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Spark Reading

Celebrating Women's History Month 

This March, we're celebrating the incredible achievements of women throughout history. To mark the occasion, our Executive Director, Toni Smith, has curated a special reading list featuring five captivating books.

This collection offers a rich tapestry of voices and experiences. You'll find stories written about or by inspiring women authors, narratives that delve into the lives of remarkable women from the past and present, and books that empower and uplift women of all backgrounds.

Each selection promises to educate, inspire, and entertain. Grab a copy of one or more titles through our affiliate program at bookshop.org, and a cup of tea, and join us in celebrating the power and diversity of women!

  • Why this book:
    This book was featured on our Summer Reading 2023 list. What better way to celebrate Women’s History Month than by committing to writing our own, individual manifesto? I appreciate the book for the Reflections section which serves as a guide to identifying one's highest values and preparing one's manifesto. I am still working on this part.
    ~
    For activist, philanthropist, and CEO Rachel E. Cargle, reimagining--the act of creating in our minds that which does not exist but that we believe can and should--has been a lifelong process. These defining moments offer a blueprint for how we must all use our imagination--the space that sees beyond limits--to live in alignment with our highest values and to craft a world independent of oppressive structures, both personal and societal.

  • Why this book:
    When I first learned of this book, I was very interested in the perspective as a man writes it. I have not read it yet and am looking forward to doing so this year.
    ~
    From Nobel laureate, world-renowned doctor, and noted human rights activist Dr. Denis Mukwege comes an inspiring clarion call to action to confront the scourge of sexual violence and better learn from women's resilience, strength, and power.

    Dr. Mukwege's dramatic personal story is interwoven throughout as he explores the bigger issues that have become a focus of his advocacy. He will seek to explain why sexual violence is so often overlooked during war, and how governments need to recognize and compensate victims. He will also stress the importance of breaking down the taboos surrounding assault and the necessity of building a system that supports women who come forward.

  • Why this book:
    To this day, I am still a little miffed I missed the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System’s County Reads 2022/2023 special author talk and book signing with Rabia Chaudry at the Greenbelt Branch Library, in December 2022. Judging from the title, I am interested in seeing what, if any, parallels exist between Pakistani and African American cultures.
    ~
    "A delicious and mouthwatering book about food and family, the complicated love for both, and how that shapes us into who we are . . . I absolutely loved it!" --Valerie Bertinelli

    Rabia Chaudry--known from the podcast Serial and her bestselling book, Adnan's Story, as well as her own wildly popular podcast, Undisclosed--serves up a candid and intimate memoir about food, body image, and growing up in a tight-knit but sometimes overly concerned Pakistani immigrant family.

  • Why this book:
    I enjoy reading essays and short stories because I can actually finish reading them in one setting. There are discussion questions at the end of each story which makes the book great as a book club selection.
    ~
    Since founding the beloved Well-Read Black Girl book club in 2015, Glory Edim has emerged as a literary tastemaker for a new generation. Continuing her life's work to brighten and enrich American reading lives through the work of legendary Black authors, she now launches her Well-Read Black Girl Library Series with On Girlhood. This meticulously selected anthology features a wide range of unique voices, finally illuminating a distinctly robust sector of contemporary literature: groundbreaking short stories that explore the thin yet imperative line between Black girlhood and womanhood.
    Divided into four themes--Innocence, Belonging, Love, and Self-Discovery--the unforgettable young protagonists within contend with the trials of coming of age that shape who they are and what they will become. With this tradition in mind, Innocence opens with Jamaica Kincaid's searing "Girl," in which a mother offers fierce instructions to her impressionable daughter. This deceptively simple yet profound monologue is followed by Toni Morrison's first and only published short story, the now-canonical "Recitatif," about two neglected girls who come together in youth only to find themselves on opposite picket lines in adulthood.

  • Why this book:
    There have only been three books that I have picked up and practically read straight through in one setting – Sula by Toni Morrison, The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger, and this one. Page turners I believe they are called. This was my introduction to Joan Didion.
    ~
    A NEW YORK TIMES bestseller – National Book Award winner - From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion that explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage--and a life, in good times and bad--that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.

    This powerful book is Didion's attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness ... about marriage and children and memory ... about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself.

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