I did this last year, but it feels like the day to do it again: 1 Like = 1 biography of a woman’s life written by a woman for u to read
— #rachelsyme (@rachsyme) March 8, 2017
International Women’s Day was on Tuesday. To celebrate, the writer Rachel Syme did something amazing: in the thread linked above, she tweeted 150 memoirs and biographies of women, by women. We gathered all the titles together in the list below and linked them to their Booklist reviews.
Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic, by Jennifer Niven
Agnes Martin: Her Life and Art, by Nancy Princenthal
Alice James, by Jean Strouse
Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty, by Phoebe Hoban
Alice Walker, by Evelyn White
All We Know: Three Lives, by Lisa Cohen
American Eve, by Paula Uruburu
American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood, by Marie Arana
Angela Davis: An Autobiography, by Angela Davis
An Illuminated Life: Bella da Costa Greene’s Journey from Prejudice to Privilege, by Heidi Ardizzone
Anne Sexton, by Diane Middlebrook
Annie Oakley, by Shirl Kasper
The Arrogant Years: One Girl’s Search for Her Lost Youth, from Cairo to Brooklyn, by Lucette Lagnado
Art and Madness: A Memoir of Love Without Reason, by Anne Roiphe
Autobiography of a Face, by Lucy Grealy
Barbara Jordan, by Mary Beth Rogers
Beryl Markham, by Mary S. Lovell
Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman, by Margot Mifflin
Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin, by Jill Lepore
Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country, by Louise Erdrich
Breaking Clean, by Judy Blunt
The Bronte Myth, by Lucasta Miller
Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times, by Jennifer Worth
Candy Darling, by Candy Darling
Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France, by Leonie Frieda
Christina Stead, by Hazel Rowley
Clementine, by Sonia Purnell
Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff
Clover Adams: A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life, by Natalie Dkystra
Confessions of an Art Addict, by Peggy Guggenheim
Country Girl, by Edna O’Brien
Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back, by Janice P. Nimura
Dearest Friend, by Lynne Withey
Diana Vreeland, by Amanda McKenzie Stuart
Diane Arbus: A Biography, by Patricia Bosworth
Dietrich and Riefenstahl, by Kristin Weiland
The Distance Between Us, by Reyna Grande
Dorothy Parker, by Marion Meade
Edith Wharton, by Hermione Lee
Eleanor of Aquitane, by Alison Weir
Ella Baker, by Barbara Ransby
Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China, by Jung Chang
Evita, by Eva Peron
The Extraordinary Life of Rebecca West, by Lorna Gibb
The Firebrand and the First Lady: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice, by Patricia Bell Scott
The First Lady of Hollywood, by Samantha Barbas
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, by Loung Ung
Frida, by Hayden Herrera
Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London, by Lauren Elkin
Florynce Kennedy, by Sherie Randolph
Gellhorn: A Twentieth-Century Life, by Caroline Moorhead
Genet: A Biography of Janet Flanner, by Brenda Wineapple
Georgia O’Keeffe, by Roxana Robinson
Girls Like Us, by Sheila Weller
The Girl Who Loved Camellias: The Life and Legend of Marie Duplessis, by Julie Kavanagh
Gold Digger: The Outrageous Life and Times of Peggy Hopkins Joyce, by Constance Rosenblum
Great Catherine, by Carolly Erickson
Hannah Arendt, by Anne C. Heller
Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics during World War II, by Farah Jasmine Griffin
Harriet Jacobs, by Jean Fagin Yellin
Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom, by Catherine Clinton
Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly
The Huntress: The Adventures, Escapades, and Triumphs of Alicia Patterson: Aviatrix, Sportswoman, Journalist, Publisher, by Alice Arlen
Ida: A Sword among Lions; Ida B. Wells and the Campaign against Lynching, by Paula Giddings
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
I Married Adventure, by Osa Johnson
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs
Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi, by Katherine Frank
Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle, by Lois Banner
I Said Yes To Everything, by Lee Grant
James Tiptree, Jr: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, by Julie Phillips
Jane Austen, by Claire Tomalin
Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured, by Kathryn Harrison
