Books & Audiobooks

Inside A Modern Feminist Book Club: Every Book We’ve Read

From Brazilian literary fiction to Nigerian novels, feminist essays and contemporary global voices, explore the evolving reading list of our modern women’s book club, updated monthly since 2024

By Jess

Aug 8, 2026

Inside A Modern Feminist Book Club: Every Book We’ve Read

Hey there, I’m Jess ✨. On The Signature, I share reflections on beauty, routines, travel, wellness, culture, and everyday life. For those drawn to a calmer, more intentional way of living, I send a free newsletter each month on the 7th. You're welcome to join.

Since 2024, a group of girlfriends and I have met every other month to share our love for books, feminist voices and amazing storytelling. We each pick what we want to read with the commitment of actually read it and sharing our thoughts every time we have the chance to meet.

Through our choices, we gravitate towards African voices and feminist stories across the different languages we feel comfortable reading in (English, Portuguese and French), and at our own pace.

Out of the 48 books we have chosen so far, 34 were written by women, 5 by Angolan authors and 7 from Nigerian writers. How delightful is that?

Below are the books we have picked through the years and the seasons.

My own book choices are always in bold.

Our July-August 2026 picks:

📖🇳🇬 Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
📖🇳🇬 And so I Roar - Abi Daré
📖🇮🇹 Le Perfezioni (Perfection) - Vincenzo Latronico
📖🇫🇷🇲🇦 J'emporterai le Feu (I'll Take the Fire) In the country of others #3 - Leila Slimani

Our June 2026 picks:

📖🇬🇧🇬🇭 Love by the Book - Jessica George
📖🇯🇵 Hooked - Asako Yuzuki
📖🇵🇹🇨🇻 Foi o Preto - Ângelo Delgado
📖🇺🇸 Seven Days in June - Tia Williams

Our May 2026 picks:

📖🇺🇸 100 Days of Sunlight - Abbie Emmons
📖🇺🇸 Yesteryear - Caro Claire Burke
📖🇦🇴 Espiritualidade - João Miranda
📖🇫🇷 Et La Joie de Vivre (A Hymn to Life: Shame has to change sides) - Gisèle Pelicot

Our April 2026 picks:

📖🇷🇺 Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turguenev
📖🇳🇬 The Tiny Things Are Heavier - Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo
📖🇺🇸 Beach Read - Emily Henry

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What Goodreads says about Kin: Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbours since earliest childhood, but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Atlanta at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and marries into an affluent family. Annie, abandoned by her dissolute mother as a child, and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, and culminate in a battle for her life.

A novel about mothers and daughters, about friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South, Kin is an exuberant, emotionally rich, unforgettable work from one of the brightest and most irresistible voices in contemporary fiction.

Our March 2026 picks:

📖🇺🇸 Kin - Tayari Jones
📖🇦🇴 O Incesto Real - Júlio de Almeida
📖🇺🇸 Moving Forward - Karine Jean-Pierre
📖🇵🇹 E se eu morrer amanhã? - Filipa Fonseca Silva

Our September 2025 picks:

📖🇬🇧 The Salt Path - Raynor Winn

📖🇳🇬🇬🇧 Allow Me To Introduce Myself - Onyi Nwabineli

📖🇫🇷🇲🇦 Le Pays des Autres (In The Country of Others) - Leïla Slimani

Our August 2025 picks:

📖🇵🇹🇦🇴 A Tua Melanina - Stephanie Vasconcelos

📖🇵🇹 Sinais de Fumo - Alex Couto

📖🇺🇸 I Am Not Sidney Poitier - Percival Everett

📖🇺🇸 Great Black Hope - Rob Franklin

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What Goodreads says about I Am Not Sidney Poitier: Not Sidney Poitier is an amiable young man in an absurd country. The sudden death of his mother orphans him at age eleven, leaving him with an unfortunate name, an uncanny resemblance to the famous actor, and, perhaps more fortunate, a staggering number of shares in the Turner Broadcasting Corporation.

Percival Everett’s hilarious new novel follows Not Sidney’s tumultuous life, as the social hierarchy scrambles to balance his skin color with his fabulous wealth. Maturing under the less-than watchful eye of his adopted foster father, Ted Turner, Not gets arrested in rural Georgia for driving while black, sparks a dinnertable explosion at the home of his manipulative girlfriend, and sleuths a murder case in Smut Eye, Alabama, all while navigating the recurrent communication problem: “What’s your name?” a kid would ask. “Not Sidney,” I would say. “Okay, then what is it?”

Our July 2025 picks:

📖🇯🇲🇨🇦 Sweetness in the Skin – Ishi Robinson (read by one of the members in the first edition)

📖🇺🇸 A Court of Thorn and Roses - Sarah J. Maas

📖🇺🇸 Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece - Three Initiates

📖🇬🇧 The Wake-Up Call - Beth O'Leary

Our June 2025 picks:

📖🇬🇧 Cleopatra & Frankenstein - Coco Mellors

📖🇺🇸 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou

Our May 2025 picks:

Exceptionally, we all read the same book in May 2025!

📖🇳🇬 Dream Count - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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What Goodreads says about Dream Count: Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until—betrayed and brokenhearted—she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America—but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

Our March/April 2025 picks:

📖🇦🇴 Manual da Angolanidade

📖🇺🇸 James - Percival Everett

📖🇵🇹 A Origem dos Dias - Miguel D'Alte

📖🇦🇴 Crónicas da nossa Terra - Fernando Pacheco

📖🇺🇸 I'm Glad my Mom Died - Jennette McCurdy

Our February 2025 picks:

📖🇳🇬 The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives – Lola Shoneyin

📖🇨🇦 We Rip the World Apart – Charlene Carr

📖🇬🇧 How to Solve your own Murder – Kristen Perrin

Our January 2025 picks:

📖🇳🇬 Nearly all the Men in Lagos are Mad – Damilare Kuku
📖🇬🇧 Girl, Woman, Other – Bernardine Evaristo
📖🇺🇸 Lessons in Chemistry – Bonnie Garmus
📖🇺🇸 Family Lore - Elizabeth Acevedo

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What Goodreads says about Sweetness in the Skin: Pumkin Patterson is a thirteen-year-old girl living in a tiny two-room house in Kingston, Jamaica with her grandmother (who wants to improve the family’s social standing); her aunt Sophie (who dreams of a new life in Paris for her and Pumkin); and her mother Paulette (who’s rarely home). When Sophie is offered the chance to move to France for work, she seizes the opportunity and promises to send for her niece in one year’s time. All Pumkin has to do is pass her French entrance exam so she can attend school there. But when Pumkin’s grandmother dies, she’s left alone with her volatile mother, and as soon as her estranged father turns up—as lazy and conniving as ever—the household’s fortunes take a turn for the worse.

Our first edition - December 2024 picks:

📖🇧🇷 Não fossem as sílabas do sábado – Mariana Salomão Carrara
📖🇺🇸 The Bookish Life of Nina Hill – Abbi Waxman
📖🇯🇲🇨🇦 Sweetness in the Skin – Ishi Robinson

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