Here are 100 books that Woman fans have personally recommended if you like
Woman.
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I have been fascinated with the impact of gut health since becoming diagnosed with coeliac disease and IBS myself. As a registered dietitian, I was able to translate the complex science of gut health into a step-by-step format, which improved my symptoms, and I then went on to dedicate my career to this space and become a Consultant IBS Dietitian. I now run The IBS Dietitian, which is an online platform for people with IBS and includes online courses, a free podcast, and a book. One of the most important things you need to do to stay up to date with research in this area is to read.
I have used this book as a reference to explain gut anatomy for the past 12 years; it is amazing for anyone wanting to understand how our gut works. It cleverly explains the complex anatomy and science behind each part but in an easy-to-understand format that does not require qualifications in this area.
“Everything you ever wanted to know about the gut (and then some).” —SELF
Discover the secrets of your digestive system—and how to hone a healthy gut—plus new research on the mind-gut connection.
With quirky charm, science star and medical doctor Giulia Enders explains the gut’s magic, answering questions like: What’s really up with gluten and lactose intolerance? How does the gut affect obesity? What's the connection between our microbiome and mental health? Why does acid reflux happen? In this revised edition of her beloved bestseller, Enders includes a new section on the brain-gut connection,…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Travel and writing are my two great passions. Since I was a child, I escaped reality by escaping into my own mind. I had relied on my stories of the warrior queens ever since I learned about them as a child. It was only a few years ago, when I lived in Geneva, that I had a memory flash at me of the statue of Queen Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi on a rearing horse with a curved sword held in one hand. I knew then that it was time to tell a story—my own story and that of my favorite warrior queens.
This is a surprising book because while it is certainly macabre, it’s not morbid (at least not for me) and is strangely entertaining. It demystifies the human body and the process of death and dying.
Even as the author delves into every aspect of dead bodies, she does so with compassion and humor. Rooted and backed up with science, this book held my interest from beginning to end, and I read it non-stop for over a day and a half. Despite its grave subject matter, this book is not dark or scary. It’s matter-of-fact and very educational.
For two thousand years, cadavers - some willingly, some unwittingly - have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender confirmation surgery, cadavers have helped make history in their quiet way. "Delightful-though never disrespectful" (Les Simpson, Time Out New York), Stiff investigates the strange lives of our bodies postmortem and answers the question: What should…
People, including me, can be so uptight about their bodies. Early on in my career, I found that writing about my shame (chin hair!) or embarrassment (dogs sniffing my crotch!) helped the stigma go away. Researching and learning about how amazing our bodies are helped empower me to feel confident and comfortable being fully myself. I think it can do the same for others, too. My takeaway: There is greatness in our grossness.
This book exploded my beliefs about breasts – all that they are and all that they’ve been through and where they are headed next. Williams is a fabulous guide, taking the reader on an adventure as she uncovers the anatomy and evolution of the breast, and even the pollutants found inside her own breastmilk. Knowing the vulnerabilities – and history! – of my rack made me appreciate it all the more.
Did you know that breast milk contains substances similar to cannabis? Or that it's sold on the Internet for 262 times the price of oil? Feted and fetishized, the breast is an evolutionary masterpiece. But in the modern world, the breast is changing. Breasts are getting bigger, arriving earlier, and attracting newfangled chemicals. Increasingly, the odds are stacked against us in the struggle with breast cancer, even among men. What makes breasts so mercurial-and so vulnerable?
In this informative and highly entertaining account, intrepid science reporter Florence Williams sets out to uncover the latest scientific findings from the fields…
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
People, including me, can be so uptight about their bodies. Early on in my career, I found that writing about my shame (chin hair!) or embarrassment (dogs sniffing my crotch!) helped the stigma go away. Researching and learning about how amazing our bodies are helped empower me to feel confident and comfortable being fully myself. I think it can do the same for others, too. My takeaway: There is greatness in our grossness.
The amount of blood that passes through a human heart every week is enough to fill a swimming pool. That and facts like it saturate this book about our most essential organ, the heart. Jauhar weaves a dynamic science-based narrative with personal accounts that infuses the reader with love and reverence for the body part, the medical personnel, and the innovations that keep us all pumping.
'Jauhar weaves his own personal and family story into his history of the heart...very effectively... This gives a certain dramatic tension to the book, as it tells the fascinating and rather wonderful history of cardiology.'
