New to the collection on International Women's Day

Today is the 100th anniversary of Internatonal Women's Day, a global day commemorating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present, and future. In some places like China, Russia, Vietnam, and Bulgaria, International Women's Day is a national holiday. Here are some books we're adding to the collection today that explore the lives of women around the world, past and present:

Nadje Al-Ali & Nicola Christine Pratt. What kind of liberation?: women and the occupation of Iraq. (2009)

In the run-up to war in Iraq, the Bush administration assured the world that America's interest was in liberation--especially for women. What Kind of Liberation? reports from the heart of the war zone with dire news of scarce resources, growing unemployment, violence, and seclusion. Moreover, the book exposes the gap between rhetoric that placed women center stage and the present reality of their diminishing roles in the "new Iraq." Based on interviews with Iraqi women's rights activists, international policy makers, and NGO workers and illustrated with photographs taken by Iraqi women, What Kind of Liberation? speaks through an astonishing array of voices. Nadje Al-Ali and Nicola Pratt correct the widespread view that the country's violence, sectarianism, and systematic erosion of women's rights come from something inherent in Muslim, Middle Eastern, or Iraqi culture. They also demonstrate how in spite of competing political agendas, Iraqi women activists are resolutely pressing to be part of the political transition, reconstruction, and shaping of the new Iraq.

Lisa Shannon. A thousand sisters: my journey of hope into the worst place on earth to be a woman. (2010).

Lisa Shannon had a good life—a successful business, a fiancé, a home, and security. Then one day in 2005, an episode of Oprah changed her life. The show focused on women in the Congo, a place known as the worse place on earth to be a woman. She was suddenly awakened to the atrocities there—millions dead, women being raped and tortured, children starving and dying in shocking numbers. It was then that Lisa realized she had to do something—and she did. A Thousand Sisters is her inspiring memoir. She shares her story of how she raised money to sponsor Congolese women, beginning with one solo 30-mile run, and then founded a national organization, Run for Congo Women. The book chronicles her journeys to the Congo, meeting many of the sponsored women and hearing their stories firsthand. Along the way Lisa is forced to confront herself and learns lessons of survival, fear, gratitude, and love from the women of Africa.

Ida Rae Egli. No rooms of their own: women writers of early California. (1992).

In the wild, isolated Western frontier, where laws, traditions, and living conditions were like nowhere else in America, it was a bold act for a woman to write and to seek publication. Dame Shirley, Ina Coolbrith, and Mary Hallock Foote never achieved the fame and success of Mark Twain or Bret Harte, but they were celebrated writers in their time. They, too, wrote about California during the gold rush, but with a perspective all their own. Their writings, as well as the poetry, fiction, essays, memoirs, and diary entries of other women writers of their era, are collected in No Rooms of Their Own, which pays homage to the talent and experiences of these women who built the West.