Graduated at Brown University in 2014, helping on in the launch of the HeForShe campaign and now the head of the feminist book club “Our Shared Self”, Emma Watson is always helping to empower women.
The idea to create the book club came out on Twitter, in 2016. She shared the news to all her followers and asked for opinions on how to name it. After that, she chose “Our Shared Shelf”, an idea of name gave by one of her fans.
You can find “Our Shred Shelf” at GoodReads’ website. The main idea of the book club is for Emma to suggest books in which themes about feminism or empowerment can be found. Then, she stipulates a deadline for the reading, normally it’s about a month. After that, Watson and her readers create a post to debate the story –anyone can create posts to talk, and everyone, even men, are welcomed.
To promote the book club, Emma also signed and spread some of the titles that were being read in the trains of New York city. Besides that, she created an Instagram account for the readers to post the photos reading the selected books.
Photo Credit: emmawatson/Instagram
It is nice to remember the background of the actress. She is known for being a feminist since her speech promoting the campaign HeForShe. With sentences like “I think it is right I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decisions that affect my life. I think it is right that socially, I am afforded the same respect as men.” she made her point and draw attention to the cause. You can watch Emma’s speech in this link.
So far, 11 books were chosen by Emma for the members of “Our Shared Shelf” to read. Have a look at the list bellow!
Books Read and Approved by Emma Watson
Photo Credit: emmawatson/Instagram
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#1 My Life on the Road – Gloria Steinem
My Life on the Road is a story about Gloria’s experiences travelling around the world and her encounters on the road. From her activist experience among women in India to her work as a journalist, Gloria writes about how she connected with people and how living in the road allowed her to become part of a movement that could change the world. She talks about her childhood, when her dad putted all the family in a car and created memories travelling with the loved ones, and about the way it marked her life. Gloria shows that having an “on the road” state of mind and being open-minded can change the way you understand other people. “The road is messy in the way that real life is messy. It leads us out of our heads and into our hearts.”
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#2 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
This is not an easy book, it’s not for anyone. It’s a stunning story about Celie, a poor black young girl. Alice Walker narrates Celie’s tough journey between being raped by her father, losing two children and then getting married to a man who treats her no better than a slave. After being separated from her sister Nettie and her dream of becoming a strong black woman like the singer Shug Avery, Celie began to get support from different women, and leave all her past behind. “One of the most haunting books you could ever wish to read, it is stunning – moving, exciting, and wonderful.”
Photo Credit: oursharedshelf/Instagram
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#3 All About Love – Bell Hooks
In this romance, Bell Hooks talks about the way our society lack love and the way we see love as a romance. The writer tries to answer an important question: “what is love?” and her conclusions strike out both mind and heart. In the chapters, she writes about her own search for sentimental connection. Hooks breaks the paradigm of love being directly infused with sex and desire. Even more, refuting that idea, she gives to the readers a new perspective of love that can be healing to the person. “The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet… we would all love better if we used it as a verb.”
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#4 How To Be a Woman – Caitlin Moran
In this book, Caitlin Moran makes some provocations about women‘s lives with funny scenes from her own, since her adolescence until her development as a writer, wife and mother. Caitlin discuss about the truth – whether it’s about love, fat, abortion or children – and starts a new conversation around feminism. “How To Be a Woman” with sense of humor, talks about how empowerment and female rights are not only essential for women, but for the society itself. “Though they have the vote and the Pill and haven’t been burned as witches since 1727, life isn’t exactly a stroll down the catwalk for modern women.”
Photo Credit: emmawatson/Instagram
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#5 The Argonauts – Maggie Nelson
In this romance, Maggie describes her relationship with Harry Dodge her journey between falling in love with him and her experience of pregnancy. In the book, Nelson insists on individual freedom and talks about iconic theories about sexuality, marriage and child-rearing. “This story offers a firsthand account of the complexities and joys of (queer) family-making.”
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#6 Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi
The book itself is Marjane’s memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. With black and white comics, the writer tells her story between ages six and fourteen, as well as her experiences during the war against Iraq. “Persepolis” describes the daily life while the war was happening and the difference between house life and public life at that moment. In child eyes, Marjane allows us to learn more about her country and her family. “Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original (…) it shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity.”
Photo Credit: emmawatson/Instagram
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#7 Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir – Carrie Brownstein
The book tells the story of Carrie Brownstein, a normal girl – before becoming a music icon – living in Pacific Northwest. After becoming a rock star, Carrie and her bandmates are part of the feminist punk-rock movement that defined the music and the pop culture in the 1990’s. They would be criticized as the “America’s best rock band” by the legendary music critic Greil Marcus for their exuberant way of making punk-rock. The book is about Carrie’s path between her turbulent family and her success in the music world to find herself. “With deft, lucid prose Brownstein proves herself as formidable on the page as on the stage.”
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#8 Half The Sky – Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
“Half the sky” is about the struggles women from Asia and Africa suffer daily. From the Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery to the Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn describe our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, last but not least, hope. The writers show that the smallest help, came from anywhere, can help those women – and a lot. Furthermore, Kristof and WuDunn show us that the key to a good economic state is in unleashing women’s potential. They defend that releasing women’s potential is not only the right thig to do, but the most helpful solution to world’s economic problems. “A passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world.”
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#9 Mom & Me & Mom – Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou has already written some of her life experiences in her books, but in this story, she tells the reader about one of the deepest things about her: the relationship with her mother. When Maya’s mom’s wedding was falling apart, her mother, Vivian Baxter, sent Maya and her older brother to their grandmother’s house in Arkansas. This fact follows Angelou since that time, but the feeling of being abandoned faded away in their reunion ten years later, when a new story, never told before, started. In the drama, Maya describes the experience of living with the woman that put her in the world and that she calls by “Lady”, a relationship filled with respect and love. “Delving into one of her life’s most rich, rewarding, and fraught relationships, ‘Mom & Me & Mom’ explores the healing and love that evolved between the two women over the course of their lives.”
Photo Credit: emmawatson/Instagram
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#10 The Vagina Monologues – Eve Ensler
Worrying about the fact that we do not talk enough and correctly about vaginas, Eve Ensler talked to over two hundred women from different nationalities and types about that subject that is such an issue around the society. She talked to all kinds of women, from all ages, cultures and religions and discovered that, after they brake some shyness, women all over the world have a lot to talk about their own body. “So I decided to talk to women about their vaginas, to do vagina interviews, which became vagina monologues.”
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#11 Women Who Run With the Wolves – Clarissa Pinkola Estés
In the book, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés discusses myths, fairy tales and stories – many from her own culture – in order to help women to reconnect with their natural instinct. In “Women Who Run with the Wolves” we understand the wild woman, with the comments and stories told. “Within every woman there lives a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. She is the Wild Woman, who represents the instinctual nature of women. But she is an endangered species. For though the gifts of wildish nature belong to us at birth, society’s attempt to “civilize” us into rigid roles has muffled the deep, life-giving messages of our own souls.”