Welcome back to Book Break!
And happy International Women's Day.
Now I'm going to talk about five incredible women in today's video.
These are all women who have released truly brilliant books this year.
And I have come here to tell you about them to Sketch.
Now Sketch is a fantastic place to celebrate International Women's Day, not just because
it's a favourite place to come with your girlfriends, though that is also true.
And not just because it's all themed in this beautiful colour of pink.
And pink is of course a colour that has a really interesting history when it comes to
gender.
For the longest time, it was actually assigned to baby boys, because it was considered the
strongest colour, as opposed to dainty delicate blue that was given to girls.
And noone really knows when that switched, when clothing manufacturers started assigning
pink as a girly colour, but whatever the reason, we are reclaiming it now as a strong colour
for womanhood.
But that's still not why I chose Sketch as the perfect place to celebrate International
Women's Day.
It's actually because this building played a really fascinating role in feminist history.
So back in 1869, suffragist Millicent Fawcett delivered a speech here at the first ever
public suffrage rally.
And Sketch actually have a room upstairs named after her in her honour.
But let's move on and talk about five more fantastic women, and the books they've released
this year that I have really loved, and think you will too.
So the first book on my list is Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi.
And first, can we just look at this beautiful gold cover?
And inside is wonderfully weird.
I have already read this book twice, and felt like I uncovered so much more each time I've
gone back to it.
So it's about three generations of the Lee women: Margot, Harriet and Perdita.
And they make this gingerbread that is so delicious, and so enchanting, that even Perdita,
who is a coeliac, cannot resist it.
So reading this book made me seriously crave gingerbread.
And the recipe for this gingerbread has been in their family for generations.
They learned it back when they lived in a far off land named Druhastrana, which now,
now they live in London, Harriet keeps obsessively googling, only to be repeatedly told by Wikipedia
that this country doesn't exist.
So we have two main timelines in the book.
In the present day, Harriet is telling her daughter Perdita about her childhood in Druhastrana.
And then we also flash back, and see that story play out.
What's weird though, is that both of these timelines seem to be totally timeless.
Even back in Harriet's childhood, they still have phones and texting, and that's only one
of the weird and wonderful things about this book.
We also have dolls that are half doll, half plant, and are very talkative.
And, there's a house that they once used to live in where the rooms can travel up and
down through the floors.
Overall, Gingerbread is a really beautiful book about home and about family and belonging.
And it is very dark and sweet at the same time, just like gingerbread itself.
The next book I want to tell you about is The Distance Home by Paula Saunders, and oh
my god this book is so sad.
It's about siblings Rene and Leon, and it's about their relationship with each other and
also with their parents Eve and Al.
So Rene and Leon are both really talented and passionate dancers, but this is something
that their father Al adores in Rene, but hates in Leon.
And then their mother Eve reacts to Al's neglect of Leon by picking on Rene, and thinking that
she is entitled and selfish.
So essentially both parents pick a favourite child, and end up causing them irreparable
damage along the way.
And just to make it even sadder, the book actually starts with a flash forward, so right
from the beginning we know that Leon has already died quite young.
Which just makes it even sadder watching him become more and more troubled, knowing what's
going to happen in the end.
So not a cheery book, but it is absolutely beautifully written, and you will care so
deeply about these characters.
Now The Braid by Laetitia Colombani is a really lovely story of intertwining lives.
So we have three women.
There's Smita, who lives in India, and she belongs to the lowest caste of society, who
are considered untouchables.
But she is determined to find a better life for her daughter.
And then in Sicily, we meet Giulia, who works at her father's wig factory, a business that
is slowly dying out in Italy.
And finally in Canada, we meet Sarah, a lawyer who is perfectly balancing her very high pressured
job with being a single mother to three children, until she learns that she has breast cancer.
So these three women's lives are braided together, without ever knowing about each other's existence,
they are linked by the hair that passes from one to another at turning points in each of
their lives.
And their stories are incredibly different, their lives are very very different, but they're
each so brave in different ways.
And I absolutely shot through this book all in one day, I just couldn't put it down.
Next, The Glovemaker, by Ann Weisgarber.
Now this is a fascinating historical fiction book set in 1880s Utah, and it's about the
small Mormon town of Junction, which has just eight families in it.
And I didn't really know anything about this period, so it was amazing to learn about it.
And it's rather a sad story in some ways.
So the main character, Deborah, her husband Samuel works away from town several months
at a time.
And he was expected back at the beginning of December, and we now find ourselves in
a snowy, cold, dangerous January.
He still hasn't made it back.
So that's this constant, rather sad backdrop.
We don't know what's happened to Samuel, but we get to read some of his letters home, and
see how much he loves his wife.
And we start to really worry that something might have happened to him.
But we also have this really tense story happening in Junction.
So it starts with a man who shows up at Deborah's door, on the run from the law, and asks for
help.
And she agrees to help him, not knowing quite how much danger she would end up putting herself
in.
And it's this tiny little town, essentially trapped in their homes because of the snow,
trying to keep this secret.
So it's really tense and claustrophobic feeling.
And there's an author's note at the end saying that it was based on these true stories, and
this true town, which is just so fascinating to hear about.
And finally, I've got It's Not About the Burqa, which is an amazing collection of essays edited
by Mariam Khan.
And it features contributors from the activist Mona Eltahawy, to the author Sufiyah Ahmed.
And this book is the answer to the way that Muslim women are obsessed over in Western
media, particularly in regards to the way they dress.
Whether they do or don't wear the burqa or the hijab, whether they are or aren't being
oppressed.
But whether it's Islamophobes or liberal feminists arguing over them, there's actually one key
thing that they have in common: they are not letting Muslim women speak for themselves.
So in this essay collection, that finally changes.
These are Muslim women talking about what's important to them.
And spoiler alert, it's not about the burqa.
These essays are about faith, they're about feminism, about sexuality and about mental
health.
And my personal favourite one to read was the essay contributed by the editor Mariam
Khan herself, and it's called Feminism Needs to Die.
And as a feminist myself, I found it really important to read, because it's all about
how mainstream white feminism is failing women of colour and women of faith.
And how we really need to change and grow and improve if we can ever claim that we're
fighting on behalf of all women.
So those were five of my favourite books by women that I've read recently.
But please do comment below letting me know your favourites, I always want more recommendations.
And of course do give this video a thumbs up, and hit that subscribe button below, because
we post new videos on this channel every Thursday.
And coming up next week, we've got a really fab guest host, who's going to tell us about
some of her favourite Irish writers.
And in the meantime, you can always go and follow our Instagram @bookbreakuk, we've got
lots of really fun behind the scenes content over there.
See you next time!