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With so many different options and so few hours in the day, it can be overwhelming to choose what to read next ― and tough to know where to start if you want to make reading a habit.
As March is the designated month to celebrate the work of women (though really, it should be a year-round practice), we put together a list of incredible books by women writers. Although the list of literary classics by women includes thousands of options, we decided to narrow our focus to recent history.
Here are 35 books by women authors published in the past five years.

1. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

"Witnessing these two families as they commingle and clash is an utterly engrossing, often heartbreaking, deeply empathetic experience. ... It’s this vast and complex network of moral affiliations -- and the nuanced omniscient voice that Ng employs to navigate it -- that make this novel even more ambitious and accomplished than her debut. ... It is a thrillingly democratic use of omniscience, and, for a novel about class, race, family and the dangers of the status quo, brilliantly apt." -- The New York TimesPenguin Press2. Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

“Mbue is a wonderful writer with an uncanny ear for dialogue -- there are no false notes here, no narrative shortcuts, and certainly no manufactured happy endings. It’s a novel that depicts a country both blessed and doomed, on top of the world, but always at risk of losing its balance. It is, in other words, quintessentially American.” -- NPRRandom House3. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

“A Little Life asks serious questions about humanism and euthanasia and psychiatry and any number of the partis pris of modern western life. ... A devastating read that will leave your heart, like the Grinch’s, a few sizes larger.” -- The GuardianDoubleday4. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

"Groff’s story of a marriage in which neither partner truly understands the other uses a sophisticated technique to tell its simple story, subverting our expectations with a two-voice counterpoint as meaningful as it is dazzling.” -- Time magazineRiverhead Books5. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

“Though Thomas’s story is heartbreakingly topical, its greatest strength is in its authentic depiction of a teenage girl, her loving family, and her attempts to reconcile what she knows to be true about their lives with the way those lives are depicted -- and completely undervalued -- by society at large.” -- Publishers WeeklyBalzer Bray6. Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

"[Her Body and Other Parties is] a vibrant collection that presents women in their vulnerabilities and strengths in relationships with men, in relationships with other women, and in reflection upon their own bodies as they sort through the social conventions that have long stifled their full expression of self.” -- The Seattle Review of BooksGraywolf Press7. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

"After two half sisters are separated, we follow their family lines over the course of two centuries through a series of short stories. Some of their descendants are in Africa, some are in America; some are free, some are enslaved. In the end, the two separate family sagas merge into one, back in the place where it all began." -- NPRVintage8. The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs

"A vivid, immediate dispatch from the front lines of mortality and a record of a life by someone who wasn't done living yet. But there is nothing maudlin about it ... her warm portraits of each of [the members of her closest circle] are a large part of the book's emotional power. So is something we don't notice fully until it's gone: the strength and clarity of Riggs's voice, which never faded on the page, and which we won't get to hear again." -- Boston GlobeSimon Schuster9. Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling

"With essays such as 'A Starlet's Confessions,' which tackles Hollywood's idea of beauty, and 'How to Get Your Own Show (And Nearly Die of Anxiety),' addressing the troubled course of her sitcom, Kaling once again applies humor and pop-culture savvy to topics like body image, career and finding love." -- Los Angeles TimesThree Rivers Press10. The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy

"Loss is the black hole at the centre of Ariel Levy’s maelstrom of a memoir. The events of her life surge around this absence, and loss is the centrifugal force -- not just loss of love (though love goes), or of hope, though that too, but loss of her sense of self as a ceaseless, marvellous act of becoming." -- The GuardianRandom House11. Lila by Marilynne Robinson

"A poetic, bittersweet meditation on faith, family, and belonging, Lila embraces the depths of human doubt and misery while uncovering hope through the power of grace." -- HuffPostFarrar Straus and Giroux12. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s fourth book, Americanah, is so smart about so many subjects that to call it a novel about being black in the 21st century doesn’t even begin to convey its luxurious heft and scope. Americanah is indeed a novel about being black in the 21st century — in America, Great Britain and Africa, while answering a want ad, choosing a lover, hailing a cab, eating collard greens, watching Barack Obama on television — but you could also call it a novel of immigration and dislocation, just about every page tinged with faint loneliness.” — NPRAnchor13. Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson

