The experiences, histories and definitions of women are so varied, that it seems inadequate to allocate just one month to the celebration such a group’s collective history. It would be more appropriate, at the very least, to have separate months for each woman we each personally know and admire, or maybe separate months for the histories of women who are multi-lingual, who always know what to order off the menu, or who are always ten minutes late… oh, not enough months, you say?
Since we’re restricted to just the one month (and therefore, book list), we’ve done our best to curate a selection that includes the tiny, personal, delicate histories as well as the expansive and consequential ones, plus as many as we can fit in-between.
Fiction
Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew (Arsenal Pulp Press)
This 2025 Canada Reads selection is a beautifully written and affecting novel about motherhood, family secrets, migration, isolation, and mental illness. With clarity and care, it delves into the many ways we define home, identity, and above all, belonging.
Available now!
Junie by Chelene Knight (Book*hug Press)
A riveting exploration of the complexity within mother-daughter relationships and the dynamic vitality of Vancouver’s former Hogan’s Alley neighbourhood.
1930s, Hogan’s Alley—a thriving Black and immigrant community located in Vancouver’s East End. Junie is a creative, observant child who moves to the alley with her mother, Maddie: a jazz singer with a growing alcohol dependency. Junie quickly makes meaningful relationships with two mentors and a girl her own age, Estelle, whose resilient and entrepreneurial mother is grappling with white scrutiny and the fact that she never really wanted a child.
As Junie finds adulthood, exploring her artistic talents and burgeoning sexuality, her mother sinks further into the bottle while the thriving neighbourhood—once gushing with potential—begins to change. As her world opens, Junie intuits the opposite for the community she loves.
Available now!
Your Body Was Made For This by Debbie Bateman (Ronsdale Press)
Eating too much, eating not enough, having sex, not having sex, aging parents, grief, drugs, childhood trauma, and the last call of ovaries — a woman’s body at mid-life can get messy.
Debbie Bateman’s stories take a clear-eyed look at the largely unexplored private world of a pivotal stage in virtually every woman’s life. These stories are linked not only by the characters, but also by the visceral themes of food, sex, exercise, beauty, and aging. The secret clenching of a fist, the unwinding of a silk scarf, the proud refusal to have breast reconstruction, the women in these stories want full authority over their bodies and their lives.
Available now!
Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi (Arsenal Pulp Press)
This 2021 Canada Reads finalist tells the interwoven stories of twin sisters, Kehinde and Taiye, and their mother, Kambirinachi. Kambirinachi feels she was born an Ogbanje, a spirit that plagues families with misfortune by dying in childhood to cause its mother misery. She believes that she has made the unnatural choice of staying alive to love her human family and now lives in fear of the consequences of that decision.
Butter Honey Pig Bread is a story of choices and their consequences, of motherhood, of the malleable line between the spirit and the mind, of finding new homes and mending old ones, of voracious appetites, of queer love, of friendship, faith, and above all, family.
Available now!
Shut Up You’re Pretty by Téa Mutonju (Arsenal Pulp Press)
In Téa Mutonji’s disarming debut story collection, a woman contemplates her Congolese traditions during a family wedding, a teenage girl looks for happiness inside a pack of cigarettes, a mother reconnects with her daughter through their shared interest in fish, and a young woman decides to shave her head in the waiting room of an abortion clinic. These punchy, sharply observed stories blur the lines between longing and choosing, exploring the narrator’s experience as an involuntary one. Tinged with pathos and humour, they interrogate the moments in which femininity, womanness, and identity are not only questioned but also imposed.
Available now!
Poetry
Revolutions by Hajer Mirwali (Talonbooks)
Revolutions sifts through the grains of Muslim daughterhood to reveal two metaphorical circles inextricably overlapping: shame and pleasure. In an extended conversation with Mona Hatoum’s artwork + and –, Revolutions asks how young Arab women – who live in homes and communities where actions are surveilled and categorized as 3aib or not 3aib, shameful or acceptable – make and unmake their identities. Working between a Palestinian and Iraqi poetics drawing from artists like Mahmoud Darwish and Naseer Shamma and a feminist Canadian poetics inspired by Erín Moure, M. NourbeSe Philip, and Nicole Brossard, Revolutions spirals and collapses as we turn and re-turn around its circles.
