Here are 100 books that A Woman's Path fans have personally recommended if you like
A Woman's Path.
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I’ve been interested in stories about power, exploitation, and female resilience for as long as I can remember. As a former professional dancer, I grew up in a world where the body was watched, judged, disciplined, and expected to perform, no matter the circumstance. My later experience as a physician scholar and as a mother has deepened my interest in the systems that shape girls’ and women’s ideas about their own lives. Finally, as a survivor, I also understand how these experiences can distort a girl’s sense of herself. I come to these books from the intersection of art, medicine, feminism, and lived experience.
For millennia, we’ve heard the stories in Greek mythology about gods who come down to earth to rape women (Zeus got around), women as seductive sirens who lure sailors to their doom, or goddesses and mortal women alike being exiled.
Because of that, I was intrigued to read this book, a retelling of the familiar narrative, but from the perspective of a woman. I found this book to be very empowering.
I identified with the main character, a woman named Circe (in actuality a goddess) who is exiled because of her powers of witchcraft. However, in her exile, she finds that leaning into her power without the judgment of others makes her stronger.
I loved reading classic Greek mythology, complete with all the familiar characters, told from a woman’s perspective.
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. Circe is a strange child - not powerful and terrible, like her father, nor gorgeous and mercenary like her mother. Scorned and rejected, Circe grows up in the shadows, at home in neither the world of gods or mortals. But Circe has a dark power of her own: witchcraft. When her gift…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I’ve spent most of my life fascinated by what happens when women stop editing themselves. As a former television reporter, health educator, and memoirist, I’ve lived on both sides of the polished story and the private reckoning in my search for truth. Writing my own memoir forced me to confront how often women are encouraged to soften conflict, spiritualize pain, or tidy up the truth to make it more palatable. I’m drawn to books that refuse that impulse—stories where healing isn’t performative, and transformation isn’t neat.
I loved this book because it gave language to instincts I didn’t yet trust.
I read it long ago, and its stories stayed with me—not intellectually, but somatically. This book doesn’t explain women; it remembers us. Through myth and archetype, Clarissa Pinkola Estés reclaims the wild, intuitive self that so many women are trained to domesticate.
It taught me that messiness isn’t a flaw—it can be the sign of something alive trying to return.
First published three years before the print edition of Women Who Run With the Wolves made publishing history, this original audio edition quickly became an underground bestseller. For its insights into the inner life of women, it established Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes as one of the most important voices of our time in the fields of Jungian psychology, myth, and women's mysteries.
Drawing from her work as a psychoanalyst and cantadora ("keeper of the old stories"), Dr. Estes uses myths and folktales to illustrate how societies systematically strip away the feminine spirit. Through an exploration into the nature of the…
The concept of whether a woman can truly be the subject of her own life has always fascinated me. It was an invisible struggle I didn’t know I had. Until I set out to finish the 54 unmet dreams of my late father, whose life had been cut short in a car crash. It wasn’t until I looked at the world through main character lenses, the kind that just seem to come more naturally to men, that I was able to see myself truly. This is just one lesson from my book. If you’ve ever felt different, remember: you’re not. You just haven’t seen yourself as the main character yet. These books will guide you.
This book was an integral resource when I began to write my book. It helped me shape the structure of my book.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “If you have anything to say, anything you feel nobody has ever said before, you have got to feel it so desperately that you will find some way to say it that nobody has ever found before, so that the thing you have to say and the way of saying it blend as one matter—as indissolubly as if they were conceived together.”
This, and other books I've read, did this. My favorite books of all time have inventive structures. And reading these helped me find mine.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the…
Delve into this internationally best-selling series, now complete! A fast paced laugh-out-loud mix of Urban Fantasy and Mystery.
I can tell when you’re lying. Every. Single. Time. I’m Jinx, a PI hired to find a missing university student, I hope to find her propped up at a bar–yet my gut…
I am a vagabondess and storyteller currently rooted in Costa Rica. I have traveled and lived many places, and can comfortably say I feel at home just about everywhere. I have a metaphorical closet full of hats including: Author, Editor, Marketing Consultant, Movement Artist, and Empowerment Self-Defense Instructor. I am the founder of Mujeres Fuertes Costa Rica, a holistic self-defense project creating unique empowerment retreats around the country and region. I believe that words are medicine, and that stories can heal the world. I am passionate about the power of the written word, and I regularly publish writing about travel and life, as well as support others to share their stories in my work as an editor and consultant.
This book about street art and feminism is an important reminder that the dangers of solo female travel are not so different from the dangers of walking the streets of your home city. Issues like street harassment and sexual violence are global; staying at home may seem like playing it safe, but gender-based violence crosses every border. This book tells the stories of various women in the United States and their experiences with street harassment. I believe it offers an important complement to the other books on my list: In order to embrace the solo travel journey, women must often first address the very real fears of harassment and violence, which we are socialized to carry with us no matter where we travel. To overcome these fears, it is important to first recognize and dissect them—and the patriarchal systems from which they have emerged.
