the constant lack of time and space.For the first time, this collection showcases Shirley Jackson’s radically different modes of writing side by side. Together they show her to be a magnificent storyteller, a sharp, sly humorist, and a powerful feminist.This volume includes a foreword by the celebrated literary critic and Jackson biographer Ruth Franklin.