Higher Education Reads for International Women’s Day

By Liza Riitters | February 5 2026 | AdultEducation

International Women’s Day is a powerful reminder of the achievements, challenges, and resilience of women worldwide. To honor this important day, we’ve curated a collection of books for higher education and university readers, each focused on women’s personal journeys, struggles, and remarkable triumphs. Whether you’re a university student, educator, or lifelong learner, these higher education reads for International Women’s Day offer valuable perspectives from around the world.

To view more titles in this International Women’s Day collection, click here.

9780143136361
Recommended by Mary Beard as one of the BBC History Magazine’s Books of the Year Classical stories about women who wield power, from the Amazons to Dido to Cleopatra. A Penguin Classic
$20.00 US
Sep 10, 2024
Paperback
352 Pages
Penguin Classics
World

9780593701447
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • A moving exploration of the 2022 women-led protests in Iran, as told through the interwoven stories of two Iranian journalists “Unlike anything I’ve read . . . A searing, courageous, and ultimately beautiful book filled with the spirit of the movement that it covers.” —Ben Rhodes, author of The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House
$30.00 US
Sep 16, 2025
Hardcover
336 Pages
Pantheon
US, Canada, Open Mkt

9780593243350
LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN OPEN BOOK AWARDA reclamation of essential history and a hopeful gesture toward a better political future, this is what listening to Black women looks like—from a professor of political science and columnist for Teen Vogue.
$20.00 US
Jan 13, 2026
Paperback
400 Pages
Random House Trade Paperbacks
World

9780593493120
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The unforgettable memoir by the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the woman who dared to take on Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell “Make no mistake: this is a book about power, corruption, industrial-scale sex abuse and the way in which institutions sided with the perpetrator over his victims. . . . But it is also a book about how a young woman becomes a hero. . . . . Important [and] courageous.” —The Guardian
$35.00 US
Oct 21, 2025
Hardcover
400 Pages
Knopf
US, Canada, Open Mkt

9798217181322
The sexual assault that stunned the world. A courageous woman’s rallying call for shame to "change sides." For the very first time, Gisèle Pelicot tells her story.
$32.00 US
Feb 17, 2026
Hardcover
256 Pages
Penguin Press
US,OpnMkt(no EU/CAN)

9780345806208
The real origin of our species: “A page-turning whistle-stop tour of mammalian development that begins in the Jurassic Era, Eve recasts the traditional story of evolutionary biology by placing women at its center....The book is engaging, playful, erudite, discursive and rich with detail." —Sarah Lyall, The New York Times
$20.00 US
Feb 25, 2025
Paperback
624 Pages
Vintage
US, Opn Mkt (no CAN)

9780812980035
The New York Times bestseller--and the first collection of totally new essays from Maya Angelou in ten years--now available in trade paperback.
$17.00 US
Oct 27, 2009
Paperback
192 Pages
Random House Trade Paperbacks
US, Canada, Open Mkt