A celebration of the author's art, a rallying read for women who are fed up with their own harassment experiences and a statement on how pervasive the problem of street harassment really is, this is a singular and important book.
Sitting at the cross-section of social activism, art, community engagement and feminism, Stop Telling Women To Smile brings to the page the author's arresting and famous street art-featuring the faces and voices of everyday women as they talk about the experience of living in communities that are supposed to be their homes yet are frequently hostile.
I’ve spent my career helping leaders elevate the human experience for customers, employees, and shareholders. Along the way, I’ve written 13 bestselling books about clients like Starbucks and Mercedes-Benz and advised leaders across industries, from hospitality to healthcare. But beyond the C-suite, I’ve always been a student of leadership. I read widely and constantly to challenge my thinking and deepen my understanding. These five books have shaped how I lead, teach, and live. Each one offers something unexpected, timeless, or transformational—and I’m excited to share them with those who share a passion for what it means to lead well.
I was captivated by Indra Nooyi’s blend of fierce intellect and deep humanity. I couldn’t stop reflecting on how she navigated leadership without compromising authenticity or family.
Her story reminded me that grace and grit must coexist and that decisive leadership doesn’t require shedding your values at the boardroom door.
An intimate and powerful memoir by the trailblazing former CEO of PepsiCo
For a dozen years as one of the world’s most admired CEOs, Indra Nooyi redefined what it means to be an exceptional leader. The first woman of color and immigrant to run a Fortune 50 company — and one of the foremost strategic thinkers of our time — she transformed PepsiCo with a unique vision, a vigorous pursuit of excellence, and a deep sense of purpose. Now, in a rich memoir brimming with grace, grit, and good humor, My Life in Full…
I have always been obsessed with the idea of other worlds I can’t sense but can somehow contrive to glimpse, whether with a magic amulet or some fabulous technology. As a kid growing up in the woods and devouring fantasy novels and biology texts alike, I couldn’t decide between science or writing as a way of exploring the unknown, and ultimately, I ended up doing both: becoming a writer specializing in marine and coastal environments, one of the many places in our world where the deeper we look at the senses of the creatures living there, the more we realize just how limited our own perceptions are.
It has been years, and I cannot stop thinking about the visual this book left me with: a young woman sleeping in a makeshift plastic bubble under the sea's surface, tethered to a walkway across the Indian Ocean. I love when a speculative fiction book dives deep into exactly how a futuristic technology looks, feels, smells, integrates into life, and doesn’t just fill a plot point—which is probably why I was left with such a vivid image of this tent-bubble-habitat-material.
I am also an avid camper and know what it’s like to trust techy material in inhospitable circumstances. Take that feeling of trying to sleep while rain pours on a tent you hope is as waterproof as advertised. Now multiply it by 100 and add a violently undulating walkway across the Indian Ocean, and you get why I love this book.
One day Meena gets out of bed covered in blood, with mysterious snakebites on her chest. Her worst fears have been realised: someone is after her and she must flee India at once. As she plots her escape, she learns of The Trail, an energy-harvesting bridge spanning the Arabian Sea that has become a refuge for itinerant vagabonds and loners on the run. This is her salvation.
Slipping out in the cover of night, with a knapsack full of supplies including a pozit GPS system, a scroll reader, and a sealable waterproof pod, Meena sets off for Ethiopia, the place…
On the morning of December 26, 2004, an undersea earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. The resulting tsunami killed an estimated 230,000 people across fourteen countries, from Indonesia to Sri Lanka to Thailand to the Maldives to India and all the way to East Africa.…
Change is essential for growth. My degree is in economics and I started out in the corporate world until I had my second child, after which I became a painter and, eventually, a sign language interpreter. My mother was an inspiration to me, believing that learning and adapting are essential to knowing oneself. She was true to her values, proud and independent, rarely caring if others felt differently. At the age of 45, she earned her Bachelor’s degree and began a 30-year career in social work. Because of her influence on me, I tend to gravitate toward protagonists who are headstrong and evolve into self-sufficient, fulfilled individuals.
In addition to the fact that this story is set in another country and culture, I love that we meet the protagonist as a young, orphaned child, and a strong-willed one at that. She defies norms that would have her married at the age of eleven and remains in an ashram, where she builds a life her own way. I read this book over ten years ago and, though I cannot remember all the details, the story stayed with me for the descriptions of the characters and settings. I have always been drawn to Indian authors and stories about strong Indian women who often endure inequality and even abuse yet find their place and community. Just writing this recommendation makes me want to read it all over again!
A sweeping epic set in southern India, where a group of outcasts create a family while holding tight to their dreams from the bestselling author of A House for Happy Mothers.
Barely a month after she is promised in marriage, eleven-year-old orphan Kokila comes to Tella Meda, an ashram by the Bay of Bengal. Once there, she makes a courageous yet foolish choice that alters the fabric of her life: Instead of becoming a wife and mother, youthful passion drives Kokila to remain at the ashram.