Coming soon! March 18 2025
My Eyes are Fuses by Norah Bowman (Caitlin Press)
Weaving together a modern retelling of Roman Empress Agrippina the Elder, a künstlerroman-inspired exploration of French sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle, and the contemporary portrait of an unhappily married mother, Bowman’s My Eyes Are Fuses is a bold exploration of tensions between freedom of art and the constraints of gender. Spanning centuries, these poems offer enchantments and antidotes, extract the poison from moments of pain, distil it down to a sweet elixir. Here, women are animals, witches, artists, rebels, imagined beyond their accomplishments, drawn together through time. With careful form, Bowman conjures a new chronicle for these women as time travellers, shapeshifters, goddesses akin to the three Fates, powerful beyond what their moments in time allowed of them.
Available now!
Standing in a River of Time by Jónína Kirton (Talonbooks)
Standing in a River of Time merges poetry and lyrical memoir on a journey exposing the intergenerational effects of colonization on a Métis family. Kirton does not shy away from hard realities, meeting them head on, but always treating them with respect and the love stemming from a lifetime of spiritual healing and decades of sobriety. This collection unravels painful memories and a mixed-blood woman’s journey towards wholeness.
Available now!
For kids
Lost at Windy River by Trina Rathgeber (Orca Book Publishers)
In 1944, thirteen-year-old Ilse Schweder got lost in a snowstorm while checking her family’s trapline in northern Canada. This is the harrowing story of how a young Indigenous girl defies the odds and endures nine days alone in the unforgiving barrens. Ilse faces many challenges, including freezing temperatures, wild animals, snow blindness and frostbite. With no food or supplies, she relies on Traditional Indigenous Knowledge passed down from her family. Ilse uses her connection to the land and animals, wilderness skills and resilience to find her way home. This powerful tale of survival is written by Ilse Schweder’s granddaughter.
Available now!
Game Changers by Charlene Smith (Orca Book Publishers)
Meet 13 inspiring hijabi athletes who are changing the rules! Discover the stories of Egyptian beach volleyball player Doaa Elghobashy, UAE hockey player Fatima Al Ali, Afghani soccer player Hajar Abulfazl and Syrian-American runner Rahaf Khatib, among many others. Game Changers shows the next generation of Muslim girls that they don’t have to choose between following their religion and following their dreams.
Available now!
Her Courage Rises: 50 Trailblazing Women of British Columbia and the Yukon by Haley Healey, illustrated by Kimiko Fraser (Heritage House Publishing)
This fascinating, informative, and charming book introduces young readers to a diverse group of women who changed the face of history in unexpected ways and defied the expectations and gender norms of their times. Through charming illustrations and concise biographies, Her Courage Rises features social activists and politicians, artists and writers, scientists and healers, pioneers and prospectors, athletes and entrepreneurs, teachers and cultural tradition keepers.
Available now!
Nonfiction
Drumming Our Way Home by Georgina Martin (UBC Press)
What does it mean to be Secwepemc? And how can an autobiographical journey to recover Secwepemc identity inform teaching and learning? Drumming Our Way Home demonstrates how telling, retelling, and re-storying lived experiences not only passes on traditional ways but also opens up a world of culture-based learning.
Georgina Martin was taken from her mother not long after her birth in a segregated tuberculosis hospital. Her experience is representative of the intergenerational trauma inflicted by the Canadian state on Indigenous peoples. Here she tells her story and invites Elder Jean William and youth Colten Wycotte to reflect critically on their own family and community experiences.
Available now!
Pentecostal Preacher Woman by Linda Ambrose (UBC Press)
Evangelical pastor, talk-show host, university chaplain, municipal politician, musician. Pentecostal Preacher Woman explores the multifaceted life of the Reverend Bernice Gerard (1923–2008), one of the most influential spiritual figures of twentieth-century British Columbia, whose complicated blend of social conservatism and social compassion has lessons for our polarized times.
