"That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet."

30 Things I Love About Myself - Radhika Sanghani

A great story about Nina ‘embracing’ turning 30 with all the expectations from society exacerbated by her overly critical mother, that manages to be simultaneously self deprecating and life affirming at the same time.

We should all do this and own who we are. Embrace what we are and everything that makes us different. Positively attributing anything that others like to put a negative spin on that doesn’t serve us. We need to be kinder to ourselves and worry less about what people want to put on us.

We all need to find our own way.

 

Dangerous Women: Fifty reflections on women, power and identity
Jo Shaw, Ben Fletcher-Watson, Abrisham Ahmadzadeh

Giving women agency, that makes them dangerous. Giving them knowledge and the ability to defend themselves, makes them dangerous. Destabilising what has been accepted and expected for too long, is dangerous. Whatever next?

Women who don’t fall into line are dangerous. They affect the status quo. They incite jealousy and fear of the unknown. What? Should I be rethinking my/the traditional path? This challenges a concept of what is expected a path easily laid out for us…. Very dangerous. I will continue with my sarcasm…

Although, who is more dangerous, those forging a new alternative way or those who react with fearful outrage and persecution at what they are comfortable with, being threatened.

If women can think for themselves that threatens 1000’s of years of historical traditions. We know where we are with traditions.

Negative stereotypes are used to label women to be derogatory and warn others not to follow suit… Do you want to be labelled this way? The ultimate didactic narrative of Adam and Eve and how she was punished for not doing as she was told.

Constantly overwhelmed with conscious and unconscious patriarchal rhetoric spun for years. We are conscious and unconscious victims of patriarchy. This book is a great selection of tales of ‘dangerous women’ and turns the concept on its head. We should strive to be dangerous women and celebrate them.

https://dangerouswomenproject.org/

 

The Former Boy Wonder - Robert Graham

The book follows the tale of freelance music writer Peter Duffy as he descends into a full blown mid-life crisis - no work for freelance writers, teenage son won't speak to him, marriage in tatters and chasing his first love or at least the idea of what it possibly was. A very funny and frank ‘fictional’ story of the time old ideal that the grass could be greener elsewhere when nostalgia and mundanity hits us, often coincidentally for many at our mid-way point in life. Imagining the ‘what if’s’ are a great way to pass the time when you feel that excitement is harder to come by. What could be the harm, eh? 

 

 

100 Voices - By Miranda Roszkowski

100 years after getting the Vote, 100 female writers share their story

A fantastic selection of voices talking about their own achievements relevant to them. We are all different. Different goals, different backgrounds, history, challenges and priorities. It doesn’t have to be big, it just needs to matter to us.

The variety of such stories in this book gives a great scope of ideas for us to identify with and appreciate of others. To help us recognise our own achievements, as too often we get caught up in the comparative nature of the achievement of other people that is regularly irrelevant!

We need to recognise what we like about ourselves, sing our own praises. Focus on what we have achieved and use that to spur us on.

We have come so far in 100 years and yet still there is further to go which will be a constant challenge as the world changes around us. But women are strong and books like this remind us of this when media panic and the less appealing side of society tries to tell us otherwise.

Mental health is such a prevalent topic right now and a lot of it can be attributed in some way to feelings of failure and loneliness. 100 Voices shares and promotes our successes. It is about women, but it is for everyone.

www.100voicesfor100years.com

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Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body - Joseph Addison