Read Up: Top 10 Books in 2024 On Women, Power, Justice, Equity, History, Culture & More
A sample of Take the Lead’s book recommendations for 2024 giving and receiving.
Every year Take The Lead dives into selected and recommended nonfiction books that further the mission of Take The Lead for its 10 years of driving gender and racial equity. As this is the season of reading, giving, and swapping books, here are 10 titles published in Fall 2024 (in alphabetical order by author last name) we suggest and why we suggest them.
These books cover history, popular culture, politics, sports, COVID, feminism, aging, health, and memoir from a range of women authors across race, generations, identity, experiences, and points of view.
Read more on Gloria Feldt’s latest book
According to 2023 stats from YouGov, 82% of Americans read 10 or fewer books, while more than half of all Americans read at least one book. And they prefer ink on paper books they can hold in their hands. “More than 40% of Americans read a physical book last year, compared to 21% who read an e-book and 19% who listened to an audiobook.”
Real Simple magazine reports research that says reading books increases intelligence, improves sleep and empathy, delays Alzheimer’s by increasing brain function, and “can work as a serious stress-buster, reducing stress by as much as 68 percent.” Reading also boosts health and can make you live longer.
On the publishing industry side, a new report measuring 2023 staffs of publishing houses, literary journals, and literary agencies shows 72.5 percent of US publishing are white, 71.3 percent are female, and 68.7 percent identify as heterosexual. Racial diversity is minimal with biracial/multiracial employees at 8.4 percent, Asian/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander/South Asian/Southeast Indian at 7.8 percent, Black/African-American/Afro-Caribbean at 5.3 percent, and Hispanic/Latino/Mexican at 4.6 percent.
Read more in Take The Lead on good books
Check out Take The Lead’s Fall 2024 recommendations from authors identifying as women.
“Check out #TakeTheLeads Fall 2024 #recommendations from #authors identifying as women. ”
1. Angela Dodson, We Refuse To Be Silent: Women’s Voices on Justice For Black Men. Editor and veteran journalist Angela Dodson combined the essays of 25 Black women educators, journalists, authors, experts, psychologists, and ministers to weigh on the historic ongoing violence and injustice brought to Black men. Thoughtful, insightful, and crucial essays come from award-wining writers including Isabel Wilkerson, Mary C. Curtis, Lottie Joiner, Michelle Duster, who share takes on the “ongoing pattern of demonizing Black men that is rooted deep in the history of our nation. The essays in this book engage with the emotional toll anti-Black violence takes on women in particular and cast a vision for future activism.”
Read more in Take The Lead on 2023 books
2. Maddy Dychtwald: Ageless Aging: A Woman’s Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan & Lifespan. Global best-selling author and co-founder of Age Wave, Dychtwald offers practical, inspiring, surprising, and excellent advice and strategies for the growing population of older women. Her latest book co-authored with Kate Hanley is ”a holistic action plan based on leading science that helps women take advantage of the scientific, medical, psychological, and spiritual tools, tips, and advice available to them as they thrive in the second half of life.” Offering solid research, anecdotes, and proof of outcomes, Dychtwald writes, “ Up to 90 percent of your health and longevity is within your control, rather than at the mercy of the genes you were born with.”
3. Serene Khader: Faux Feminism: Why We Fall For White Feminism And How We Can Stop. Author and professor of philosophy at CUNY Graduate Center, Khader dives into the myths of feminism, and how it is possible to defy the tropes and advocate for equity and justice globally across race and gender. Unfurling the teachings of freedom feminism as a woman’s right to individually have freedoms, turns into a call for a larger, inclusive strand of feminism beyond refusing oppression and into understanding the many “strands” of feminism for the many. Khader dives into the curse of judgment as well as the prevalence of shame. Khader writes, “Perhaps we can see that fighting for what will lift up those facing multiple oppressions is the antidote another equality is possible, and a vision of it has been with us all along.”
“#Author and professor of #philosophy, @SereneKhader dives into the myths of #feminism, and how it is possible to advocate for #equity and #justice globally across #race and #gender. ”
4. Melissa Ludtke, Locker Room Talk: A Woman’s Struggle to Get Inside. A lifelong sports reporter, Ludtke covered baseball for Sports Illustrated, and “ I was the only woman assigned full-time to Major League Baseball in the mid-1970s,” she writes. “After Commissioner Bowie Kuhn banned me from locker rooms at the first game of the 1977 World Series due to my gender, I took him and baseball to court.” And she won. A pioneer for women sports journalists for the last four decades, Ludtke says, “What I learned, as one of the only women covering baseball at the time, was that I better know damn well what I’m talking about when I open my mouth, because a lot of people are watching me and ready to say that I don’t know what I’m talking about, a lot of people assuming I’m there for some other reason than that I actually think I can do this job.” By illustrating the sexism so rampant in sports coverage, she leads the way for new generations of women reporters to eschew the sexism and do their jobs well.