Through the years, Kokila makes a home in Tella Meda alongside other strong yet…
I grew up watching my mother suffer under a strict patriarchal religion. She never felt she had a choice in her life, and yet she always remained a dreamer, collecting newspaper articles about events in history that interested her. They piled up in a box and I’ve no idea what she thought to do with them. She would thumb through them between bouts of standing over a ringer washer or hanging wet clothing outside in freezing weather. There were 15 of us, you can imagine the laundry. I never saw her cry…despite working like a mule. I admire her and women like her for getting through.
The title says a lot about why this book moved me. Susan La Flesche was a warrior for her people, and what greater reason do any of us have for our existence? La Flesche overcame impossible odds and gave up a great deal to become a doctor. Time and again she risked her life to travel to homes in the dead of night or through snowstorms to reach someone who needed her. That dedication and drive inspire me. Reading the book makes me roll my eyes at my own short list of accomplishments. Also, I was raised close to the famous Indian School in Genoa, Nebraska. I grew up fascinated by the buildings and the haunted feelings in the classrooms. Starita’s lyrical descriptions of the land also transported me back.
"An important and riveting story of a 19th-century feminist and change agent. Starita successfully balances the many facts with vivid narrative passages that put the reader inside the very thoughts and emotions of La Flesche." —Chicago Tribune
On March 14, 1889, Susan La Flesche Picotte received her medical degree—becoming the first Native American doctor in U.S. history. She earned her degree thirty-one years before women could vote and thirty-five years before Indians could become citizens in their own country.
By age twenty-six, this fragile but indomitable Native woman became the doctor to her tribe. Overnight, she acquired 1,244 patients scattered…
I was a child of empire myself, which can have uncomfortable associations. In my case, this came with a sense of guilt as I grew up in apartheid South Africa, and while still a young man, I felt compelled to leave. Thus disconnected, I became a wanderer in Asia and the Far East, developing an enduring love of India. Africa drew me back as a foreign correspondent when the independence of Zimbabwe appeared to herald a new age of hope. I returned to report too from my homeland after Nelson Mandela’s release. At bottom, my interests – and I’m never sure where they will go next – have always been unpredictable.
Thanks to E.M. Forster, who described Mrs Fay as a work of art and arranged the publication of her letters, this indefatigable character remains as vivid today as when recounting her first journey to India in 1779, across the desert in Egypt and the Indian Ocean.
She was unknown, unconnected, and suffered misfortune upon misfortune, including imprisonment under Hyder Ali, but still made no fewer than four voyages to the East – one was quite enough for most travelers in those days – where she died penniless. No extract can do justice to her sharp eye and sharper pen. Mrs Fay must be read.
Eliza Fay's origins are obscure; she was not beautiful, rich, or outlandishly accomplished. Yet the letters she wrote from her 1779 voyage across the globe captivated E. M. Forster, who arranged for their British publication in 1925. The letters have been delighting readers ever since with their truth-is-stranger-than-fiction twists and turns, their earthy humor, and their depiction of an indomitable woman.
When the intrepid Mrs. Fay departed from Dover more than two hundred years ago, she embarked on a grueling twelve-month journey through much of Europe, up the Nile, over the deserts of Egypt, and finally across the ocean to…
Nelson West, a former Chicago homicide detective, is hired by wealthy heir Lionel Bing to discreetly help “fix” scandals and legal problems for his father’s wealthy friends.
Bing, a brilliant but troubled investigator, suffers from PTSD symptoms as a result of being kidnapped and witnessing the murder of his mother…
I have long been drawn to how people of the past think about their sexual identities, attractions, and behaviors. I conducted my PhD research at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, where I spent many happy hours reading letters and books voicing people’s unfiltered desires for sexual arousal, connection, and expression. I found the punched-card machines that Alfred Kinsey used to organize data from his personal interviews oddly compelling, and that interest developed into a long-term engagement with the intersection of gender and sexuality with science and technology. I share my fascination with readers through my books on Kinsey, machines used in sex research, contraception, and fertility technology.
Mitra’s book centers on the colonial period in India, when European scholars, British officials, and Indian intellectuals, focused on sexuality, specifically the figure of the prostitute, in order to study and to understand the place of women in modern Indian society.
The specter of deviant female sexuality structured fiction and intellectual thought on topics ranging from caste domination to trafficking, to widowhood and inheritance, to abortion and infanticide.
Indian Sex Life compellingly illustrates the importance of female deviance in the imagination of scholars and writers, and how they used their ideas about women’s sexuality to solidify rigid gender ideals—and to blame women for the failures of modern society. Mitra’s accounting of this history is richly drawn and hard to put down.
How British authorities and Indian intellectuals developed ideas about deviant female sexuality to control and organize modern society in India
During the colonial period in India, European scholars, British officials, and elite Indian intellectuals-philologists, administrators, doctors, ethnologists, sociologists, and social critics-deployed ideas about sexuality to understand modern Indian society. In Indian Sex Life, Durba Mitra shows how deviant female sexuality, particularly the concept of the prostitute, became foundational to this knowledge project and became the primary way to think and write about Indian society.
Bringing together vast archival materials from diverse disciplines, Mitra reveals that deviant female sexuality was critical…