Gerard aligned herself with individuals in the Social Credit party while supporting social justice causes that included the plight of refugees, Indigenous people, and Vancouver’s homeless population. She remained firmly rooted in patriarchal religious institutions but practised a kind of feminism and shared her life with a female partner.
Coming soon! July 15, 2025
The Boys’ Club: The Many Worlds of Male Power by Martine Delvaux, translated by Katia Grubisic (Talonbooks)
Acclaimed Québec feminist Martine Delvaux turns her sharp eye and even sharper pen on the history of gentlemen’s clubs and male fraternity in this wide-reaching study of patriarchy. Delvaux lays bare the brazen misogyny of boys’ clubs across many fields, including politics, entertainment, technology, law enforcement, architecture, and the military. Examining popular media produced by men about men, The Boys’ Club exposes a culture of consumption which profits off female experiences while disregarding female voices.
Available now!
Flow: Women’s Counternarratives from Rivers, Rock, and Sky by Denisa Krásná, Alena Rainsberry (RMB | Rocky Mountain Books)
Flow takes readers on an inspiring journey through the world of women in adventure sports, challenging stereotypes and celebrating the strength, resilience, and unity of women across the globe. This unique collection highlights the powerful, diverse voices of women who are redefining what’s possible in outdoor sports like whitewater kayaking, climbing, mountaineering, and highlining.
Available now!
Unbroken: My Fight for Survival, Hope, and Justice for Indigenous Women and Girls by Angela Sterritt (Greystone Books)
This BC Bestselling book by award-winning ex-CBC journalist Angela Sterritt is a remarkable work of memoir and investigative journalism focusing on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
Available now!
Kinauvit?: What’s Your Name? The Eskimo Disc System and a Daughter’s Search for her Grandmother by Norma Dunning (Douglas & McIntyre)
From the winner of the 2021 Governor General’s Award for literature, a revelatory look into an obscured piece of Canadian history: what was then called the Eskimo Identification Tag System. In 2001, Dr. Norma Dunning applied to the Nunavut Beneficiary program, requesting enrolment to legally solidify her existence as an Inuk woman. But in the process, she was faced with a question she could not answer, tied to a colonial institution retired decades ago: “What was your disc number?” Still haunted by this question years later, Dunning took it upon herself to reach out to Inuit community members who experienced the Eskimo Identification Tag System first-hand, providing vital perspective and nuance to the scant records available on the subject. Written with incisive detail and passion, Dunning provides readers with a comprehensive look into a bureaucracy sustained by the Canadian government for over thirty years, neglected by history books but with lasting echoes revealed in Dunning’s intimate interviews with affected community members.
Available now!
I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World
by Kai Cheng Thom (Arsenal Pulp Press)
In a heartbreaking yet hopeful collection of personal essays and prose poems, blending the confessional, political, and literary, acclaimed poet and essayist Kai Cheng Thom dives deep into the questions that haunt social movements today. With the author’s characteristic eloquence and honesty, I Hope We Choose Love proposes heartfelt solutions on the topics of violence, complicity, family, vengeance, and forgiveness. Taking its cues from contemporary thought leaders in the transformative justice movement such as adrienne maree brown and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, this provocative book is a call for nuance in a time of political polarization, for healing in a time of justice, and for love in an apocalypse.
Available now!
Echo Loba, Loba Echo: Of Wisdom, Wolves and Women by Sonja Swift (RMB | Rocky Mountain Books)
Echo Loba, Loba Echo is a story about the metaphor of the wolf and how this is echoed in the lives and minds of people. A metaphor that embodies worldviews colliding, and the collision, the fallout, we live with still. It is a story about wolves’ own cultures, survival stories, acts of rebellion, and vital roles in maintaining healthy territories. And it is also a story about what we have been told to forget, or never even know, and what wolves show us about ourselves.
Available now!