Items21The creator’s order
  1. 1The Engineer's Wife (2020)The Engineer's Wife (2020) 5.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2020Tracey Enerson Wood follows the real Emily Warren Roebling as she takes on the work of directing construction of the Brooklyn Bridge after her husband, the chief engineer, is injured. The novel is most interesting when the bridge is still a job in progress. Emily has to turn what she learns about…0
  2. 2The Personal Librarian (2021)The Personal Librarian (2021) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2021Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray follow Belle da Costa Greene, who shapes J. P. Morgan’s library while passing as white. Look for the scenes of collecting and negotiating. Greene has to assess the books and manuscripts she wants for the library while keeping track of what her…0
  3. 3Remarkable Creatures (2009)Remarkable Creatures (2009)Published Jan 1, 2009Tracy Chevalier follows the fossil hunters Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot along the English coast. It is a good choice if you want to see discovery as patient fieldwork and argument. The two women’s finds help change what scientists can say about prehistoric life, while the novel also takes…0
  4. 4The Dictionary of Lost Words (2021)The Dictionary of Lost Words (2021) 9.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2021Pip Williams invents Esme, a girl growing up around the team compiling the Oxford English Dictionary. She begins collecting the words that get dropped. Try this for the cumulative effect of small choices. A slip of paper can determine whether the language women use in their daily lives makes it…0
  5. 5Her Hidden Genius (2022)Her Hidden Genius (2022)Published Jan 1, 2022Marie Benedict follows the real Rosalind Franklin through her work with X-ray images and the race to explain DNA’s structure. The interest is in how much patient work goes into making an image that can answer a question. Read it if you want the investigation to take up as much room as the argument…0
  6. 6The Woman with the Cure (2023)The Woman with the Cure (2023)Published Feb 21, 2023Lynn Cullen follows the real physician Dorothy Horstmann through the search for a polio vaccine. Her decision to look for the virus in the blood is the detail that gives the novel its shape. Choose it for the importance of a research question that changes what a whole group of people can do next.0
  7. 7Take My Hand (2022)Take My Hand (2022) 6.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2022The fictional Civil Townsend starts out as a nurse in Montgomery, Alabama. Dolen Perkins-Valdez uses her first job to explore a real history of involuntary sterilization. Civil’s relationship with two young patients makes the distance between following a clinic’s procedures and caring for the…0
  8. 8Paris Bookseller (2022)Paris Bookseller (2022)Published Jan 1, 2022In Kerri Maher’s novel, Sylvia Beach opens Shakespeare and Company in Paris and takes on publishing James Joyce’s Ulysses. Pick it for the decisions that happen before a book reaches a reader. A bookseller who knows her customers also has to take on financial and legal risks if the manuscript is…0
  9. 9Harlem Rhapsody (2025)Harlem Rhapsody (2025)Published Jan 1, 2025Victoria Christopher Murray follows Jessie Redmon Fauset into the editorial offices of The Crisis. An editor changes what readers have a chance to encounter by deciding whose work gets published. This is a good place to start if you want a novel about the person looking for new voices and making…0
  10. 10First Ladies (2023)First Ladies (2023)Published Jan 1, 2023Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray put the educator and civil rights organizer Mary McLeod Bethune at the center of a friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt. The novel is particularly good for seeing how an organizer uses personal access to move public questions onto the agenda. Both women…0