Thursday, August 11, 2022

Top 10 books about women written out of history

Janina Ramirez is an Oxford lecturer, BBC broadcaster, researcher and author. She has presented and written over 30 hours of BBC history documentaries and series on TV and radio, and written five books for children and adults.

Ramirez's new book is Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It.

At the Guardian she tagged ten "books that have pushed the boundaries of history as a discipline and put the women back in." One title on the list:
The Taxidermist’s Daughter by Kate Mosse

Historical fiction was the main way I connected with women’s stories from the past when I was young, and Mosse is at the forefront of the genre. I love all her books but this one is most powerful for me because of the way she positions her protagonist Constantia within a complex and believable Sussex village more than a century ago. You can see, smell, touch and taste the past. The backdrop of taxidermy is also fascinating, since it is an art form that tries to capture time and preserve life after death.
Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue