Emma Watson
British Actress, Activist, and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador
Book Recommendations:
Recommended by Emma Watson
"Stories and inspiring visuals for girls with old souls." --Entertainment Weekly Rookiemag.com is a website created by and for young women to make the best of the beauty, pain and awkwardness of being a teenager. When it becomes tough to appreciate such things, we have good plain fun and visual pleasure. When youâre sick of having to be happy all the time, we have lots of rants, too. Every school year, we compile the best from the site into a print yearbook. Behold: our Senior year! In Rookie Yearbook Four, we take a good, long look at stuff like friendship, crushes, speaking out, taking action, and learning about yourself. Our Senior year is full of beautiful art and photographs, playlists, DIY tutorials, advice ranging from how to get over trauma to how to write a college admissions essay, interviews with Rookie role models like Marina and the Diamonds, TLC, Laverne Cox, and FKA twigs, and exclusive content from Willow Smith, Ariana Grande, Solange, Charli XCX, Lorde, Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine, Hayley Williams of Paramore, and Donna Tartt, PLUS a sticker sheet, posters, pizza banner, teen bedroom diorama, and collage kit. Schoolâs out, but Rookie is immortalized right here, in print, forever.
Recommended by Emma Watson
Here, in one volume: Marjane Satrapi's best-selling, internationally acclaimed graphic memoir of growing up as a girl in Iran during the revolution has for twenty years been a classroom staple, a feminist manifesto, and one of the most popular and widely known graphic novels of all time. "A stunning graphic memoir...a wholly original achievement in the form." âThe New York Times Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecomingâboth sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up. Edgy, searingly observant, and candid, often heartbreaking but threaded throughout with raw humor and hard-earned wisdomâPersepolis is a stunning work from one of the most highly regarded, singularly talented graphic artists at work today.
Recommended by Emma Watson
Recommended by Emma Watson
âCall it The Hunger Games of Thrones. Erika Johansenâs debut novel is a genre mashup: medieval fantasy meets dystopian future. . . . An addictive and enjoyable adventure. . . . The Tear is just as easy to get sucked into as Westeros or Hogwarts or Panem.â âUSA Today Magic, adventure, mystery, and romance combine in this epic debut in which a young princess must reclaim her dead motherâs throne, learn to be a rulerâand defeat the Red Queen, a powerful and malevolent sorceress determined to destroy her. On her nineteenth birthday, Princess Kelsea Raleigh Glynn, raised in exile, sets out on a perilous journey back to the castle of her birth to ascend her rightful throne. Plain and serious, a girl who loves books and learning, Kelsea bears little resemblance to her mother, the vain and frivolous Queen Elyssa. But though she may be inexperienced and sheltered, Kelsea is not defenseless: Around her neck hangs the Tearling sapphire, a jewel of immense magical power; and accompanying her is the Queenâs Guard, a cadre of brave knights led by the enigmatic and dedicated Lazarus. Kelsea will need them all to survive a cabal of enemies who will use every weaponâfrom crimson-caped assassins to the darkest blood magicâto prevent her from wearing the crown. Despite her royal blood, Kelsea feels like nothing so much as an insecure girl, a child called upon to lead a people and a kingdom about which she knows almost nothing. But what she discovers in the capital will change everything, confronting her with horrors she never imagined. An act of singular daring will throw Kelseaâs kingdom into tumult, unleashing the vengeance of the tyrannical ruler of neighboring Mortmesne: the Red Queen, a sorceress possessed of the darkest magic. Now Kelsea will begin to discover whom among the servants, aristocracy, and her own guard she can trust. But the quest to save her kingdom and meet her destiny has only just begunâa wondrous journey of self-discovery and a trial by fire that will make her a legend . . . if she can survive.
