UCL Laws Feminist Book Club

We get together once a month and talk about books! If there are many attendees, we split into small groups; otherwise we just engage in open-ended discussion as a group. Sometimes we use question prompts to get the ball rolling.

You are free to join the book group at any point in the year, and to attend as many or as few meetings as you wish. If you were planning to come but haven’t finished the book, come anyway! No one is testing you. 

All current and former members of the Faculty of Laws community are welcome – from LLB, LLM and PhD students and alumni, to teaching fellows, faculty and staff.

Everyone who likes reading and talking about books is welcome - whatever your gender. 

We don’t expect prior knowledge of feminist theory or literary criticism. What we have in common is an openness to and engagement with feminist ideas, and a love of reading.

Our book list includes novels, short stories, and memoir. We profile books written by women from a range of countries and backgrounds and attempt to balance better-known authors with those who may have slipped under the radar. 

If you’d like to suggest a book, please email Maria Lee at maria.lee@ucl.ac.uk, Niamh Connolly at n.connolly@ucl.ac.uk or Claudia Sternberg at c.sternberg@ucl.ac.uk.

In 2022-23, our theme was 'Books in Translation' and we read:

• Magda Szabo, The Door
• Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs
• Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts
• The Years by Annie Ernaux
• Straight from the Horse's Mouth by Meryem Alaoui
• Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck
• Frontier by Can Xue

In 2021-22, we read:

• Elena Ferrante - The Lying Life of Adults
• Andrea Levy - The Long Song
• Penelope Mortimer - The Pumpkin Eater 
• Banana Yoshimoto - Kitchen
• Kate Chopin - The Awakening
• Isabel Allende - Eva Luna
• Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar
• Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea 
• Virginia Woolf - The Waves

In 2020-21, we read:

• Burnt Sugar - Avni Dosh
• Grand Union: Stories - Zadie Smith
• The Shadow King - Maaza Mengiste
• Her Body and Other Parties - Carmen Maria Machado
• Weather - Jenny Offill
• Such a Fun Age - Kiley Reid
• Negative Capability - Michèle Roberts
• The Round House - Louise Erdrich

In 2019-20, we read:

• My Life on the Road - Gloria Steinem
• Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
• Normal People - Sally Rooney
• The Testaments - Margaret Atwood
• Sour Heart - Jenny Zhang
• Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo
• The Mother of All Questions - Rebecca Solnit
• Invisible Women: Exposing Gender Bias in a World Designed for Men - Caroline Criado Perez
• Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race - Reni Eddo-Lodge
• Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories - Svetlana Alexievich

In our first year (2018-19) we read:

• Disoriental - Négar Djavadi
• The Power - Naomi Alderman
• Vera - Elizabeth von Arnim
• Sing, Unburied, Sing - Jesmyn Ward
• Milkman - Anna Burns
• Stay with Me - Ayobami Adebayo
• Woman at Point Zero - Nawal el Saadawi
• Red Clocks – Leni Zumas

This year’s selection can be viewed in the above section.