"Covering women from every walk of life across 900 years of English history, this brilliant book sets the record straight on women’s lives, resilience and achievements across every conceivable field."
March 2025 Book of the Month
What is a normal woman? I absolutely loved the section headers of Philippa Gregory’s Normal Women that declare, and back up, the fact that “normal women are landlords”, “normal women are fighters”, “normal women take power”, “normal women are bullied”, “normal women like sex”, and a whole lot more, from being knights, pirates, breadwinners, criminals, artists and entrepreneurs, to supporting slavery, standing up against slavery, striking and protesting.
And so it’s been across centuries, from 1066 when this book picks up sharing lesser-known aspects of women’s history, through to 1994, when the Church of England allowed women to enter the priesthood, which came two years after “the law was changed so that sex when a wife did not consent was named as a crime – the crime of rape”.
Enhanced by a podcast series, this illuminating book has been adapted for a teenage readership from Gregory’s original work of the same name, and the tone is suitably lively, and perfectly complemented by Alexis Snell’s illustrations. In short, Normal Women is a trove of illuminating information that sets countless records straight through showcasing diverse stories of survival, strength and sisterhood, more than fulfilling the author’s desire to “show that, through time, we see an almost infinite variety of ‘normal women’”.
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