-Henry Marsh, New Statesman
A Mail on Sunday Book of the Year
The heart lies at the centre of life. For cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar it is an obsession.
In this fascinating history he interweaves gripping scenes from the operating theatre with the moving tale of his family's history of heart problems - from the death of his grandfather to…
I love any book that carries me away into a different world, allows me to feel new possibilities, and makes me think. That is what I call magic. This creative magic has filled all aspects of my life. In addition to writing, I am a theatre artist, a mentor, an advocate for women and girls, and a creativity facilitator. In other words, I believe in the creative powers of people to make a more just and enriched world. My goal is always to inspire others to find their own voice, and to use it to make a difference. That’s what guides my reading, and my book recommendations. Enjoy!
This might seem like a strange book to include in a list that has a touch of magic, but in many ways this book sparked my first novel. I am a firm believer that women can (and should) do whatever they want. I also accept that there are differences between men and women based on things like brain structure and biology. These differences are not limitations, but rather things to celebrate.
As I read, I began to ask questions. What if women have more access to their brain’s abilities than men? What if our connection with creative power were seen as more important than physical strength? My characters became my answers. That, in itself, is magic—because magic is simply answering the question “what if,” with “anything is possible.”
Since Dr. Brizendine wrote The Female Brain ten years ago, the response has been overwhelming. This New York Times bestseller has been translated into more than thirty languages, has sold nearly a million copies between editions, and has most recently inspired a romantic comedy starring Whitney Cummings and Sofia Vergara. And its profound scientific understanding of the nature and experience of the female brain continues to guide women as they pass through life stages, to help men better understand the girls and women in their lives, and to illuminate the delicate emotional machinery of a love relationship.
I have always been fascinated by women’s power in the workplace. My mother was intensely focused on breaking ground as a working mother of four small children on Capitol Hill in the 1960s. She was the first woman to be granted part-time status in Senator Ted Kennedy’s office. She worked her way up to speechwriter for Joan and personal correspondent for the Senator. And she kept a fierce border between work and home. And we were intensely proud of her. At a time when our friends’ mothers were mostly homemakers, our Mom had a cool job and kept a cool head among the political and intellectual elite – most of whom were men.
What a breath of fresh air! Daina Middleton gets it. She has been in the center of power at elite global companies, and she shares her observations and research data to clarify the critical differences and strengths that women and men bring to the table. And she brings in an often invisible – and certainly undervalued – element. Grace. A trait that women often bring, naturally. Respect, manners, consideration of others. Grit, by contrast, is more naturally embodied and projected by men: Competitive clashing and do-it-now urgency. I found it very satisfying to visualize the careful blend of grace and grit – and the resulting improvement in culture and the bottom line. Well done!
There is no mistaking that inequality in the workplace is still prevalent in the form of salary inequity and unequal representation in leadership and board positions. Too often conversations about inequality can lead to men and women believing they are alike. Women and men are not the same, biologically or psychologically, and these differences lead to significant dissimilarities in how each approaches leadership situations. Grace Meets Grit navigates the previously unexplored subject of gender differences in the workplace specifically applied to critical leadership behaviors. Leadership behaviors are what make us all successful in the workplace. They are how we are…
Big Ideas... For Small Businesses
by
John Lamerton,
Big Ideas… for Small Businesses is a straight-talking, no-nonsense guide to growing a small business without sacrificing your lifestyle. Written by a former civil servant turned entrepreneur, the book challenges hustle culture and instead champions the idea of an "ambitious lifestyle business" - one that provides freedom and financial stability,…
I was an adult before I realized I had ADHD. Getting a diagnosis was like getting glasses; so many things in my life immediately became clear to me, including that I wasn’t simply a sloppy, lazy, scattered person. And I also learned, like many others, that ADHD can be a challenge and a strength.
My friend Vanessa gave me this part memoir/part investigation of how, why, and to what end neurodiversity is often misunderstood or overlooked in women. (I wonder why? Just kidding. I know why.)
I so appreciate how Nerenberg approaches neurodiversity not as a problem, but as, at core, simply a difference. And difference, as well know, can be difficult, but it can also be rad.
This is a must-read if you kind of suspect you might be neurodiverse and want to learn more, or if you know you’re neurodiverse and are looking for a book that will make you feel less alone, as well as will offer a hopeful and empowering perspective. Thanks, Vanessa!
A paradigm-shifting study of neurodivergent women-those with ADHD, autism, synesthesia, high sensitivity, and sensory processing disorder-exploring why these traits are overlooked in women and how society benefits from allowing their unique strengths to flourish.
