Reads for the Rest of Us: The Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2024

Books can be a comfort in dark times. They can provide understanding and light. They provide ideas, knowledge and the bravery to speak up when others cannot and to act on their behalf. 

So I read to feel. Read and reflect. Read and take action. We all have gifts to share and strengths to utilize for others who need our help. Let books inspire you to find and develop your own power and courage to be a support through someone’s dark time. Let them relax you so you can get up and fight another day. I am looking for these 100 books to be of service to me so that I might be of service to others. I hope you’ll find some here that will do the same for you. 

So, let’s read. Read and encourage others to do so. Gift books to others. Read one and pass it on. Visit and support your local libraries. But please read. Read as though your life (or someone else’s) depends on it. Because it just might.   

The Ms. Q&A: Award-Winning Playwright Catherine Filloux Takes on Femicide, Trauma, War, Immigration and More

Catherine Filloux’s writing delves into the many ways that human rights are abrogated by gender-based, racial and economic violence. Filloux spoke to Ms. reporter Eleanor J. Bader about her work.

“As a writer, whether of a play or of an opera, I want to focus on the largely male dictators who allow trauma and genocide to exist and flourish. I can’t let this go.”

Shine Your Light: Reflections on ‘Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé’

Renaissance—Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s fifth self-directed film—is about how to shine your light, how to give others shine, and how to sit in darkness until the light comes again.

In this season of light, we have a tremendous opportunity to observe a Black woman in her prime at 42 years old making art, working at her craft, raising her children, and surrounded by a strong network.

Strong of Song: The Women’s Music Movement Turns 50

Both a product (albums! cassettes! posters!) and a destination (rallies! concerts! festivals!), women’s music fused feminist politics, woman-staffed sound production and grassroots folk traditions to create a bold new recording and performance network. When we had no rights at all, women’s music was also the sound and site of the lesbian revolution. This year we celebrate the musicians and producers who, across five decades, gave us the soundtracks and spaces affirming our lives.

He Was Dancing to Beyoncé. He Never Knew It Would Be His Last Dance: A Dancer’s Perspective

On July 29, 2023, O’Shea Sibley, a 28-year-old Black, gay, professional dancer, was fatally stabbed in his heart while he and his friends were voguing to Beyoncé outside of a gas station. His murderer shouted, “Stop dancing, stop dancing, stop dancing”—as if dancing is a crime, an assault on life, a blasphemy to the living.

Black Mamas Reclaim Their Space in Reproductive Justice

Forward Together’s 13th annual Mamas Day campaign “Black Mamas Reclaiming their Space in the Reproductive Justice Movement,” celebrates Black mamahood and the Black mamas who continue to push the work forward—since Black mamas are the founders of the reproductive justice framework and are the foundation of our movement.

Visit MamasDay.org to send a card to the mamas in your life.