RECOMMENDED READING
I am a great lover of books, piles and shelves can be found throughout my home.
I am often asked for recommendations on particular topics and wanted to share a selection with you.
With each book listed below I have linked to the authors website, where I can, rather than the Booktopia
or Amazon sales page, this gives you more of an understanding of their work and any other offerings
that they may have available.
Becoming a Woman is a book written by Jane
Hardwicke Collings for girls and their parents
who are looking for some easy-to-understand
information about the menstrual cycle.
These children’s books have been created to help
our children and tween girls become educated on their
bodies, their boundaries, their sexuality and their blood.
They are an offshoot of a series of adventure books
written about a girl called Susmita who travelled the
world. Susmita as a child wears gender neutral clothes and
has dark brown skin and red hair so as to not exclude any
one culture in particular.
Tackling current debates and tensions, which can divide
communities and even cost lives, we'll look to the past and
the future to ask how might we approach gender differently,
in more socially constructive, caring ways.
We'll look at how gender has been 'done' differently - from patriarchal societies to trans communities - and how it
has been viewed differently - from biological arguments
for sex difference to cultural arguments about received gender norms. We'll dive into complex and shifting ideas about
masculinity and femininity, look at non-binary, trans and fluid
genders, and examine the intersection of experiences of
gender with people's race, sexuality, class, disability and more.
With compassion, humour, erudition and a touch of the erotic,
Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele shine a light through the darkness and unmask the monsters in this illustrated guide.
From sexual identities to having sex, to desire, consent and relationships, we'll explore the invention of sex as we know
it and imagine sex as it could be. Along the way, we'll move
past thinking of sex as meaning just one thing, defined by the genders of those doing it, instead making space for lots of
different types of attraction, desire, relationship and act.
The purpose of this book is to guide you in deepening and expanding your orgasmic experience, first by yourself and
then later sharing that with your lover. The practices are
designed to help you become more expressive, empowered
and better connected to your femininity. Whatever stage of this
journey you are at – whether you are already multi-orgasmic or have never had an orgasm – your experience of sexuality will transform.
Inspiring, vivacious and completely honest, Bridget's book
is for everyone on the endo spectrum: the battle-hardened
warriors, the newly diagnosed and those still searching
for answers.
Two excision surgeries and one thriving endo Instagram
community later, Bridget knows firsthand how much personal research and self-advocating endo sufferers have to do
just to have their pain acknowledged. With her trademark enthusiasm, Bridget has blended her own experience with
a raft of tips and strategies from health experts and endo
warriors to help you thrive whenever you can, and survive
on days when you just can't. Covering everything from diet
to acupuncture, fertility to mental health, and surgery to sex,
How to Endo is the essential guide to navigating this sucker
punch of a chronic illness.
A beautiful, sensitive and nurturing celebration of a girl’s transformation to womanhood, following in the footsteps
of her bestselling book for women, Moon Time: harness
the ever-changing energy of your menstrual cycle.
Beginning with an imaginary journey into the red tent, a
traditional place of women’s wisdom, some of the gifts and
secrets of womanhood are imparted in a gentle lyrical
way, including:
The secrets of the moon
The secrets of our cycles
The gift of self-care
Along with practical advice on:
Preparing for her first period
Choosing menstrual products
Herbal healing
Celebrating menarche
Consent is more than just a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. It’s about freedom, choices, and agreement in our everyday lives (it’s not just
about sex). It’s about self-consent, how you can work out what
you want for yourself (via choosing a pizza) and why that is tricky, even when it’s just you.
There’s a lot of practical advice on how to do things more consensually with other people, like what TV show you want
to watch together. There’s lots about on-going communication
and how to make sure that you are happy with your choices and having a nice time. You will learn how to give the best (consensual) greetings – no more awkward hugs or missed high fives. There is a bit about sex but it’s not a sex book and there’s a lot of warning before you get to the sex bits: hashtag consent.
In her New York Times bestseller Pussy: A Reclamation, Regena reveals what no one taught you about the source
of your feminine power and how to use it. This power is the
part of a woman that she has been taught to ignore, push
down, and despise. Indeed, the word that most viscerally sums
it up is "arguably the most powerful pejorative word in the English language." Like any expletive used effectively, the title of this
book is meant to be a wake-up call. It is a reclamation, in a world
that desperately requires the feminine. Readers learn the secret ingredient every woman is missing; how to crack the confidence code; why sex appeal is an inside job; what’s ahead on the next frontier of feminism—and how they can help make it happen; and much more. By turns earthy and erudite, passionately argued and laugh-out-loud funny, Pussy delivers the tools and practices a
woman requires to do and be whatever she wants in this life. It’s a
call for her to tune in, turn on, and not drop out—but live more
richly, fully, and lusciously than she ever thought she could.