“By illustrating the #sexism so rampant in sports coverage, @MelissaLudtke leads the way for new generations of #womenreporters to eschew the #sexism and do their jobs well in her book: #LockerRoomTalk”
Read more in Take The Lead on recent books
5. Elizabeth Mehren: I Lived To Tell The World: Stories of Survival of Holocaust, Genocide and The Atrocities of War. Now a professor of journalism at Boston University, acclaimed journalist Mehren, who worked across the country for decades for the Los Angeles Times, interviews and researches the stories of survivors of violence and genocide, all who now reside in Oregon. Mehren deftly profiles individuals from Rwanda, Myanmar, Bosnia, Syria, and more about their recovered lives in America. Presenting these tender and resilient histories, “Mehren also weaves in historical, cultural, and political context alongside these personal stories of resilience.”
6. Carrie Sheffield: Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness. In this riveting, powerful and emotional memoir, Washington, D.C. journalist and broadcaster Sheffield, tells the tragic story of growing up extremely poor in a Mormon household with eight siblings and their abusive father and mother. Moving constantly with 10 family members living in a trailer, Sheffield describes her escape as a powerful survivor, attending Harvard University on full scholarship, going into finance, then journalism. She writes of her mental health struggles, as well as struggles with religion and confidence in a story that is tearfully inspiring and uplifting.
7. Bonnie Stabile and Aubrey Leigh Grant: Women, Power & Rape Culture: The Politics and Policy of Underrepresentation. Stabile, an associate professor and dean at George Mason University and Grant, a doctoral candidate at GMU, spell out the history, structures, and processes that bind women to ineffectiveness in policy making and politics. The overriding messages of violence against women and the claims of women as less intelligent as men, are replicated in the words of men in office and the votes of men in Congress, as well as a culture of aggression and microaggressions against women. Understanding all of this comes before eradicating all of this.
Read more in Take The Lead on great 2024 books
8. Deshawn Taylor, MD: Undue Burden: A Black Woman Doctor on Being Christian & Pro-Abortion in The Reproductive Justice Movement. Speaking recently on a panel on women’s health at Take The Lead’s Power Up Conference 2024, Taylor writes of the misinformation and danger affecting the lives of women and their pursuit of reproductive justice. From the White House bully pulpit demands and outrageous viewpoints, Taylor writes about how the lives of women and their rights have been drastically damaged. According to Harvard’s site, this book, “lays out why it's no longer enough for us to say we're pro-choice, but instead we must proudly proclaim to be pro-abortion. It illustrates how when we force people to continue pregnancies and bring children into the world without providing any of the support systems to help sustain them, we are creating conditions of misery. Through the lens of Reproductive Justice, Undue Burden explains why anti-abortion extremists actually want this misery to exist.” Taylor offers solutions and resolutions that will save lives.
“@drdeshawn_md writes of the #misinformation and #danger affecting the lives of women and their pursuit of #reproductivejustice. Taylor writes about how the lives of women and their rights have been drastically damaged.”
Read more in Take The Lead on Deshawn Taylor, MD
9. Michele Weldon: The Time We Have: Essays on Pandemic Living. In this book of essays written during the stretch of COVID timing, 2020 to 2023, I write about the irrevocable changes in work, relationships, culture, behaviors, and mental health. “Whether she's talking about the loss of a beloved brother or of her beloved shoe collection, Michele Weldon offers us a compassionate, kind, and generous way to try and make sense of the coronavirus pandemic, both individually and societally, and to consider the world we want moving forward. With an honest, humble, and sometimes humorous reckoning of her own struggles and triumphs, Weldon invites us to explore our understanding of the human condition. A truly joyous read,” writes Vicki Larson, author of Not Too Old for That.
10. Christine Wolf and Jay Pridmore: Politics, Partnerships & Power: The Lives of Ralph & Marguerite Stitt Church. Prolific journalist, author, and writing coach, Wolf writes about the lives of this mid-century power couple and the political climate at the time. Their persistence to influence political reform is surprising and educational. Wolf succeeds in turning extensive, tireless research into an accessible story about a couple who lived to change history and influence the backdrop for who runs the world.
About her new book, River of Books: A Life of Reading, author Donna Seaman, editor-in-chief of Booklist, is an unequivocal supporter of reading as an integral part of a healthy life. She tells New City Lit , ”Let librarians and teachers know you support them. Attend library and school board meetings; run for library and school boards. And read! A lot. Read to children, read to adults. Go to your public library and check out books; visit the library’s website and checkout ebooks. Buy books. Give people books. Buy banned books.”
“Let #librarians and #teachers know you support them. Attend library and school board meetings; run for library and school boards. And #read! A lot. #Buy books. #Give people books. Buy #bannedbooks. — @Booklist_Donna”
Seaman adds, “Book lovers do have a say. Public libraries and public school libraries belong to the people. To all of us.”
“#Booklovers do have a say. Public libraries and public school libraries belong to the #people. To all of us. #education #readforchange ”