Recommended by Emma Watson
Annie John is a haunting and provocative story of a young girl growing up on the island of Antigua. A classic coming-of-age story in the tradition of The Catcher in the Rye and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Kincaidâs novel focuses on a universal, tragic, and often comic theme: the loss of childhood. Annieâs voiceâurgent, demanding to be heardâis one that will not soon be forgotten by readers. An adored only child, Annie has until recently lived an idyllic life. She is inseparable from her beautiful mother, a powerful presence, who is the very center of the little girlâs existence. Loved and cherished, Annie grows and thrives within her motherâs benign shadow. Looking back on her childhood, she reflects, âIt was in such a paradise that I lived.â When she turns twelve, however, Annieâs life changes, in ways that are often mysterious to her. She begins to question the cultural assumptions of her island world; at school she instinctively rebels against authority; and most frighteningly, her mother, seeing Annie as a âyoung lady,â ceases to be the source of unconditional adoration and takes on the new and unfamiliar guise of adversary. At the end of her school years, Annie decides to leave Antigua and her family, but not without a measure of sorrow, especially for the mother she once knew and never ceases to mourn. âFor I could not be sure,â she reflects, âwhether for the rest of my life I would be able to tell when it was really my mother and when it was really her shadow standing between me and the rest of the world."
Recommended by Emma Watson
When radio show host Teresa Rae Wood dies, her common-law husband and children, struggling to keep her memory alive, become isolated in grief just when they need one another the most.
Recommended by Emma Watson
âIâve lived through ten iOS upgrades on my Mac â and thatâs just something I use to muck about on Twitter. Surely capitalism is due an upgrade or two?â When Caitlin Moran sat down to choose her favourite pieces for her new book she realised that they all seemed to join up. Turns out, itâs the same old problems and the same old ass-hats. Then she thought of the word âMoranifestoâ, and she knew what she had to do⌠This is Caitlinâs engaging and amusing rallying call for our times. Combining the best of her recent columns with lots of new writing unique to this book, Caitlin deals with topics as pressing and diverse as 1980s swearing, benefits, boarding schools, and why the internet is like a drunken toddler. And whilst never afraid to address the big issues of the day â such as Benedict Cumberbatch and duffel coats â Caitlin also makes a passionate effort to understand our 21st century society and presents us with her âMoranifestoâ for making the world a better place. The polite revolution starts here! Please.
Recommended by Emma Watson
***NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*** ***BEST BOOKS OF 2018 SELECTION BY*** * WASHINGTON POST * People * NPR * ESQUIRE * ELLE * WIRED * REFINERY 29 * âIn a year when issues of gender and sexuality dominated the national conversation, no one shaped that exchange more than Rebecca Traister. Her wise and provocative columns helped make sense of a cultural transformation.ââNational Magazine Award Citation, 2018 âThe most brilliant voice on feminism in this country.ââAnne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird From Rebecca Traister, the New York Times bestselling author of All the Single Ladies comes a vital, incisive exploration into the transformative power of female anger and its ability to transcend into a political movement. In the year 2018, it seems as if womenâs anger has suddenly erupted into the public conversation. But long before Pantsuit Nation, before the Womenâs March, and before the #MeToo movement, womenâs anger was not only politically catalyticâbut politically problematic. The story of female fury and its cultural significance demonstrates the long history of bitter resentment that has enshrouded womenâs slow rise to political power in America, as well as the ways that anger is received when it comes from women as opposed to when it comes from men. With eloquence and fervor, Rebecca tracks the history of female anger as political fuelâfrom suffragettes marching on the White House to office workers vacating their buildings after Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Here Traister explores womenâs anger at both men and other women; anger between ideological allies and foes; the varied ways anger is perceived based on its owner; as well as the history of caricaturing and delegitimizing female anger; and the way womenâs collective fury has become transformative political fuelâas is most certainly occurring today. She deconstructs societyâs (and the mediaâs) condemnation of female emotion (notably, rage) and the impact of their resulting repercussions. Highlighting a double standard perpetuated against women by all sexes, and its disastrous, stultifying effect, Traisterâs latest is timely and crucial. It offers a glimpse into the galvanizing force of womenâs collective anger, which, when harnessed, can change history.
