Heather’s Recommended Reading for March

Our very own Heather Topolski will be providing monthly recommended reading lists. Here’s the one she put together for March!

Moving Forward Together!

March is upon us, and to me, that means two things - the return of spring (sandal weather for this New Englander), and Women’s History Month. Any connection between these two things may seem inconsequential, but I can’t think of too many things that pair as well together. 

Spring brings new life to the world around us. Leaf buds start to show up, flowers pop us through the melting snow, ponds become alive with the sounds of spring peepers, maple syrup season! In many ancient cultures, goddesses represented the Spring Equinox and fertility. Women bring life to the world. Not just through reproduction, though. 

Throughout written history, women have been on the forefront of cultural, intellectual, and political development. In approximately 60 AD, Queen Boudicca led a large rebellion against the invading Roman Empire. Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the world’s first Prime Minister in 1960. Locally, Elizabeth Freeman was the first African American slave woman to sue for her freedom, which began Massachusetts outlawing slavery. 

Despite these achievements of humanity, women are constantly put on the back burner. In order to have her work taken more seriously, Mary Ann Evans changed her name to George Eliot. Rosalind Franklin discovered the double helix structure of DNA, but a male colleague shared her work with Watson and Crick, who ended up publishing the proposed structure. In order to earn her pilot’s license, Bessie Coleman had to go to France, due to the racist and gender discriminatory policies in the United States. 

The National Women’s History Alliance has declared this year’s theme to be Moving Forward Together! Women Educating and Inspiring Generations. To honor and learn from the lives of women all over the world, here are a few book recommendations to get you through this month (descriptions from publishers). There is no way to list all the accomplishments women throughout time and around the world have contributed. Please consider purchasing these books through your local bookshop, or getting it from your local library. If you’re in Berkshire County, check out Bear and Bee Bookshop in North Adams, The Book Store in Lenox, or The Book Loft in Great Barrington. 

A Woman’s Place Is In The Brewhouse - Tara Nurin

“It's women, not men, who've brewed beer throughout most of human history. Their role as family and village brewer lasted for hundreds of thousands of years--through the earliest days of Mesopotamian civilization, the reign of Cleopatra, the witch trials of early modern Europe, and the settling of colonial America. A Woman's Place Is in the Brewhouse celebrates the contributions and influence of female brewers and explores the forces that have erased them from the brewing world.

It's a history that's simultaneously inspiring and demeaning. Wherever and whenever the cottage brewing industry has grown profitable, politics, religion, and capitalism have grown greedy. On a macro scale, men have repeatedly seized control and forced women out of the business. Other times, women have simply lost the minimal independence, respect, and economic power brewing brought them.

But there are more breweries now than at any time in American history and today women serve as founder, CEO, or head brewer at more than one thousand of them.” Available at Bookshop.org

The Dragon From Chicago - Pamela D. Toler

“We are facing an alarming upsurge in the spread of misinformation and attempts by powerful figures to discredit facts so they can seize control of narratives. These are threats American journalist Sigrid Schultz knew all too well. The Chicago Tribune's Berlin bureau chief and primary foreign correspondent for Central Europe from 1925 to January 1941, Schultz witnessed Hitler’s rise to power and was one of the first reporters—male or female—to warn American readers of the growing dangers of Nazism.

In The Dragon From Chicago, Pamela D. Toler draws on extensive archival research to unearth the largely forgotten story of Schultz’s years spent courageously reporting the news from Berlin, from the revolts of 1919 through the Nazi rise to power and Allied air raids over Berlin in 1941. At a time when women reporters rarely wrote front-page stories and her male colleagues saw a powerful unmarried woman as a “freak,” Schultz pulled back the curtain on how the Nazis misreported the news to their own people, and how they attempted to control the foreign press through bribery and threats.

