--- title: International Women’s Day: 8 Best Books To Celebrate Women description: New novels from authors around the globe canonical: https://time.com/4249446/international-womens-day-books/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-03-08T14:00:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:01:58.433Z og:title: 8 Books by Women to Read This International Women’s Day og:description: New novels from authors around the globe og:url: https://time.com/4249446/international-womens-day-books/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt263e4e8717b588ef/69888072428a9e47bccd1ac3/women-authors-books.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4900 og:image:height: 2756 og:image:alt: 98603477 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 8 Books by Women to Read This International Women’s Day twitter:description: New novels from authors around the globe twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt263e4e8717b588ef/69888072428a9e47bccd1ac3/women-authors-books.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 8 Books by Women to Start Reading This International Women’s Day > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Worth Your Time: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Worth Your Time is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A weekly guide to what to watch, read, and more. Worth Your Time is a curated guide to the culture worth knowing, from the biggest conversations of the moment to the books, shows, ideas and discoveries worth your attention. Culture editor Eliza Berman taps TIME's collective taste and perspective to surface what is worth watching, reading, talking about and sharing, and why. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Mar 8, 2016 2:00 PM UTC  Conceptual Books Conceptual Books Getty Images by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Mar 8, 2016 2:00 PM UTC [International Women’s Day](http://www.internationalwomensday.com/), which falls on March 8 each year, is a time to celebrate the achievements of women socially, economically, politically…and culturally. So we can’t think of a better way to celebrate than by [asking for what you’re worth](http://motto.time.com/4202330/making-less-money/), [supporting women in the entertainment industry](http://motto.time.com/4199143/catherine-hardwicke-media/) and picking up one of these eight new novels by women from around the world. [**_The Vegetarian_**](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553448188/?tag=timecom-20)_By Han Kang, translated from Korean by Deborah Smith_ The novel’s protagonist, Yeong-hye, wakes up one morning and, thanks to troubling nightmares, is suddenly a vegetarian. The transformation brings unexpected and dark ramifications to her home life, with emotional and physical traumas leaving her a strange shell of her former self. Originally published in South Korea nine years ago and eventually turned into a movie, _The Vegetarian_ is now available in English in the U.S. for the first time. [**_The Life of Elves_**](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1609453158/?tag=timecom-20)_By Muriel Barbery, translated from French by Alison Anderson_ From the author of _The Elegance of the Hedgehog_, an international bestseller, comes a new novel about two young girls with uncanny gifts: Maria lives in provincial France and is able to communicate with the natural world; Clara lives in rural Italy and is a musical savant. Both share a connection to the world of magic, which finds itself in a moment of crisis and in need of some heroines. **_Read more:_**[_12 Inspirational Quotes About Womanhood_](http://motto.time.com/4250072/international-womens-day-quotes/) [**_The Kindness of Enemies_**](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0802124488/?tag=timecom-20)[](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0802124488/?tag=timecom-20)_By Leila Aboulela_ The Sudanese-born novelist who now lives in Scotland tells the story of a Sudanese-Russian professor (also living in Scotland) who studies the 19th-century Caucasian War. When she meets a student whose family owns a famous sword from the battles, both their lives become complicated—and the young man is taken into custody. The narration alternates with a story about a woman who was caught in the middle of that very war, a Georgian noblewoman who finds herself taken hostage. [**_The Girl in the Red Coat_**](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1612195008/?tag=timecom-20)_By Kate Hamer_ When Beth, a British single mother, loses sight of her daughter, Carmel, in a crowd, it’s the beginning of a long, painful separation for both. The 8-year-old has been taken by an older man who says he’s her grandfather and that her mother has died in an accident. Hamer (who lives in Wales) alternates each chapter’s narration between Beth, struggling to find out whether her daughter is even alive, and Carmel, who is taken around the U.S. to spiritual events with her “Gramps” and finds it harder each year to remember where she came from. [**_The Book of Memory_**](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0865479070/?tag=timecom-20)_By Petina Gappah_ An Albino woman named Memory is imprisoned for murder in Harare, Zimbabwe, accused of killing her white adoptive father. To prove her innocence and save herself from the death penalty, she begins writing down everything she knows—but the details prove hazy and the facts of her unusual life are elusive. [**_Ways to Disappear_**](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0316298492/?tag=timecom-20)_By Idra Novey_ When celebrated Brazilian novelist Beatriz goes missing—last seen with a suitcase, smoking a cigar and sitting in a tree—her English language translator, Emma, immediately flies from Pittsburgh to Rio to search for her. Novey (a translator herself) follows Emma as she hunts alongside Beatriz’s children, scouring Beatriz’s writings for clues to her disappearance. [**_Half a Lifelong Romance_**](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0307387542/?tag=timecom-20)_By Eileen Chang, translated from Chinese by Karen S. Kingsbury_ Half a century after this Chinese classic was first published, it’s now available in English in the U.S. for the first time. Chang (who Americans may know through the Ang Lee adaptation of her novella _Lust, Caution_) tells the story of engineer Shen Shijun who hopes to marry his coworker Gu Manzhen, but family and society intervene at every turn. [**_The Man Who Snapped His Fingers_**](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1609453069/?tag=timecom-20)_By Fariba Hachtroudi, translated from French by Alison Anderson_ Two exiled citizens of the totalitarian “Theological Republic” meet somewhere in northern Europe—one a former colonel to the “Supreme Commander,” the other a former prisoner known for having refused to name names. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and it’s the ex-prisoner who may be in a position to help the colonel. Hachtroudi, who herself fled the Iranian revolution in 1979, won the French Human Rights Prize in 2001. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4249446/international-womens-day-books/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4249446/international-womens-day-books/"},"headline":"8 Books by Women to Start Reading This International Women’s Day","datePublished":"2016-03-08T14:00:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:01:58.433Z","description":"New novels from authors around the globe","url":"https://time.com/4249446/international-womens-day-books/","keywords":["motto","Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt263e4e8717b588ef/69888072428a9e47bccd1ac3/women-authors-books.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sarah Begley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt263e4e8717b588ef/69888072428a9e47bccd1ac3/women-authors-books.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"98603477","caption":"Conceptual Books","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4249446/international-womens-day-books/","name":"8 Books by Women to Start Reading This International Women’s Day"}}]}] ```