Recommended by Emma Watson
An updated, third edition of the renowned feministâs most diverse and timeless collection of essays, with a new foreword by Emma Watson. Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions has sold over half a million copies since its original publication in 1983, acclaimed for its witty, warm, and life-changing view of the world, "as if women mattered." Steinem's truly personal writing is here, from the now-famous exposĂŠ, "I Was a Playboy Bunny," to the moving tribute to her mother "Ruth's Song (Because She Could Not Sing It)". Her prescient essays on female genital mutilation and the difference between erotica and pornography that are still referenced and relevant today, and the hilarious satire, "If Men Could Menstruateâ resonates as much as ever. As Watson writes of Steinem in her foreword, âShe makes what otherwise can be arduous and depressing reading into something not only relatable, but also enjoyable... Her plain common sense, calling things out as they are, will make you laugh out loud. This is her superpower.â
Recommended by Emma Watson
This New York Times bestselling âEco Bibleâ (Time magazine) teaches us that economic growth must be responsibly balanced with the needs of communities and the environment. âEmbracing what Schumacher stood for--above all the idea of sensible scale--is the task for our time. Small is Beautiful could not be more relevant. It was first published in 1973, but it was written for our time.â â Bill McKibben, from the Foreword Small Is Beautiful is Oxford-trained economist E. F. Schumacherâs classic call for the end of excessive consumption. Schumacher inspired such movements as âBuy Locallyâ and âFair Trade,â while voicing strong opposition to âcasino capitalismâ and wasteful corporate behemoths. Named one of the Times Literary Supplementâs 100 Most Influential Books Since World War II, Small Is Beautiful presents eminently logical arguments for building our economies around the needs of communities, not corporations.
Recommended by Emma Watson
From #1 New York Times bestselling author and âqueen of royal fictionâ (USA TODAY) Philippa Gregory comes the remarkable story of Katherine of Aragon, Princess of Spain, daughter of two great monarchs, and eventual Queen of England when she marries the infamous King Henry VIII. Daughter of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain, Katherine has been fated her whole life to marry Prince Arthur of England. When they meet and are married, the match becomes as passionate as it is politically expedient. The young lovers revel in each otherâs company and plan the England they will make together. But tragically, aged only fifteen, Arthur falls ill and extracts from his sixteen-year-old bride a deathbed promise to marry his brother, Henry; become Queen; and fulfill their dreams and her destiny. Widowed and alone in the avaricious world of the Tudor court, Katherine has to sidestep her father-in-lawâs desire for her and convince him, and an incredulous Europe, that her marriage to Arthur was never consummated, that there is no obstacle to marriage with Henry. For seven years, she endures the treachery of spies, the humiliation of poverty, and intense loneliness and despair while she waits for the inevitable moment when she will step into the role she has prepared for all her life. Then, like her warrior mother, Katherine must take to the battlefield and save England when its old enemies the Scots come over the border and there is no one to stand against them but the new Queen.
Recommended by Emma Watson
âDear Ava, I loved your book.â âAward-winning actress Emma Watson For fans of Kathleen Glasgow and Amber Smith, Ava Dellaira writes about grief, love, and family with a haunting and often heartbreaking beauty in this emotionally stirring, critically acclaimed debut novel, Love Letters to the Dead. It begins as an assignment for English class: Write a letter to a dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain because her sister, May, loved him. And he died young, just like May did. Soon, Laurel has a notebook full of letters to people like Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Amelia Earhart, Heath Ledger, and moreâthough she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about starting high school, navigating new friendships, falling in love for the first time, learning to live with her splintering family. And, finally, about the abuse she suffered while May was supposed to be looking out for her. Only then, once Laurel has written down the truth about what happened to herself, can she truly begin to accept what happened to May. And only when Laurel has begun to see her sister as the person she wasâlovely and amazing and deeply flawedâcan she begin to discover her own path.
