VGCC Library Services: HUM 150-American Women's Studies: Reading and Video Lists Online

Fiction & Poetry Ebooks

Please see below for a list of the available ebooks of fiction and poetry titles from the Women's Studies book list. You can also use the search box to find print copies of books from the list in the VGCC Library.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
ISBN: 9781787198425

Publication Date: 2018-09-01

Sisters Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy explore the boundaries of their culture under the guidance and watchful eye of Marmee, as they come to realise that life is not what they once thought.
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
ISBN: 9780452297753

Publication Date: 2012-02-01

Ruth Anne Boatwright, known simply as Bone, is a bastard child who observes the world around her with a mercilessly keen perspective. When her stepfather becomes increasingly more vicious toward her, Bone finds herself caught in a family triangle that tests the loyalty of her mother, Anney.
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
ISBN: 9781328879943

Publication Date: 2017-04-25

Offred lives in the near-future Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy in the ruins of the U.S. that has reverted to and gone beyond the repressive intolerance of the Puritans.
My Antonia by Willa Cather
ISBN: 9780192832009

Publication Date: 2006-03-09

Jim Burden recounts his memories of Antonia Shimerda, whose family settle in Nebraska from Bohemia. Together they share childhoods spent in a new world. Jim leaves the prairie for college and a career in the east, while Antonia devotes herself to her large family and productive farm.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
ISBN: 9780679734772

Publication Date: 1991-04-03

The remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become.
The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 by Lucille Clifton; Toni Morrison (Foreword by); Kevin Young (Editor)
ISBN: 9781934414903

Publication Date: 2012-08-28

Combines all eleven of Lucille Clifton's published collections with more than fifty previously unpublished poems.
Raney by Clyde Edgerton
ISBN: 9780912697178

Publication Date: 1985-01-02

Raney is a small-town Baptist. Charles is a liberal from Atlanta. This is the story of their marriage.
The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler
ISBN: 9780375506581

Publication Date: 2000-12-05

Gives voice to real women's deepest fantasies, fears, anger, and pleasure, and calls for a world where all women are safe, equal, free, and alive in their bodies.
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
ISBN: 9780449911358

Publication Date: 1997-01-21

Gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode tells her life story to middle-aged Evelyn. Her tale includes two more women—the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth—who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, offering good coffee, southern barbecue, and all kinds of love and laughter—even an occasional murder.
The Women's Room by Marilyn French
ISBN: 9781451629170

Publication Date: 2011-01-11

Follows the transformation of Mira Ward and her circle as the women's movement begins to have an impact on their lives.
Ellen Foster (Oprah's Book Club) by Kaye Gibbons
ISBN: 9781616203085

Publication Date: 2012-10-17

An 11-year-old heroine tells her unforgettable story with honesty, perceptivity, humor and unselfconscious heroism.
The Yellow Wall-Paper, Herland, and Selected Writings by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
ISBN: 9781420955194

Publication Date: 2017-05-01

A collection of stories by the author, including her most famous work, the story of a woman who is driven insane after three months trapped in her home and deprived of any mental stimulation.
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong; Fay Weldon (Introduction by)
ISBN: 9781453222089

Publication Date: 2013-09-03

Isador has come to a crossroads in her marriage: Should she and her husband stay together or get divorced? Accompanying him to a conference in Vienna, she strikes out on her own, crisscrossing Europe in search of a man who can inspire uninhibited passion.
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
ISBN: 9780679721888

Publication Date: 1989-04-23

A girl lives in worlds: the California to which her parents have immigrated and the China of her mother's “talk stories.” The fierce and wily women warriors of her mother's tales clash jarringly with the harsh reality of female oppression out of which they come.
Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón
ISBN: 9781571314710

Publication Date: 2015-09-15

Poetry that examines the chaos that is life, the dangerous thrill of living in a world you know you have to leave one day, and the search to find something that is ultimately "disorderly, and marvelous, and ours.”
A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride
ISBN: 9781566893688

Publication Date: 2014-09-09

The story of a young girl's devastating adolescence as she and her brother, who suffers from a brain tumor, struggle for a semblance of normalcy in the shadow of sexual abuse, denial, and chaos at home.
Beloved by Toni Morrison
ISBN: 9781400033416

Publication Date: 2004-06-08

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
Ariel (The Restored Edition) by Sylvia Plath
ISBN: 057122685X

Publication Date: 2004

An edition of Sylvia Plath's posthumously published collection of poems that restores the selection and arrangement of the poems as Plath left them at the point of her death.
How to Be Both by Ali Smith
ISBN: 9780375424106

Publication Date: 2014-12-02

Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real—and all life's givens get given a second chance.
Oral History by Lee Smith
ISBN: 9780425245460

Publication Date: 2011-12-06

The story of the Cantrell family and the odd curse that its members believe hangs over them.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
ISBN: 9781453223970

Publication Date: 2011-09-20

Celie has grown up poor in rural Georgia, despised by the society around her and abused by her own family. She strives to protect her sister, Nettie, from a similar fate, and while Nettie escapes to a new life, Celie is left behind.
Jubilee by Margaret Walker
ISBN: 9780544812123

