International
Women's Day 2023
Women's Day 2023
Pandora Sykes recommends...
Pandora Sykes
Pandora Sykes is a writer and podcaster, whose debut book How Do We Know We Are Doing It Right? came out last summer. The former co-host of The High Low podcast, she is currently working on series 2 of The Missing, a podcast about long-term missing people. Here she shares with us the books she recommends.There are hundreds and hundreds of brilliant books authored by women, that I think other women should read. Whittling this down is not easy. But here are three that grabbed me by the heart and hand...
I Am Not Your Baby Mother
by Candice BrathwaiteI was hooked from the very first page - a memoir/ manifesto, written with passion, pace and enormous insight. Candice is such an engaging writer and her observations on Black pregnancy, birth (where Black women are five times more likely to die than White women) and motherhood have functioned as a lightning rod for social change. I recommend this to anyone - child-free or mother. It's eminently readable and total dynamite.
A Love Story for Bewildered Girls
by Emma MorganNot enough people have read this. It should be on every woman's bookshelf. It's a funny, heart-stoppingly tender, trojan horse of a book about three female friends - one straight, one gay, one not quite sure - loving and losing people, and losing and loving themselves and each other, in the process. (It reminds me quite a lot of A Girl's Guide To Hunting and Fishing). You don't have to be muddled in love to appreciate this - it's just the tonic for these frazzling, chaotic times.
Intimations
by Zadie SmithQuite a few people right now are struggling to read long-form, so a short collection of essays like this is just the ticket. Each essay is no longer than ten or so pages maximum, Zadie writes about the here and now with typical clarity and insight. So much has been written about All This, and yet she manages to bring fresh revelation and humour, to topics such as suffering, isolation and creativity. It's my favourite thing she has written since NW10. Read this if you're bored of the doomy news cycle, but want to keep rooted in the present.
