Virtual Influential Women Book Club
Please join us as we meet on Zoom each first Wednesday evening of the month to discuss books about women who have helped to shape history. If you're interested in joining our group, please click on the link below to register so you can receive an invitation with a link to join the meetings. While you don't have to have read the book to take part, we would appreciate it if all purchases would be made either here through our website (scroll down for selections), or at our cash counter either in person or by phone.
For those of you who would prefer to meet in person, we do have a live group that usually meets to discuss the same book each third Tuesday of the month at 6:30 pm in Conference Room A of the St. George Public Library (downstairs). That group is led by Jamee Adams and if you contact us at (435) 619-8200, we can provide her contact information, or you can simply show up to a meeting to join.
REGISTER ONCE FOR ALL RECURRING VIRTUAL MEETINGS HERE.
READING SCHEDULE FOR 2024:
JANUARY - The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts by Loren Grush (2023) | Nonfiction | $32.50 | 432 pages - The account that lifts the curtain on the moment when Neil Armstrong’s ‘one small step for man’ is expanded to encompass the talent, ambition and perseverance of America’s first female astronauts.
FEBRUARY - She’s a Badass: Women in Rock Shaping Feminism by Katherine Yeske Taylor (January 2024) | Nonfiction | $34.95 | 280 pages | Author joining - Feminism has always been a complex and controversial topic, as female rock musicians know especially well. When they’ve stayed true to their own vision, these artists have alternately been adored as role models or denounced as bad influences. Either way, they’re asked to cope with certain pressures that their male counterparts haven’t had to face. In this book, music journalist Katherine Taylor interviews twenty significant women in rock, devoting an entire chapter to each one.
MARCH - The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the C.I.A. by Liza Mundy (2023) | Nonfiction | $32.50 | 480 pages | Guest Expert joining - Upon its creation in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency instantly became of the most important spy services in the world. Like every male-dominated workplace in Eisenhower America, the growing intelligence agency needed women to type memos, send messages, manipulate expense accounts and keep secrets. Despite discrimination – even because of it – these clerks and secretaries rose to become some of the shrewdest, toughest operatives the agency employed.
APRIL - The Woman with the Cure by Lynn Cullen (2023) | Historical Fiction | $17.00 | 432 pages - She gave up everything – and changed the world. The novel is based on the true story of the woman who stopped a pandemic. In 1940s and 1950s America, polio is as dreaded as the atomic bomb. No one’s life is untouched by this disease that kills or paralyzes its victims. Dorothy Horstmann is not focused on beating her colleagues to the vaccine. She just wants the world to have a cure.
MAY - When Women Invented Television: The Untold Story of the Female Powerhouses Who Pioneered the Way We Watch Today by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong (2023) | Nonfiction | $18.99 | 368 pages - The New York Times bestselling author tells the little-known story of four trailblazing women in the early days of television who laid the foundation of the industry we know today.
JUNE - The Confidante: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Helped Win WWII and Shape Modern America by Christopher C. Gorham (2023) | Biography | $28.00 | 384 pages - It’s the first-ever biography of Anna Marie Rosenberg, the Hungarian Jewish immigrant who became FDR’s closest advisor during World War II. Her life ran parallel to the front lines of history yet her influence on 20th century America, from the new deal to the Cold War and beyond has never been told before.
JULY - Switchboard Soldiers by Jennifer Chiavertini (2023) | Historical Fiction | $19.99 | 464 pages - In June 1917, General John Pershing arrived in France to establish American forces in Europe. He immediately found himself unable to communicate with troops in the field. Pershing needed operators who could swiftly and accurately connect multiple calls, speak fluent French and English, remain steady under fire and be utterly discreet, since the calls often conveyed the classified information. At the time, nearly all well-trained American telephone operators were women – but women were not permitted to enlist, or even vote in most states. Nevertheless, the U.S. Army Signal Corps promptly began recruiting them.
AUGUST - First to the Front: The Untold Story of Dickey Chapelle, Trailblazing Female War Correspondent by Lorissa Rinehar (2023) | Biography | $32.00 | 400 pages - The story of the pioneering photojournalist who, from World War II through the early days of Viet Nam, got her story by any means necessary as one of the first female war correspondents.
SEPTEMBER - Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism by Brooke Kroeger (2023) | Nonfiction | $35.00 | 592 pages - The book is a representative history of the American women who surmounted every impediment put in their way to do journalism’s most valued work. The author explores the careers of standout women reporters who covered the major news stories and every conflict at home and abroad since before the Civil War, and she celebrates those exceptional careers up to the present. The book unveils the huge and singular impact women have had on a vital profession still dominated by men.
OCTOBER - Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall (2014) | Biography | $24.99 | 496 pages - Pulitzer Prize winner Megan Marshall recounts the trailblazing life of Margaret Fuller: Thoreau’s first editor, Emerson’s close friend, daring war correspondent, and tragic heroine. After her untimely death in a shipwreck off Fire Island, the sense and passion of her life’s work were eclipsed by scandal. Marshall’s inspired narrative brings her back to indelible life.
NOVEMBER - Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars by Nathalia Holt (2017) | Nonfiction | $18.99 | 352 pages - The riveting true story of the women who launched America into space. In the 1940’s and 50’s, when the newly minted Jet Propulsion Laboratory needed quick-thinking mathematicians to calculate velocities and pilot trajectories, they didn’t turn to male graduates. Rather, they recruited an elite group of young women, who, with only pencil, paper, and mathematical prowess, transformed rocket design, helped bring about the first American satellites and made the exploration of the solar system possible.
DECEMBER - Chita: A Memoir by Chita Rivera (2023) | Memoir | $29.99 | 320 pages - This colorful and entertaining memoir – as vital and captivating as Chita herself – is the unforgettable and engrossing personal story of a performer who blazed her own trail and inspired countless others to forge their own unique path to success.
*Below, you will find purchase links to the books on our 2024 list. We ask that you order through our website, or call us at 435-619-8200 to special order over the phone. If interested in past picks or other recommended titles, please see the attached PDF forms.