As a successful Harvard and Berkeley-educated writer, entrepreneur, and devoted mother, Jenara Nerenberg was shocked to discover that her "symptoms"--only ever labeled as anxiety-- were considered autistic and ADHD. Being a journalist, she dove into the research and uncovered neurodiversity-a framework that moves away from pathologizing "abnormal" versus "normal" brains and instead recognizes the vast diversity of our mental makeups.
Christia Spears Brown is an author, researcher, and professor of Developmental Psychology. She is also the Director of the Center for Equality and Social Justice at the University of Kentucky. She earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin. Brown began her academic career on the faculty of the University of California at Los Angeles. Her research focuses on how children develop gender and ethnic stereotypes, how children understand gender and ethnic discrimination, and how discrimination and stereotypes affect children and teens’ lives. As part of her research on discrimination, she also examines the perpetration and acceptance of sexual harassment and how children understand politics, public policies, and societal inequalities.
This book holds a magnifying glass up to the gender differences and stereotypes we see every day. Eliot describes in easy-to-understand language the neuroscience behind gender differences and details how small differences between boys and girls at birth become amplified over the course of childhood by parents, teachers, and the culture.
An important scientific exploration of the differences between boys and girls that breaks down damaging gender stereotypes and offers practical guidance for parents and educators.
In the past decade, we've heard a lot about the innate differences between males and females. As a result, we've come to accept that boys can't focus in a classroom and girls are obsessed with relationships. That's just the way they're built.
In Pink Brain, Blue Brain, neuroscientist Lise Eliot turns that thinking on its head. Based on years of exhaustive research and her own work in the new field of plasticity, Eliot argues that…
After a decade writing advertising for airlines and beer, I found myself working as a freelance radio producer for thousands of radio broadcasts for Chuck Colson, Josh McDowell, Fathers.com, Heritage Foundation, and Voice of the Martyrs. Later, I reinvented myself as a national speaker and best-selling author of 25+ books including 52 Things Kids Need from a Dad, Don’t Take the Bait to Escalate, and What If God Wrote Your Bucket List? with sales approaching one million copies. My wife Rita and I live near Chicago, where we raised five awesome kids, loved on ten foster babies, and are cherishing grandparenthood.
This book delivers solid ideas on a successful marriage from a man’s perspective. Johnson’s approach may feel a little old-fashioned, where the man is the strong provider and the woman is the nurturer and she even has power over him because of her feminine wiles. But you know what? It works! Let’s face it, men and women have different world views and priorities. Johnson’s style is sly, fun, and relatable.
It's no secret that men and women are different. And it's no secret that they don't always get along because of these differences, even when they love each other. But having a successful marriage is not about finding the perfect person to marry. It's about loving someone in an unselfish, Christlike manner. Whatever we want out of marriage--unconditional love, forgiveness, passion--that is what we have to give to our spouse. Rick Johnson shows couples how to go beyond merely tolerating each other's differences to using those God-given differences to add spice and passion to their relationship.
The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.
Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicit…
Over my twenty years as a historian, the common thread in my work is the gap between how people are supposedto behave and how they actually do behave. From interracial sexual relationships in the segregated South, to rum smuggling from Cuba during Prohibition, to abortion on college campuses before Roe, I'm interested in how people work around rules they don’t like. And rules about sex are some of the most ignored rules of all. Reading about strange beliefs and common desires connect us to our ancestors. Being a professor of history at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama allows me to research bad behavior in the past to my heart’s content.
We assume people have always recognized two sexes, male and female. But did they? In the past, people believed men and women were the same sex; women were just incomplete, unfinished men. Men and women had the same sexual organs, with women’s located internally. Surprisingly, if conditions were right, women could even turn into men. They also thought women needed to achieve orgasm to conceive. That’s right. For over a thousand years of western history, women’s sexual pleasure was as important as men’s.
This is a book about the making and unmaking of sex over the centuries. It tells the astonishing story of sex in the West from the ancients to the moderns in a precise account of developments in reproductive anatomy and physiology. We cannot fail to recognize the players in Thomas Laqueur's story-the human sexual organs and pleasures, food, blood, semen, egg, sperm-but we will be amazed at the plots into which they have been woven by scientists, political activists, literary figures, and theorists of every stripe.
Laqueur begins with the question of why, in the late eighteenth century, woman's orgasm…
