Read Women: Staff Picks and Reading Recommendations

As we continue our commitment to reading more women, our staff pulled together a few favorites for your Christmas wish list. These are the books we return to time and again—works that offer rich insight, fresh perspective, and the kind of wisdom that lingers long after the last page. We hope they inspire you, challenge you, and broaden your world as much as they have ours.

A Spiritual Life

 Harriet Beecher Stowe

Daughters of Miriam, and Womanist Midrash

Wilda Gafney

Commentary on Esther

Hélène Dallaire

Women’s Life in Greece and Rome:
A Source Book in Translation

Mary R. Lefkowitz,
Maureen B. Fant

Ordained Women in the Early Church:
A Documented History

Kevin Madigan,
Carolyn Osiek

Paul and Gender: Reclaiming the Apostle’s
Vision for Men and Women in Christ

Cynthia Long Westfall

Handbook of Women Biblical Interpreters,
Women in the Story of Jesus

Marion Ann Taylor

God’s Word To Women

Katharine Bushnell

No Time for Silence

Jannette Hassey

Daughters of Wisdom

Ahida Calderon Pilarski

Egalitarian Christian Leadership,
and Beyond Sex Roles

Aída Besançon Spencer

Marriage Made in Eden

Alice Matthews

Women and the Gender of God

Amy Peeler

All My Knotted-Up Life

 Beth Moore

The Very Good Gospel

Lisa Sharon Harper

Preaching Ephesians

Lynn Cohick

From Widows to Warriors: Women’s Stories from the Old Testament, and From Daughters to Disciples: Women’s stories from the New Testament

Lynn Japinga

Finding Phoebe

Susan Hylen

Mother, Mourner, Midwife

L. Juliana M. Claassens

The Making of Biblical Womanhood

Beth Allison Barr

Nobody’s Mother

Sandra Glahn

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references in this article are taken from the NIV 2011 translation.