"Not all works of history have something to say so directly to the present, but Heather Ann Thompson’s Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, which deals with racial conflict, mass incarceration, police brutality and dissembling politicians, reads like it was special-ordered for the sweltering summer of 2016. But there’s nothing partisan or argumentative about Blood in the Water. The power of this superb work of history comes from its methodical mastery of interviews, transcripts, police reports and other documents, covering 35 years, many released only reluctantly by government agencies.  ... It’s Ms. Thompson’s achievement, in this remarkable book, to make us understand why this one group of prisoners [rebelled], and how many others shared the cost.” -- The New York TimesPantheon Books14. I’m Supposed to Protect You from All This by Nadja Spiegelman

"Nadja Spiegelman has written a memoir of a mother she thought she knew, which resonates through the recollections of the grandmother she might have misunderstood." -- NPRRiverhead Books15. Redefining Realness by Janet Mock

"With simple honesty, the author brings readers into the world of transgender identity, of what it meant and felt like to be born and thought of as a boy, only to know deep inside that she was not that boy. From learning her father was addicted to crack to the childhood sexual abuse she sustained to the street sex she performed to gain enough money for her sex-change operation, Mock allows readers into the deepest and darkest moments of her life." -- Kirkus ReviewsAtria Books16. Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh

"Moshfegh’s fiction is nothing if not distinctive. As in her debut novel, Eileen, the narrators of the 14 stories in Homesick for Another World are gloomy, narcissistic and self-pitying. Their lives are claustrophobic and squalid. They’re constantly squeezing their acne, having sex with people they despise, eating candy and drinking until they’re sick, developing meth addictions just for kicks, and always feeling slightly superior to their own surroundings despite their listless lives. They crave adoration, but look on anyone who gives it to them with contempt." -- HuffPostPenguin Press17. The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez

"The unknown Americans of Cristina Henríquez's novel are Hispanic tenants of a run-down apartment building in a down-at-heel Delaware town. In particular, the novel centres on Maribel Rivera, a teenage girl with a severe brain injury. Her parents have left a comfortable life in Mexico, hoping that American special-needs education will restore their only child to her former self. The story of the poverty and isolation they find is told from two points of view: that of Maribel's mother, Alma, and of Mayor, a lonely neighbour boy who falls in love with Maribel." -- The GuardianKnopf18. Citizen by Claudia Rankine

“So groundbreaking is Rankine's work that it's almost impossible to describe; suffice it to say that this is a poem that reads like an essay (or the other way around) -- a piece of writing that invents a new form for itself, incorporating pictures, slogans, social commentary and the most piercing and affecting revelations to evoke the intersection of inner and outer life.” -- Los Angeles TimesGraywolf Press19. Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit

“Solnit tackles big themes of gender and power in these accessible essays. Honest and full of wit, this is an integral read that furthers the conversation on feminism and contemporary society.” -- San Francisco ChronicleHaymarket Books20. Marlena by Julie Buntin

"Marlena’s vivid portrait of a friendship between two teenage girls in a troubled community ― one who made it out, and one who didn’t ― viscerally captures the sensations and heartaches of adolescence." -- HuffPostHenry Holt and Co.21. The Mothers by Brit Bennett

"If you read The Mothers, you will learn a lot. You will learn what it’s like to experience a mother-shaped absence at the center of your life, as well as what it’s like to feel your mother’s hot, judgmental breath on your shoulder every second. You’ll learn that men, even when they do the wrong thing again and again, have feelings about babies born and unborn. You’ll learn that rigidly cruel actions have roots in sad, earned wisdom. And you’ll learn that Brit Bennett is a writer to watch." -- The Washington PostRandom House22. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante

“[Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels] don’t merely offer a teeming vision of working-class Naples, with its cobblers and professors, communists and mobbed-up businessmen, womanizing poets and downtrodden wives; they present one of modern fiction’s richest portraits of a friendship.” -- NPREuropa Editions23. Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam

"Reckoning with the past leads to a more fully realized present. The novel is a sensitive and subtle exploration of the experience of gender nonconformity across cultures. Though Ella emerges as the most changed character, this is more than her story -- it's a transcontinental, transgenerational tale of a family and its secrets." -- Kirkus ReviewsPenguin24. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

"While the magical element is new in Ward’s fiction, her allusiveness, anchored in her interest in the politics of race, has been pointing in this direction all along. It takes a touch of the spiritual to speak across chasms of age, class, and color. ... The signal characteristic of Ward’s prose is its lyricism. 'I’m a failed poet,' she has said. The length and music of Ward’s sentences owe much to her love of catalogues, extended similes, imagistic fragments, and emphasis by way of repetition. ... The effect, intensified by use of the present tense, can be hypnotic." -- The New YorkerScribner25. Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

