6 Books I'm Looking Forward to: Women's History Month Edition

Putting together this month’s reading list was difficult since I’ve been trying to focus on new and forthcoming women’s history books that involve science or health. Upcoming history books appear to be largely focused on men, a trend I thought we’d done a good job of upending over the past few years. Of the few forthcoming women’s history books I found, most are related to politics or royalty, and a few WWII.

It’s disheartening that there aren’t more such books being published on women in science, because I know there’s an interest. Here are 6 new or forthcoming books that pique my interest:

The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women’s Magic by Lindsey Stewart. “Black feminist philosopher Lindsey Stewart exposes this vital contour of American history. In the face of slavery, Negro Mammies fashioned a legacy of magic that begat herbal experts, fearsome water bearers, and powerful mojos—roles and traditions that for centuries have been passed down to respond to Black struggles in real time. And when Jim Crow was born, Granny Midwives and textile weavers leveled their techniques to protect our civil and reproductive rights, while Candy Ladies fed a generation of freedom crusaders.”

Hoax: Truth and Lies in the Age of Enlightenment by Madeleine Pelling. “The discoveries of the Enlightenment unsettled as much as they excited. New truths challenged longstanding beliefs. Rationalism jarred with superstition. Which voices would be heard in this ferocious battle for certainty? From the chaos, three women and their hoaxes rose as symbols of terror and fascination. But were the lies surrounding Fanny Lynes, Mary Bateman, and Mary Willcocks entirely of their own making? Why were the public transfixed? Questioning culpability and complicity, Pelling’s engrossing history of this great age of the hoax reveals a veiled world of moral panic, tall tales and true crime, and holds a mirror to our own turbulent relationship with truth.”

The Fallen: The Lost Girls of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries and a Legacy of Silence by Louise Brangan. “A haunting and brilliantly researched history which interrogates the culture of shame in Ireland, and tells the full story, for the first time, of the women confined within the walls of the Magdalene Laundries in the 20th century. The Magdalene Laundries, where ‘fallen’ women were sent for reform, were part of a larger carceral system in Ireland. … [that] held over one percent of the Irish population. Actions that could necessitate a woman’s reform were vast: wearing a short skirt, smoking, defiance, or, most troubling, pregnancy out of wedlock. Women were taken off the street, admitted by their families, or sent by the state when a girl had no family. Once a woman entered the system, it was almost impossible to leave.”

Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home by Katharine K Wilkinson. “In Climate Wayfinding, Wilkinson shares a proven process for looking inward with care, outward with curiosity, and forward with courage. Ultimately, readers chart a course toward playing their unique part in our collective healing. With her singular blend of warmth and rigor, Wilkinson lights the way through stirring personal essays, interwoven with the wisdom of other climate leaders and the beauty of poetry, art, and song.”

Witch’s Orchard: The magic and folklore of fruit, nuts and nature’s sweet harvest by Sandra Lawrence. “The magical use of edible plants—from the orchard and vineyard to the fig pit and hedgerow—is a tale as old as time. From Persephone’s pomegranates in ancient Greek myth to dragon fruit being born of the mythical creature’s fiery breath, and from hazel trees growing at the end of the world to breaking fast with dates, almost every ingredient in an ancient or modern orchard has been said to have powerful properties. Featuring over 60 species, with dozens of fascinating entries from around the world, this informative and entertaining gift book is the latest in Kew Royal Botanic Garden’s esoteric Witch’s Garden series.”

Bohemians on the Breadline: The Radical Women Artists of Roosevelt’s New Deal by Lauren Arrington. “Like millions of Americans in the Great Depression, artists Alice Neel, Augusta Savage, Georgette Seabrooke, Lenore Thomas Straus, Elizabeth Olds, and Pablita Velarde gratefully embraced employment under the Federal Arts Project. It was one of the most unique social experiments in U.S. history—mass public funding of art meant for the public. Murals were painted, sculptures cast, and art classes were taught, as these talented artists gave back to the communities they lived in. But these women were also making radical art that challenged racism, inequality, and capitalism.”

I’m also hopeful that Janina Ramírez’s latest, Legenda: The Real Women Behind the Myths That Shaped Europe, will get a North American publication soon.

Olivia Campbell is a New York Times bestselling author. Her latest book, Sisters in Science: How Four Women Physicists Escaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History, tells the story of four women who fought sexism to become brilliant physicists, only to be fired by the Nazis, and how they helped each other flee the country.

A seasoned journalist and essayist, Campbell is the resident “science of folklore” contributor at National Geographic. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, Washington Post, New York Magazine, People, Smithsonian Magazine, Scientific American, STAT News, Undark, Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Aeon, Catapult, Literary Hub, and History.com, among others. Find out more on her website.