Hi Piscataway! I’m Alli; I’m a page at Westergard and working towards my Master’s in Women’s Gender and Sexuality studies Rutgers-NB. I love to connect my interests: libraries, pop culture, and feminism, so I’m here to share some recommendations for feminist eBooks and audiobooks we have available at PPL! All of these are available currently on our websites and apps so you can read or listen at home.
Ask: Building Consent Culture – Kitty Stryker [nonfiction] (eBook available on hoopla)
An anthology edited by Kitty Stryker, this modern text has multiple viewpoints including activists, journalists, writers on what ‘consent’ can look like, from romance to teaching children to Role-Playing games. This book is a response to the culture we live in and looks to a future with a consent culture.
Bad Feminist: Essay – Roxane Gay [nonfiction] (audiobook available on hoopla and eLibraryNJ, eBook available on eLibraryNJ)
In Gay’s modern-classic collection essays, she details through pieces about pop culture and modern politics her transition to embracing being a ‘bad feminist’.
The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love – Sonya Renee Taylor [nonfiction] (audiobook available on hoopla)
Taylor reminds us in this powerful book that our bodies are our own, moving beyond oppressive ideals of how bodies should be to aim toward “radical self-love”.
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower – Brittney Cooper [nonfiction] (eBook available on eLibraryNJ)
Rutgers-New Brunswick’s own Dr. Brittney Cooper shares a collection of essays about Black feminism in pop culture, her own experiences in the South, and more, moving past feeling guilty about anger and toward seeing the power in her rage.
Get a Life, Chloe Brown – Talia Hibbert [fiction] (eBook available on eLibraryNJ and hoopla, audiobook available on hoopla)
Chronically ill Chloe wants to “get a life” and looks to her neighbor Red to help her learn to be bad. Feminist disabled romance!
Feminism is for Everybody – bell hooks [nonfiction] (eBook available on hoopla)
This book is a classic from one of the most iconic Black feminists in the current moment. A must-read for those new to OR well-versed in feminism.
Feminist, Queer, Crip – Alison Kafer [nonfiction] (eBook available on hoopla)
A scholarly text regarding crip theory and disabled feminist theories, this book shows how presents and futures can and do look different for people with disabilities and/or ‘crips’. While scholarly, this text is more accessible than most and is one of my personal favorites I cannot recommend it highly enough for folks interested in feminism, antiracism, LGBTQ+ and disability activism.
Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us – Kate Bornstein [nonfiction] (hoopla audio)
Performance artist, playwright, and activist Bornstein updated and revised her original release form the 1990s in this 2016 edition of Gender Outlaw. Messing with notions of gender and sexuality, Bornstein also messed with notions of narrative flow itself as she investigates gender.
How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective – Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor [nonfiction] (eBook available on hoopla)
In this short but powerful read, Taylor pairs the original Combahee River Collective statement—credited with being an original document for what we now understand as intersectionality—with contextual essays and interviews with members of the original Combahee River Collective.
Kindred – Octavia Butler- [fiction] (eBook available on eLibraryNJ)
In this 1979 novel, Black female protagonist Dana continues to be transported from her time in L.A. to a plantation in Maryland pre-Civil War. Afro-futurist icon Butler does not shy from the tragedy of American plantation slavery or the feelings of contemporary (in the 70s) Black women and their relationship to their ancestors, troubling many narratives with this book. It is a rough read- there is lots of violence- but it’s message seems eternally necessary.
Little Fires Everywhere -Celeste Ng [fiction] (eBook and audio on eLibraryNJ)
This novel- now a Hulu adaptation- by bestselling author Ng follows a single mother and teenage daughter who rent a house apartment from a rule-following family in a status-quo-heavy suburb.
Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More – Janet Mock [nonfiction] (audiobook available on hoopla)
Mock’s first memoir about growing up as a trans girl is an easy-to-read, educational, and heartwarming piece. I consider this piece fundamental to my feminist understandings.
The Refrigerator Monologues- Catherynne M. Valente, Annie Wu [fiction] (audiobook available on hoopla)
The title is a play on ‘fridged’ or mistreated female characters in superhero comic stories. This novel subverts and explores the themes of women and heroism by telling the stories of 6 women in a superhero-verse.
Sister outsider – Audre Lorde [poetry] (audiobook available on hoopla)
Audre Lorde was a “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” and activist who wrote fundamental pieces of theoretical work as well as memoirs, biography, and poetry. Sister Outsider is one collection of her poetry.