Here’s some trivia for your next book club gathering: Women’s History Month, celebrated in March in the U.S., originally began as Women’s History Week, a local celebration in Santa Rosa, California, in 1978. The idea evolved and expanded from there until Congress authorized the proclamation of Women’s History Month in 1988. Go forth with this knowledge and prosper.
 
Each year, we like to pitch in with a specially curated collection featuring nonfiction books on women’s history and associated topics. This time around, we’ve divided the collection into three categories: General Nonfiction, Histories and Biographies, and Memoirs. Each of the books listed is relatively recent, with older selections going back around 10 years.
 
Some highlights and starting points, just from last year’s batch of new books: Deborah Jackson Taffa’s Whiskey Tender was one of the year’s most acclaimed books in any category, a beautifully written memoir about family, community, and Native history. With All in Her Head, author and physician Elizabeth Comen documents the medical treatment (and mistreatment) of women throughout history. Book nerds may want to check out Glory Edim’s Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me.
 
Click on the book covers for more information about each title, and feel free to add anything that looks interesting to your Want to Read shelf.