Sharp and enlightening, Schultz's story provides a powerful example for how we can reclaim truth in an era marked by the spread of disinformation and claims of ‘fake news.’” Available at Bookshop.org

The Risk It Takes to Bloom - Raquel Willis

“In 2017, Raquel Willis took to the National Women’s March podium just after the presidential election of Donald Trump, primed to tell her story as a young Black transgender woman from the South. Despite having her speaking time cut short, the appearance only deepened her commitment to speaking up for communities on the margins.

Born in Augusta, Georgia, to Black Catholic parents, Raquel spent years feeling isolated, even within a loving, close-knit family. There was little access to understanding what it meant to be queer and transgender. It wasn’t until she went to the University of Georgia that she found the LGBTQ+ community, fell in love, and explored her gender for the first time. But the unexpected death of her father forced her to examine her relationship with herself and those she loved. These years of grief, misunderstanding, and hard-won epiphanies seeped into the soil of her life, serving as fertilizer for growth and allowing her to bloom within.

Upon graduation, Raquel entered a career in journalism against the backdrop of the burgeoning Movement for Black Lives, intersectional feminism going mainstream, and unprecedented visibility of the trans community. After hiding her identity as a newspaper reporter, her increasing awareness of the epidemic of violence plaguing trans women of color and the heightened suicide of trans teens inspired her to come out publicly. Within just a few short years of community organizing in Atlanta, Oakland, and New York, Raquel emerged as one of the most formidable Black trans activists in history.

In The Risk It Takes to Bloom, Raquel Willis recounts with passion and candor her experiences straddling the Obama and Trump eras, the possibility of transformation after tragedy, and how complex moments can push us all to take necessary risks and bloom toward collective liberation.” Available at Bookshop.org

The Woman They Could Not Silence - Kate Moore

“1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Her husband of twenty-one years is plotting against her because he feels increasingly threatened--by Elizabeth's intellect, independence, and unwillingness to stifle her own thoughts. So Theophilus makes a plan to put his wife back in her place. One summer morning, he has her committed to an insane asylum.

The horrific conditions inside the Illinois State Hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois, are overseen by Dr. Andrew McFarland, a man who will prove to be even more dangerous to Elizabeth than her traitorous husband. But most disturbing is that Elizabeth is not the only sane woman confined to the institution. There are many rational women on her ward who tell the same story: they've been committed not because they need medical treatment, but to keep them in line--conveniently labeled "crazy" so their voices are ignored.

No one is willing to fight for their freedom and, disenfranchised both by gender and the stigma of their supposed madness, they cannot possibly fight for themselves. But Elizabeth is about to discover that the merit of losing everything is that you then have nothing to lose...

Bestselling author Kate Moore brings her sparkling narrative voice to The Woman They Could Not Silence, an unputdownable story of the forgotten woman who courageously fought for her own freedom--and in so doing freed millions more. Elizabeth's refusal to be silenced and her ceaseless quest for justice not only challenged the medical science of the day, and led to a giant leap forward in human rights, it also showcased the most salutary lesson: sometimes, the greatest heroes we have are those inside ourselves.” Available at Bookshop.org

Fearless and Free: A Memoir - Josephine Baker

“After stealing the spotlight as a teenaged Broadway performer during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, Josephine then took Paris by storm, dazzling audiences across the Roaring Twenties. In her famous banana skirt, she enraptured royalty and countless fans—Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso among them. She strolled the streets of Paris with her pet cheetah wearing a diamond collar. With her signature flapper bob and enthralling dance moves, she was one of the most recognizable women in the world.

When World War II broke out, Josephine became a decorated spy for the French Résistance. Her celebrity worked as her cover, as she hid spies in her entourage and secret messages in her costumes as she traveled. She later joined the Civil Rights movement in the US, boycotting segregated concert venues, and speaking at the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King Jr.

First published in France in 1949, her memoir will now finally be published in English. At last we can hear Josephine in her own voice: charming, passionate, and brave. Her words are thrilling and intimate, like she’s talking with her friends over after-show drinks in her dressing room. Through her own telling, we come to know a woman who danced to the top of the world and left her unforgettable mark on it.” Available at Bookshop.org