100 Books Like Women & Power

I thought it was great to have Circe herself narrate her love affair with Odysseus.

The first half of the novel interestingly shares her tribulations growing up as a child in a family of gods. I found that this establishes a theme of immortality vs. mortality that the book explores in profound ways. Especially fascinating was Circe’s personal story of her love affair with Odysseus.

I was surprised and delighted that Miller included the resulting child, Telegonus, who is not in Homer but is in ancient myth. Even more surprising to me was Circe falling in love with Telemachus, Odysseus’ son by Penelope (also not in Homer!). This relationship allows the novel to end on a positive note as Circe learns to live like a mortal in her new life with Telemachus.

Ever since reading this book, I *can’t* think of the original version of the Iliad without referencing his haunting retelling from Patroclus’ perspective. Miller did such an incredible job putting me in the story and making the characters so real that I actively missed them when I put the book down.

It doesn’t hurt that it has some of the most beautiful poetic language I’ve encountered in story form. Helen is more of a background character playing her classic role, but I was still fascinated because Miller plays on the demigod aspect of both Helen and Achilles in a way that makes them steal any scene they’re in. There’s a quiet power to them that transcends the page.    

This is a very accessible introduction to six of the most powerful women of Egypt, women whose actions took place around, and sometimes as, pharaohs. Little-known queens, Merneith, Tawosret, and Neferusobek are considered alongside Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, and Cleopatra. This approach helps Cooney to weave together a compelling story about female lives and expectations for women in ancient Egypt, and how this shaped these individuals’ access, use, and justifications for wielding power, some of which sound very familiar to discussions about women who hold power in our own time.

The evidence is necessarily patchy and the arguments sometimes speculative, as Cooney brings in much recent research and includes extensive footnotes that are well worth reading to understand the various debates that are underway in the field right now.

Though I love to read Homer’s Odyssey in the original Greek, I also appreciate translations that allow particular themes to emerge in new ways.

All translations of the ancient epic are necessarily inventive recreations of the ancient Greek Homeric story, and I like the way this translation employs a quick-paced poetic meter and updates the tale to suit modern sensibilities on uncomfortable aspects of the Odyssey (e.g., misogyny, slavery).

The introduction also provides an authoritative explanation of the Homeric Odyssey.

Weber’s biography of Marie Antoinette offers a unique take on the foreign queen’s story. Using fashion as a tool to explore her life at the tumultuous court of Versailles, Weber craftily paints a vivid picture of her flaws and her role in the tragic end of the monarchy.

Having researched Marie Antoinette for my own books, I felt that Weber’s biography did the best job of transporting me into her world. As a history buff, I was amazed at the importance of the queen’s wardrobe, hair, and accessories. It was also an introduction to her hairdresser and her milliner, two important characters who made the queen the fashion icon of Europe at the time.

The eighteenth-century Russian princess Ekaterina Dashkova deserves your attention. This well-travelled woman was a friend of Catherine the Great, an author and playwright, wrote one of the earliest autobiographies known in Russia, held public office as President of the Academy of Sciences, and was instrumental in establishing the Russian Academy, of which she then became Director. 

Her entertaining memoirs take us into the inner circle of the Empress’ world, offer an entrée into the literary salons of Europe, and allow us to listen in on her scientific and intellectual exchanges with Benjamin Franklin, Voltaire, and Diderot. Long accessible only in French, the language of Russian aristocratic society, this English edition opens up her world to new readers.

Jung Chang, best known as the author of Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, here turns her considerable creative skill to the story of the woman who rose to the height of power in one of the world’s most important empires. Cixi’s trajectory from concubine to mother of the Tongzhi Emperor reminds us how sexual and reproductive labour are often critical to women’s access to power. 

Chang locates Cixi’s personal experiences, enjoying extreme luxury in secluded palaces yet displaying keen interest in the outside world that China was forced to confront, against a grand narrative of extraordinary changes to the empire Cixi was charged to safeguard. Chang presents a strongly sympathetic analysis of Cixi but the complex ambitions, many contradictions and perceived failures of this powerful woman ensure that she will remain the subject of continued debate.

It is always delightful to read this re-telling of the Odyssey by the esteemed Canadian author Margaret Atwood.

I found the voice of Penelope as the narrator of her own story most effective. The set-up of Penelope as a shade in the underworld who dishes the dirt on what really happened when Odysseus returned home seemed very clever to me. Penelope is witty and humorous in her sceptical, if fond, description of her hero’s antics, but I also appreciated that the queen continues to wrestle with guilt over the murder of several of her handmaids.

The ‘girls’ are the Trojan women, voiceless in Homer’s Iliad except, briefly, Andromache, Cassandra, and Hecuba.

Women drive the plot, from Helen, the Spartan queen abducted by the Trojan prince Paris, who is blamed for starting it, to Briseis, the Trojan captive Agamemnon takes from Achilles, but they say little.

Most of the chapters in Silence of the Girls are first-person in Briseis’ voice, with interspersed third-person chapters focusing on Achilles and Patroclus. We see the war from a broad, realistic perspective, but the tragedy in the center is of the women—as the Greek playwright Euripides recognizes in his play ‘The Trojan Women’ among others.

Pat Barker gives us the full, moving story in this novel and its sequels, The Women of Troy and The Voyage Home.

The author is one of Ireland’s most respected historians. In this superb analysis, he explores the public and private worlds of Irish sex. 

Over the decades, Irish society, hand-in-hand with a dominant Catholic Church, succeeded in silencing generations of women.

We are still trying to come to terms with the iniquitous system of Magdalen Laundries and mother and baby homes, where pregnant young girls and women were hidden from sight so that the public would not be shamed by their sexual transgressions.

The text is accessible and illuminating. It explores hidden areas of modern Irish society and is a must-read, in my view, for anyone interested in this country.