Publication Date: 2016-09-06

The true story of Vyry, the child of a white plantation owner and his black mistress. Vyry bears witness to the South's antebellum opulence and to its brutality, its wartime ruin, and the promises of Reconstruction.
Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty
ISBN: 9780547538686

Publication Date: 1979-03-21

The Fairchilds, a big and clamorous family, live on a plantation in the Mississippi delta. They are in the midst of planning their daughter's wedding when a nine-year-old relative, Laura McRaven, whose mother has just died, comes to visit.
The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
ISBN: 9780679728832

Publication Date: 1990-08-11

Laurel, a young woman who has left the South, returns years later, to New Orleans, where her father is dying. After his death, she and her silly young stepmother go back still farther, to the small Mississippi town where she grew up.
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto; Megan Backus (Translator)
ISBN: 9780802190468

Publication Date: 2015-09-15

Mikage is taken in by her friend Yoichi and his mother (who is really his cross-dressing father) Eriko, and the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses.

Non-Fiction Ebooks

Please see below for a list of the available ebooks of non-fiction titles from the Women's Studies book list. You can also use the search box to find print copies of books from the list in the VGCC Library.

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
ISBN: 9781101911761

Publication Date: 2015-02-03

Offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century, one rooted in inclusion and awareness.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
ISBN: 9780812980028

Publication Date: 2009-04-21

Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the locals. At eight years old and back with her mother in St. Louis, Maya is attacked—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime.
Right-Wing Women by Paola Bacchetta; Margaret Power
ISBN: 9780415927772

Publication Date: 2002-08-30

From Mussolini supporters to Klanswomen, this collection provides an eye-opening look at extremist women.
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
ISBN: 9780307277787

Publication Date: 2011-05-03

A powerful analysis of the Western notion of “woman,” and a revolutionary exploration of inequality and otherness.
Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein
ISBN: 9780679757016

Publication Date: 1995-04-25

Kate Bornstein ushers readers on a funny, fearless, and wonderfully scenic journey across the terrains of gender and identity.
Women, Culture & Politics by Angela Y. Davis
ISBN: 9780679724872

Publication Date: 1990-02-19

A collection of speeches and writings by political activist Angela Davis which address the political and social changes of the past decade as they are concerned with the struggle for racial, sexual, and economic equality.
Feminism Is for Everybody by bell hooks
ISBN: 9781138821620

Publication Date: 2014-09-26

What is feminism? In this short, accessible primer, bell hooks explores the nature of feminism and its positive promise to eliminate sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
ISBN: 9781504034654

Publication Date: 2016-03-15

Tormented by her master, a young mother plots a daring escape, in this courageous and captivating slave narrative.
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
ISBN: 9781580911863

Publication Date: 2007-08-01

Fiteen essays and speeches by black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde that take on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propound social difference as a vehicle for action and change.
The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill; Harriet Taylor Mill
ISBN: 9781775568247

Publication Date: 2009-05-01

Written in 1869 by philosopher John Stewart Mill and his wife, Harriet Taylor Mill, this classic essay puts forward a detailed and passionate opposition to the social and legal inequalities imposed on women by society.
Sexual Politics by Kate Millett
ISBN: 9780231174251

Publication Date: 2016-02-16

Targets four revered authors—D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Norman Mailer, and Jean Genet—and builds a damning profile of literature's patriarchal myths and their extension into psychology, philosophy, and politics.
Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
ISBN: 9781476709130

Publication Date: 2014-12-02

Janet Mock relays her experiences of growing up young, multiracial, poor, and trans in America, offering readers accessible language while imparting vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of a marginalized and misunderstood population.
Queer Latinidad by Juana María Rodríguez
ISBN: 9780814775493

Publication Date: 2003-01-01

Examines queer identity in relation to Latino/a America by documenting the ways in which identities are transformed by encounters with language, the law, culture, and public policy.
Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
ISBN: 9781608463862

Publication Date: 2014-05-20

This collection of seven essays includes the famous title piece as well as other musings on feminism and women's lives.
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens by Alice Walker
ISBN: 9781453224069

Publication Date: 2011-11-22

What is a womanist? Alice Walker sets out to define the concept in this anthology of early essays and other nonfiction pieces.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
ISBN: 9781497684218

Publication Date: 2010-6-10

In response to public debate and discussion about the education of women, Mary Wollstonecraft argues that women should be educated according to their station, and that they could be more than mere wives to their husbands and educators to their children.
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
ISBN: 9788382173840

Publication Date: 2020

Virginia Woolf, in her essay, talks about a woman's right to work. The writer considers a centuries-old story during which a woman was only a silent shadow of a man.

Streaming Movies

Please see below for a list of the available streaming video titles from the Southern Culture video list. You can also use the search box to find DVDs of films from the list in the VGCC Library.

Little Women by Mervyn LeRoy
Publication Date: 1949

A group of sisters experience life's difficulties and its pleasures while growing up in nineteenth-century America.
The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler
Publication Date: 2001

Records Ensler’s performance of her one-woman play. Between monologues, documentary-style footage explores the creative impetus behind the play as Ensler conducts interviews with a widely divergent cross-section of women.