New year, new books.
by The Riveter Editors
This year may have officially been deigned #readwomen2014, but we’d like to see that practice carry into the new year, too (and the year after that, and after that…). To get you started on building your new reading list, we’ve rounded up a list of the books we think you should consider piling onto your bedside table (or loading onto your Kindle, if that’s your thing).
Happy New Year!
12/24
by S.M. Huse
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Technically this was a 2014 release, but how can you pass up a classic Western setting mixed with a hostage-situation drama?
1/6
by Megan Mayhew Bergman
(Scribner)
The history books haven’t always championed women, but this book is a great attempt at amending those omissions. The subjects are women who gained short-term notoriety for being unusual during their time (think speed boat racers or big band swingers), and the collection gives them staying power, however delayed that might be.
1/13
by Paula Hawkins
(Riverhead)
This is the book that will give Gone Girl a run for it’s money. Set in the suburbs of London, Rachel’s story will make you question your relationships, perception and memory. With an unreliable narrator, you’ll find yourself questioning whatever conclusions your draw from the book, as well.
1/15
by Alison Jean Lester
(Putnam Adult)
This is a novel that reads like a memoir. Lillian is a woman who’s done it all and seen it all, and reading her (fictionalized) advice on x, y and z will make you she was your fairy godmother, or at the very least, your own Jiminy Cricket.
2/16
The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty
by Amanda Filipacchi
(W.W. Norton & Company)
Simultaneously hilarious and provocative, this is a novel that satirizes some of society’s biggest taboo’s (think obesity or ugliness) without being unkind or insensitive. It’s endearing and thought-provoking in the sense that it makes you question how you judge people at first glance.
2/17
by Laura van den Berg
(FSG)
2/24
Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story
by Mac McClelland
(Flatiron Books)
The book you didn’t know you were waiting for from one of the Riveter‘s favorite lady journos. Though we usually associate PTSD with war veterans, McClelland demonstrates the reach this disease really has while introducing a troubling possibility—is PTSD contagious?
4/7
Lily Brooks-Dalton
(Riverhead)
Who doesn’t love a type-trumping lead female character? That’s what you get in this memoir. Brooks-Dalton recounts her evolution from lost, wandering traveler to a focused biker chic. It’s a hilarious transformation and one that will appeal to lovers of Sons of Anarchy as well as Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance.
5/7
The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay
by Andrea Gillies
(Other Press)
There’s so much going on in this book; love triangles and possible mental illness are just a couple of the dramas Nina deals with in figuring out who she really is.
5/19
by Margaret Lazarus Dean
(Graywolf Press)
Dean documents the waning arc of America’s space era, from her own 1980s childhood in Florida (when exploration seemed limitless), through the shadow of the Challenger disaster, to NASA’s last three launches, which she witnessed in 2011. By talking with astronauts and NASA workers and space enthusiasts like herself, she pieces together a collective picture of what our country looks like now that space travel is no longer a goal but a slice of history.
