‍The Book Report by Rebecca Traver - Our Online Bookshop Curator

Dear book lovers, here we are in March already! How is this possible?? A brand new season is upon us and I am reveling in the shifts it is bringing – both inner and outer. After many years of severe drought, we’re having such an abundance of rain in my little part of the planet that I am seeing flowers grow on plants in my neighborhood that I didn’t even know could flower! I find that inspiring beyond measure. What new growth are you noticing that you haven’t noticed before?

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“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows 
poems by heart.”

~Rainer Maria Rilke

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In Celebration of Women’s History Month

“For me, feminism is a movement for which the end goal is to make itself irrelevant.” 

~Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of We Should All Be Feminists

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Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics by bell hooks is a short, accessible primer exploring the nature of feminism and its positive promise to eliminate sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.

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Hotbed: Bohemian Greenwich Village and the Secret Club That Sparked Modern Feminism by Joanna Scutts tells the dazzling story of the Greenwich Village feminists in the early 1900s who blazed a trail for some of the movement’s most radical ideas.

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The Feminist Utopia Project: Fifty-Seven Visions of a Wildly Better Future edited by Alexandra Brodsky and Rachel Kauder Nalebuff brings together more that fifty cutting-edge feminist writers, including Melissa Harris-Perry, Janet Mock, Sheila Heti, and Mia McKenzie, all inviting us to image a world of freedom and equality.

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The Feminism Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained is a fascinating introduction to the modern women’s rights movement’s origins all the way up to the present day. Here you’ll discover more than 100 amazing ideas that have defined the feminist movement through captivating text and bold graphics.

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Words of Wisdom for the Heart and Soul: Lessons, Insights, and Guidance from 36 Women of Influence from Sheri Sample-Carpenter, Natalie Purdie, and Shaniah Gunter is a compilation of encouragement, inspiration, and empowerment that will bless your life and spirit. The words of wisdom gathered here include thoughts on optimism, success, fear, overcoming failure, persistence, and resilience.

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New + Newly Discovered

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“Remember: this life is a process, it’s an ongoing conversation, 
and we kneel to greet the surge of it all.”

~Sarah Blondin

Heart Minded: How to Hold Yourself and Others in Love by Sarah Blondin encourages us to turn inward, toward our hearts, at exactly the points where we so want to turn away, to look outward for relief from overwhelm, negativity, or loneliness. She teaches, “No matter where you are, no matter what you are doing, you can touch this place in yourself to feel free and alive.”

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Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock from Jenny Odell, author of How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, is a deep dive into the fundamental structure of our society in which the clocks that we live by are built for profit, not people. Odell urges us to become stewards of our times and places – open to possibility and imagination.

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In a similar vein, Soul Shift: The Weary Human's Guide to Getting Unstuck and Reclaiming Your Path to Joy by Rachel Macy Stafford presents us with a practical and inclusive guide to navigating a culture of distraction and depletion to find our ways back to what delights our hearts, makes us feel alive, and brings us peace.

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Making Great Relationships: Simple Practices for Solving Conflicts, Building Connection, and Fostering Love by Rick Hanson is a comprehensive guide to fostering healthy, effective, and fulfilling relationships of all kinds; at home and at work, with family and friends, and with people who are challenging. Hanson gives us fifty simple yet powerful practices to help us handle conflicts, repair misunderstandings, get treated better, deepen a romantic partnership, be at peace with others, and give the love you have in your heart.

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The Measure of Our Lives: A Gathering of Wisdom is a beautiful and inspiring offering from the work of Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison with a foreword by Zadie Smith. Within its pages are quotations, one to a page, from Morrison’s entire body of work, both fiction and nonfiction – from The Bluest Eye to God Help the Child, from Playing in the Dark to The Source of Self-Regard – all of which tell a story of self-actualization and personal empowerment.

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In Deep Shift: Riding the Waves of Change to Find Peace, Fulfillment, and Freedom  by Valerie Gangas is an empowering guide to help effectively deal with those times when our lives turn upside down and inside out. Embracing change as a gateway is the overarching theme here, and I am heartened by that. I think you will be as well.

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Books for Young Readers + The People Who Love Them

Hello, Star by Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic with illustrations by Vashti Harrison tells the story of a young girl who, when she learns that a bright light in the night sky is coming from a dying star, promises to keep it company until the light goes out. This touching tribute to stars, space, and science celebrates how a small act of compassion can flourish into a life of meaning and wonder.

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Nell Plants a Tree from Anne Wynter, illustrated by Daniel Miyares is a gorgeous picture book showing how one little girl’s careful tending of a pecan tree creates the living center of a loving, intergenerational Black family.

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Instead of Three Wishes: Magical Short Stories by Megan Whalen Turner is a delightful collection of witty and sparkling fantasy stories, reminding us all that opportunities for magical adventure can appear in the most ordinary and unexpected places.

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Just Because + Just for Fun

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were
 fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want 
to be in calm waters all our lives.”

~Jane Austen, Persuasion

Jane Austen’s Little Book of Wisdom: Words on Love, Life, Society, and Literature compiled by Andrea Kirk Assaf is a treat for any Jane Austen fan with each chapter focusing on a different theme – from Love & Longing to Female Strength and more. 

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And to compliment the book above, may I suggest The World of Jane Austen 1000 Piece Puzzle? It features a wide cast of Austen’s contemporaries, characters, and settings.

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Please visit our online Bookshop to see our full selection of lists and titles. 

Thank you for supporting local, independent bookstores! 

We love connecting with you in the shop and online.

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May you be inspired, supported, and enriched by what you find here.

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