New feminist nonfiction for your shelves!
GIRLS®: GENERATION Z AND THE COMMODIFICATION OF EVERYTHING by Freya India
9781250442222 | 5/5/26
GIRLS® is an emotional and provocative look at the pressures shaping young lives today. Freya India shows that age-old anxieties of girlhood are now being amplified by modern life and exploited like never before. While previous generations of women were relentlessly sold products and procedures, we have become the product. We display our lives on Instagram, advertise ourselves on dating apps, and package ourselves into personal brands, making anxiety feel overwhelming and unmanageable.
Each chapter of GIRLS® focuses on a common anxiety in adolescent girls’ lives, from insecurities about our faces and bodies, to our reputation and social status, to our friendships and romantic relationships. Along the way, India traces how rapidly culture and technology have evolved over the past decade.
This isn’t just a book for girls. For young women, it offers a nostalgic, if unsettling, reflection on the world they’ve grown up in and reassurance that they’re not alone in their struggles. For younger girls, it provides context for where these challenges began and warns where they might be headed. And, for parents, teachers, and older generations, it serves as a reminder that these issues have never been so intense.
GIRLS® concludes with a message of hope, reminding readers how to reclaim their privacy, defend their dignity, and, above all, return to being people instead of products.
HOW TO RESIST GUILT: ON WHAT’S HOLDING WOMEN BACK by Mona Chollet, translated by Emily Boyce
9781250421531 | 12/1/26
Many of us battle a relentless inner critic, which whispers to us that we are unworthy or inadequate, whether in our role as parents, employees, or citizens of an unjust world. In HOW TO RESIST GUILT acclaimed feminist writer Mona Chollet asks why we so often succumb to these feelings and settle for a second-rate life lived under constant pressure, instead of fighting back, having the courage to say no, protecting our boundaries and living the life that we deserve.
Drawing widely on popular culture and literature to expose this “enemy within,” Chollet encourages us to reject the fear of not being good enough, to liberate ourselves from overwhelming duty and to enjoy the profound simplicity of just being. Delving into the insidious ways guilt is wielded as a tool by those with power and privilege, particularly against marginalized communities including women and sexual and racial minorities, she helps us to identify the source of the critical voice, question its validity, and ultimately silence it.
FREEDOM’S DAUGHTERS: HOW A GENERATION OF BLACK WOMEN RESISTED OPPRESSION THROUGH LITERACY AND EDUCATION by Celeste Headlee
9781250340412 | 10/6/26
In the waning days of the antebellum South, millions of African Americans were suddenly released from enslavement. But they soon realized that “freedom” was not free; they were subject to hundreds of laws aimed at preventing them from voting and, in many cases, learning. Were it not for the work of an exceptional group of women—activists, educators, mothers, organizers—the foundations for Black education might never have been laid.
With FREEDOM’S DAUGHTERS, Headlee set out to write into the record book the untold stories of these remarkable women. As a journalist who spent her career in public media, Headlee has long championed unheard voices and sought to tell the stories of those whose contributions have gone unacknowledged. But this project was fueled by an even deeper connection: Carrie Still Shepperson—one of the most important figures in this fight—is Headlee’s great grandmother and one of the biggest influences in her life.
Now, after a decade of research spanning personal diaries to public records, FREEDOM’S DAUGHTERS paints a vivid portrait of figures intentionally erased from history, recognizing the work of a generation of Black women who believed freedom was inextricably linked with learning and free expression, and who worked tirelessly to secure access to literacy and education for a generation of children born into freedom.
By turns shocking, inspiring, and deeply moving, FREEDOM’S DAUGHTERS is Headlee’s impeccably researched journey to better understand her family history and herself, and a timely examination of the influence and power of unfettered access to schools, libraries, and higher education.
LUST: PLEASURE, PERFORMANCE, POWER by Erika Lust
9781250402417 | 10/13/26
For more than two decades, Erika Lust has been pushing back against shame and stereotypes, building a new kind of adult cinema—one that is feminist, ethical, and deeply human. In LUST, she tells the story of how a shy “good girl” from Sweden came to create one of the most talked-about studios in the world. She takes us behind the scenes of her films, where every detail matters: the casting, the consent talks, the way a set can feel safe, playful, and alive. We meet performers who are treated as collaborators, not objects, and glimpse the passion and chaos of making art about sex.
LUST makes the provocative argument that porn is not the root of society’s problems but a mirror of them. Instead of scapegoating it and missing the chance to address those problems, Erika offers pragmatic solutions for how we can develop and improve the industry. She rejects censorship and moral-panic legislation, which history shows only makes things worse, and instead points to the power of telling more complex, nuanced stories of sex and gender. While sharing openly about her experience as a director, Erika argues that pleasure is not shameful or frivolous but a basic right, and that questions of sexuality and representation are inseparable from our broader culture and politics.
Raw, passionate, and inspiring, LUST is a manifesto for anyone who has ever felt ashamed of desire, as well as a reminder that telling the truth about sex can change the world.
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