"At once a suspenseful novel of noir intrigue, a gorgeously wrought and richly allusive literary tapestry, and a transporting work of lyrical beauty and emotional heft, Manhattan Beach is a magnificent achievement.” -- Boston GlobeScribner26. Nobody Is Ever Missing by Catherine Lacey

"Lacey’s debut novel has emotional power, depth, and subtle humor. The protagonist, Elyria, makes the impulsive decision to leave her luxurious New York City apartment, her husband, her job as a scriptwriter for soap operas, and, most importantly, the charade of happiness she has kept up since her sister’s suicide. Elyria decides to take a trip to New Zealand, after going to a party and meeting Werner, a successful novelist who said she could stay at his cottage there. ... Lacey rejects the typical dramatic trajectory of a self-discovery story. Instead, she keenly constructs a believable universe composed not of disasters or miracles, but of choices and consequences." -- Publishers WeeklyFSG Originals27. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

"Debut author Honeyman expertly captures a woman whose inner pain is excruciating and whose face and heart are scarred, but who still holds the capacity to love and be loved. Eleanor’s story will move readers." -- Publishers WeeklyPamela Dorman Books28. Swing Time by Zadie Smith

"Building upon the promise of White Teeth, written almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith’s Swing Time boldly reimagines the classically English preoccupation with class and status for a new era -- in which race, gender, and the strange distortions of contemporary celebrity meet on a global stage. ... No detail feels extraneous, least of all the book’s resonant motif, the sankofa bird, with its backward-arching neck -- suggestive less of a dancer than of an author, looking to her origins to understand the path ahead.” -- VoguePenguin Press29. The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison

"[Jamison] combines the intellectual rigor of a philosopher, the imagination of a novelist and a reporter's keen eye for detail in these essays, which seamlessly blend reportage, cultural criticism, theory and memoir.” ― Los Angeles TimesGraywolf Press30. The Dark Dark by Samantha Hunt

"In The Dark Dark, Samantha Hunt has a knack for capturing the mundane, and more often painful or disgusting, inner thoughts of a woman -- the fleeting fixations that haunt the body of the so-called fairer sex.  ... Hunt’s short stories -- like the one involving an act of infidelity so banal but strange it resurrects a dead dog; or the one that ends with a husband and wife, newly transformed into deer, parting ways from each other on four legs -- are filled with bits of speculative horror that hit acutely close to home." -- HuffPostFSG Originals31. Hunger by Roxane Gay

"At a time when there is no shortage of recommendations for women on how to discipline or make peace with their bodies, Roxane Gay’s book, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, stands out precisely because she begins it by declaring that she hasn’t overcome her 'unruly body and unruly appetites.'" -- The AtlanticHarper32. The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

“Claire Messud’s fourth novel is that rare work of fiction seemingly destined to become a cultural benchmark, a byword even. It provides an indelible label for a member of society (and a long recurring figure in literature) who has somehow been confined to anonymity. Ms. Messud’s coinage -- the Woman Upstairs -- is so broadly defining and so necessary that even those who never read the novel may soon find themselves making unwitting use of it.” -- The Wall Street JournalVintage33. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

"After an efficient strain of the flu wipes out civilization in a handful of days (fevers, air travel, overcrowded hospitals, clogged highways, silence), the survivors, mostly huddled into small 'cities' of 100 people or less, face struggles similar to those they encountered pre-apocalypse: In addition to warding off predators, they squabble over living spaces, question their children’s’ education and debate the quality of different artistic mediums." -- HuffPostVintage34. My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem
"My Life on the Road, Ms. Steinem’s first book in more than twenty years, is a warmly companionable look back at nearly five decades as itinerant feminist organizer and standard-bearer. If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like to sit down with Ms. Steinem for a casual dinner, this disarmingly intimate book gives a pretty good idea, mixing hard-won pragmatic lessons with more inspirational insights.” -- The New York TimesRandom House35. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

"Spanning nearly 100 years and moving from Korea at the start of the 20th century to pre- and postwar Osaka and, finally, Tokyo and Yokohama, the novel reads like a long, intimate hymn to the struggles of people in a foreign land. Min Jin Lee meticulously reconstructs the relatively overlooked history of the large ethnic-Korean community in Japan, referred to as zainichi, whose perpetual status as outsiders obliges them, like Noa’s nephew Solomo in the novel, to renew their alien registration card every three years: a state of administrative limbo that mirrors their divided identities and condemns them to the role of the perpetual outsider." -- The GuardianGrand Central Publishing