Recommended by Emma Watson
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ⢠A moving memoir about the legendary authorâs relationship with her own mother. Emma Watsonâs Our Shared Shelf Book Club Pick! The story of Maya Angelouâs extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple bestselling autobiographies. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother. For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presenceâa presence absent during much of Angelouâs early life. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old Maya and her older brother away from their California home to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. The subsequent feelings of abandonment stayed with Angelou for years, but their reunion, a decade later, began a story that has never before been told. In Mom & Me & Mom, Angelou dramatizes her years reconciling with the mother she preferred to simply call âLady,â revealing the profound moments that shifted the balance of love and respect between them. Delving into one of her lifeâs most rich, rewarding, and fraught relationships, Mom & Me & Mom explores the healing and love that evolved between the two women over the course of their lives, the love that fostered Maya Angelouâs rise from immeasurable depths to reach impossible heights. Praise for Mom & Me & Mom âMom & Me & Mom is delivered with Angelouâs trademark good humor and fierce optimism. If any resentments linger between these lines, if lives are partially revealed without all the bitter details exposed, well, that is part of Angelouâs forgiving design. As an account of reconciliation, this little book is just revealing enough, and pretty irresistible.ââThe Washington Post âMoving . . . a remarkable portrait of two courageous souls.ââPeople â[The] latest, and most potent, of her serial autobiographies . . . [a] tough-minded, tenderhearted addition to Angelouâs spectacular canon.ââElle âMesmerizing . . . Angelou has a way with words that can still dazzle us, and with her mother as a subject, Angelou has a near-perfect muse and mystery woman.ââEssence
Recommended by Emma Watson
In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor-in-chief of French Elle, the father of two young childen, a 44-year-old man known and loved for his wit, his style, and his impassioned approach to life. By the end of the year he was also the victim of a rare kind of stroke to the brainstem.  After 20 days in a coma, Bauby awoke into a body which had all but stopped working: only his left eye functioned, allowing him to see and, by blinking it, to make clear that his mind was unimpaired. Almost miraculously, he was soon able to express himself in the richest detail: dictating a word at a time, blinking to select each letter as the alphabet was recited to him slowly, over and over again. In the same way, he was able eventually to compose this extraordinary book. By turns wistful, mischievous, angry, and witty, Bauby bears witness to his determination to live as fully in his mind as he had been able to do in his body. He explains the joy, and deep sadness, of seeing his children and of hearing his aged father's voice on the phone. In magical sequences, he imagines traveling to other places and times and of lying next to the woman he loves. Fed only intravenously, he imagines preparing and tasting the full flavor of delectable dishes. Again and again he returns to an "inexhaustible reservoir of sensations," keeping in touch with himself and the life around him. Jean-Dominique Bauby died two days after the French publication of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. This book is a lasting testament to his life.
Recommended by Emma Watson
From the bestselling author of The Vagina Monologues and one of Newsweek's 150 Women Who Changed the World, a visionary memoir of separation and connectionâto the body, the self, and the world Playwright, author, and activist Eve Ensler has devoted her life to the female bodyâhow to talk about it, how to protect and value it. Yet she spent much of her life disassociated from her own bodyâa disconnection brought on by her father's sexual abuse and her mother's remoteness. "Because I did not, could not inhabit my body or the Earth," she writes, "I could not feel or know their pain." But Ensler is shocked out of her distance. While working in the Congo, she is shattered to encounter the horrific rape and violence inflicted on the women there. Soon after, she is diagnosed with uterine cancer, and through months of harrowing treatment, she is forced to become first and foremost a bodyâpricked, punctured, cut, scanned. It is then that all distance is erased. As she connects her own illness to the devastation of the earth, her life force to the resilience of humanity, she is finally, fullyâand gratefullyâjoined to the body of the world. Unflinching, generous, and inspiring, Ensler calls on us all to embody our connection to and responsibility for the world.
