I grew up reading books that featured strong women, including Little Women and Anne of Green Gables so it only made sense that I would go on to write a book featuring four strong women. As much as I love reading fiction, since I am a professor, my writing is mainly academic and/or non-fiction and I aim to make research translatable and interesting to all – including mainstream audiences. Currently, I am working on a new book about evangelical Christian women and politics, which I started in 2020 right before the presidential election. No matter where I live or work, exploring the various facets of women’s lives will remain my driving pursuit.
I wrote
The Struggle to Stay: Why Single Evangelical Women Are Leaving the Church
I read this book as a graduate student and found Fader’s ability to make academic research readable and interesting – yes, interesting! – hugely attractive. Ever since I’ve aimed to do the same in my own writing.
This book is a fascinating insight into a community many of us know nothing about, featuring young women’s voices, and relayed by Fader.
Mitzvah Girls is the first book about bringing up Hasidic Jewish girls in North America, providing an in-depth look into a closed community. Ayala Fader examines language, gender, and the body from infancy to adulthood, showing how Hasidic girls in Brooklyn become women responsible for rearing the next generation of nonliberal Jewish believers. To uncover how girls learn the practices of Hasidic Judaism, Fader looks beyond the synagogue to everyday talk in the context of homes, classrooms, and city streets. Hasidic women complicate stereotypes of nonliberal religious women by collapsing distinctions between the religious and the secular. In this innovative…
This is billed as a non-fiction book but very much reads as fiction.
Taddeo’s characters (who are based on real women) have different voices and very different stories – yet their intimate tales of sex, belonging, and love resonate. Through Taddeo’s sensitive, artful writing you feel as though you know them personally.
The International No. 1 Bestseller
A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick
'Cuts to the heart of who we are' Sunday Times
'A book that begs discussion' Vanity Fair
All Lina wanted was to be desired. How did she end up in a marriage with two children and a husband who wouldn't touch her?
All Maggie wanted was to be understood. How did she end up in a relationship with her teacher and then in court, a hated pariah in her small town?
All Sloane wanted was to be admired. How did she end up a sexual object…
Gifts from a Challenging Childhood
by
Jan Bergstrom,
Learn to understand and work with your childhood wounds. Do you feel like old wounds or trauma from your childhood keep showing up today? Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed with what to do about it and where to start? If so, this book will help you travel down a path…
I don’t usually enjoy reading historical books – especially not academic historical books, which can tend to be quite dry, but Johnson’s book had me riveted.
She (re)introduces us to four key women in the US Christian Right’s history yet presents their stories in a way that makes the historical feel incredibly present. Moreover, by sticking close to the women’s own voices, she avoids simplistic characterizations.
Over the past 50 years, the architects of the religious right have become household names: Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson. They have used their massively influential platforms to build the profiles of evangelical politicians like Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, and Ted Cruz. Now, a new generation of leaders like Jerry Falwell Jr. and Robert Jeffress enjoys unprecedented access to the Trump White House.
What all these leaders share, besides their faith, is their gender. Men dominate the standard narrative of the rise of the religious right. Yet during the 1970s and 1980s nationally prominent evangelical women played essential roles…
Karr's memoir diverges from my other recommendations insofar as it’s a memoir and features just one woman’s voice.
I found this book while living in Madrid over a decade ago and remember sneaking out into the living room late at night to read it. Karr is a master storyteller and a master memoirist – highly relatable even if you’ve never struggled with alcoholism.
The long awaited sequel to the beloved and bestselling 'The Liars' Club' and 'Cherry' - a memoir about a self-professed 'blackbelt sinner's' descent into the inferno of alcoholism and madness, and her astonishing resurrection.
'If you'd told me, even a year before I start taking my son to church regular that I'd wind up whispering my sins in the confessional or on my knees saying the rosary, I would've laughed myself cockeyed. More likely pastime? Pole dancer. International spy. Drug mule. Assassin.'
Mary Karr's prizewinning 'The Liars' Club' chronicled her hardscrabble Texas childhood and sparked a renaissance in memoir, cresting…
Gifts from a Challenging Childhood
by
Jan Bergstrom,
Learn to understand and work with your childhood wounds. Do you feel like old wounds or trauma from your childhood keep showing up today? Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed with what to do about it and where to start? If so, this book will help you travel down a path…
Winner of the Booker Prize, Girl, Woman, Other was probably the most ubiquitous book seen around London in 2019.
Evaristo will introduce you to a range of compelling female characters in this novel; she inhabits each one’s mind and voice so supremely that the women you meet on the page will stay with you for years.
“A must-read about modern Britain and womanhood . . . An impressive, fierce novel about the lives of black British families, their struggles, pains, laughter, longings and loves . . . Her style is passionate, razor-sharp, brimming with energy and humor. There is never a single moment of dullness in this book and the pace does not allow you to turn away from its momentum.” —Booker Prize Judges
Bernardine Evaristo is the winner of the 2019 Booker Prize and the first black woman to receive this highest literary honor in the English language.…
Evangelical Christianity is often thought of as oppressive to women. Yet more than thirty million women in the United States still identify as evangelical. Why do so many women remain in male-dominated churches that marginalize them, and why do others leave?
The Struggle to Stay is an intimate and insightful portrait of single women’s experiences in evangelical churches. Drawing on unprecedented access to churches in the US and the UK, Gaddini relates the struggles of four women, interwoven with her own story of leaving behind a devout faith. She connects these personal narratives with rigorous analysis and interviews with over fifty other evangelical women. The result is a powerful story of faith, community, isolation, and loss.