Katherine Mansfield, by Claire Tomalin
Kiss Hollywood Goodbye, by Anita Loos
Lady Sings the Blues, by Billie Holiday
The Lady Queen: The Notorious Reign of Joanna I, Queen of Naples, Jerusalem, and Sicily, by Nancy Goldston
Lakota Woman, by Mary Crow Dog
Lee Krasner, by Gail Levin
Lee Miller, by Carolyn Burke
Lena, by Lena Horne
The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women & the Artists They Inspired, by Francine Prose
Louise Bogan, by Elizabeth Frank
Madame du Pompadour, by Nancy Mitford
Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, by Helene Cooper
Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History, by Rhonda Garelick
The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, by Sarah Churchwell
Marie Curie, by Susan Quinn
Marilyn in Manhattan: Her Year of Joy, by Elizabeth Winder
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, by Simone de Beauvoir
Men We Reaped, by Jessmyn Ward
Minor Characters, by Joyce Johnson
Negroland, by Margo Jefferson
Not Just Jane: Rediscovering Seven Amazing Women Writers Who Transformed British Literature, by Shelley Dewees
On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker, by A’Lelia Bundles
Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull, by Barbara Goldsmith
Pain, Parties, Work, by Elizabeth Winder
Painted Shadow, by Carole Seymour-Jones
The Paper Garden: An Artist (Begins Her Life’s Work) at 72, by Molly Peacock
Paula, by Isabel Allende
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, by Marjane Satrapi
Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood, by Eileen Whitfield
The Pope’s Daughter, by Carolyn Murphy
Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution, by Caroline Weber
The Queen’s Bed: An Intimate History of Elizabeth’s Court, by Anna Whitelock
Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John, by Sally Cline
Rage and Fire: A Life of Louise Colet, Pioneer Feminist, Literary Star, Flaubert’s Muse, by Francine Gray
Ranger Confidential, by Andrea Lankford
Red Azalea, by Anchee Min
Redefining Realness, by Janet Mock
Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg, by Kate Evans
Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, by Terry Tempest Williams
Restless Ambition: Grace Hartigan, Painter, by Cathy Curtis
Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars, by Nathalia Holt
Romaine Brooks, by Cassandra Langer
The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra, by Helen Rappoport
Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley, by Charlotte Gordon
Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, by Brenda Maddox
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay, by Nancy Milford
Searching for Calamity, by Linda Jucovy
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette, by Judith Thurman
Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti, by Patricia Albers
She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England before Elizabeth, by Helen Castor
The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters, by Laura Thompson
Slow Days, Fast Company, by Eve Babitz
The Solitude of Self: Thinking About Elizabeth Cady Stanton, by Vivian Gornick
Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary, by Anita Anand
That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, by Anne Sebba
The Tigress of Forli: The Life of Renaissance Italy’s Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de Medici, by Elizabeth Lev
To the River, by Olivia Laing
Trans, by Juliet Jacques and Sheila Heti
Two Lives: Gertude and Alice, by Janet Malcolm
Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov): Portrait of a Marriage, by Stacy Schiff
Victoria the Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire, by Julia Baird
Virginia Woolf, by Hermione Lee
When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up under the Khmer Rouge, by Chanrithy Him
Where I Was From, by Joan Didion
The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Secret Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience, by Kirstin Downey
The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston
Women in Dark Times, by Jacqueline Rose
Working Girl Blues: The Life and Music of Hazel Dickens, by Hazel Dickins
Wilde’s Women, by Eleanor Fitzsimmons
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, by Cheryl Strayed
Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood, by Cari Beauchamp
Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston, by Valerie Boyd
Zelda, by Nancy Milfrode