Recommended by Emma Watson
Following in the tradition of John Howard Griffin (Black Like Me) and Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed), Norah Vincent absorbed a cultural experience and reported back on what she observed incognito. For more than a year and a half she ventured into the world as Ned, with an ever-present five o'clock shadow, a crew cut, wire-rim glasses, and her own size 11 1/2 shoes-a perfect disguise that enabled her to observe the world of men as an insider. The result is a sympathetic, shrewd, and thrilling tour de force of immersion journalism that's destined to challenge preconceptions and attract enormous attention. With her buddies on the bowling league she enjoyed the rough and rewarding embrace of male camaraderie undetectable to an outsider. A stint in a high-octane sales job taught her the gut- wrenching pressures endured by men who would do anything to succeed. She frequented sex clubs, dated women hungry for love but bitter about men, and infiltrated all- male communities as hermetically sealed as a men's therapy group, and even a monastery. Narrated in her utterly captivating prose style and with exquisite insight, humor, empathy, nuance, and at great personal cost, Norah uses her intimate firsthand experience to explore the many remarkable mysteries of gender identity as well as who men are apart from and in relation to women. Far from becoming bitter or outraged, Vincent ended her journey astounded-and exhausted-by the rigid codes and rituals of masculinity. Having gone where no woman (who wasn't an aspiring or actual transsexual) has gone for any significant length of time, let alone eighteen months, Norah Vincent's surprising account is an enthralling reading experience and a revelatory piece of anecdotally based gender analysis that is sure to spark fierce and fascinating conversation.
Recommended by Emma Watson
From the guitarist of the pioneering band Sleater-Kinney, the book Kim Gordon says "everyone has been waiting for" and a New York Times Notable Book of 2015-- a candid, funny, and deeply personal look at making a life--and finding yourself--in music. Before Carrie Brownstein became a music icon, she was a young girl growing up in the Pacific Northwest just as it was becoming the setting for one the most important movements in rock history. Seeking a sense of home and identity, she would discover both while moving from spectator to creator in experiencing the power and mystery of a live performance. With Sleater-Kinney, Brownstein and her bandmates rose to prominence in the burgeoning underground feminist punk-rock movement that would define music and pop culture in the 1990s. They would be cited as âAmericaâs best rock bandâ by legendary music critic Greil Marcus for their defiant, exuberant brand of punk that resisted labels and limitations, and redefined notions of gender in rock. HUNGER MAKES ME A MODERN GIRL is an intimate and revealing narrative of her escape from a turbulent family life into a world where music was the means toward self-invention, community, and rescue. Along the way, Brownstein chronicles the excitement and contradictions within the eraâs flourishing and fiercely independent music subculture, including experiences that sowed the seeds for the observational satire of the popular television series Portlandia years later. With deft, lucid prose Brownstein proves herself as formidable on the page as on the stage. Accessibly raw, honest and heartfelt, this book captures the experience of being a young woman, a born performer and an outsider, and ultimately finding oneâs true calling through hard work, courage and the intoxicating power of rock and roll.
Recommended by Emma Watson
Fiction. LGBTQIA Studies. Asian and Asian American Studies. Young Adult. FIERCE FEMMES AND NOTORIOUS LIARS: A DANGEROUS TRANS GIRL'S CONFABULOUS MEMOIR is the highly sensational, ultra-exciting, sort-of true coming-of-age story of a young Asian trans girl, pathological liar, and kung-fu expert who runs away from her parents' abusive home in a rainy city called Gloom. Striking off on her own, she finds her true family in a group of larger-than-life trans femmes who live in a mysterious pleasure district known only as the Street of Miracles. Under the wings of this fierce and fabulous flock, the protagonist blossoms into the woman she has always dreamed of being, with a little help from the unscrupulous Doctor Crocodile. When one of their number is brutally murdered, she joins her sisters in forming a vigilante gang to fight back against the transphobes, violent johns, and cops that stalk the Street of Miracles. But when things go terribly wrong, she must find the truth within herself in order to stop the violence and discover what it really means to grow up and find your family.
Recommended by Emma Watson
Recommended by Emma Watson
A study of black and post-colonial writing in Britain - and the extent to which Britain's colonial heritage has shaped present-day formulations of British culture.
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