Wonder Woman Reading List

/ June 16, 2017

Seen the movie? Now read about it! Graphic Novels, Non-fiction and more… Also check out the Read This Display next time you are in the library.

The Graphic Novels

    • Bennett, Marguerite Bombshells. Allies Volume 2, Summary:“Based on the hit DC Collectibles product line! As World War II rages across Europe, the Allied forces issue a call to arms for the greatest heroines the world has ever known! With an old villain arising from beyond the grave, Wonder Woman, Batwoman, Kara Starikov, Kortni Duginova and Mera must aid the Allied forces while at home, a brave group of Batgirls must defend the homeland! The incredibly popular DC Collectibles line is brought to life in these stories that reimagine the course of history! From writer Marguerite Bennett (BATGIRL, EARTH 2: WORLD’S END) and featuring artists including Marguerite Sauvage (HINTERKIND), Laura Braga (Witchblade) and Mirka Andolfo (Chaos) comes DC COMICS: BOMBSHELLS VOL. 2 collects #7-12”–

    • Azzarello, Brian Wonder woman, vol. 1 : blood Summary: Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, has kept a secret from her daughter all her life – and when Wonder Woman learns who her father is, her life will shatter like brittle clay. The only one more shocked than Diana by this revelation? Bloodthirsty Hera – so why is her sinister daughter, Strife, so eager for the truth to be told? Superstar writer Brian Azzarello creates a new direction for one of DC’s best-known heroes, with spectacular art by Cliff Chiang and Tony Akins!

    • Azzarello, Brian Wonder Woman. Bones Volume 6, Summary:“It’s the beginning of the end as writer Brian Azzarello and artist Cliff Chiang kick off the astonishing finale of their epic run! Olympus must fall, and its rightful ruler must be restored. Wonder Woman is locked in a desperate battle with the First Born with the destiny of immortals at stake–and she must make a decision that will effect the lives of those she loves most. Collects WONDER WOMAN #30-35, and SECRET ORIGINS #6”–

    • Azzarello, Brian Wonder Woman. Flesh Volume 5, Summary:Wonder Woman’s life is changed forever when she is called on to take the place of War on Olympus! An epic new era of WONDER WOMAN begins here, as Diana must decide if the path set out for her is one she wants to take. But there’s no time for Wonder Woman to fully comprehend the fallout as her family gathers to prepare for an assault on Olympus! The last time the First Born came for Olympus, it took the death of the God of War to stop him. With Wonder Woman as the new God of War and the First Born more determined than ever to claim his birthright, things are about to get violent indeed!

    • Azzarello, Brian Wonder Woman. Guts Volume 2, Summary: Wonder Woman goes to hell! After playing Poseidon, Hades, and Hera against each other, Hades strikes back by kidnapping Zola and trapping her in the Underworld. It’s up to Wonder Woman — with a little help from the God of Love and the God of Smiths — to break Zola out. But what is Hades’ real game, and once you get into the land of the dead, how exactly do you get out?

    • Azzarello, Brian Wonder Woman. Iron Volume 3, Summary: In these stories a terrible betrayal forces Wonder Woman to make a deal with the gods who want her dead, and her “family” grows larger than she could have imagined. Will the mysterious Orion help Wonder Woman rescue Zola’s baby from the clutches of Hermes, or does he have darker intentions?

    • Azzarello, Brian Wonder Woman. War Volume 4, Summary:“Wonder Woman’s world is shocked to its core when her eldest brother, the First Born, is freed from his slumber. Now, with her family in ruins and her friends scattered, she must turn to Orion and the New Gods of New Genesis to save herself and Zola’s newborn from the First Born’s wrath!”–

Wonder Woman In Non-Fiction

    • Lepore, Jill The secret history of Wonder Woman Summary:A cultural history of Wonder Woman traces the character’s creation and enduring popularity, drawing on interviews and archival research to reveal the pivotal role of feminism in shaping her seven-decade story

    • Nicholson, Hope The spectacular sisterhood of superwomen : awesome female characters from comic book history Summary: Think comic books can t feature strong female protagonists? Think again! In The Spectacular Sisterhood of Superwomen you ll meet the most fascinating exemplars of the powerful, compelling, entertaining, and heroic female characters who ve populated comic books from the very beginning. This spectacular sisterhood includes costumed crimebusters like Miss Fury, super-spies like Tiffany Sinn, sci-fi pioneers like Gale Allen, and even kid troublemakers like Little Lulu. With vintage art, publication details, a decade-by-decade survey of industry trends and women s roles in comics, and spotlights on iconic favorites like Wonder Woman and Ms. Marvel, The Spectacular Sisterhood of Superwomen proves that not only do strong female protagonists belong in comics, they ve always been there.”

    • Hanley, Tim Wonder Woman unbound : the curious history of the world’s most famous heroine Summary:“With her golden lasso and her bullet-deflecting bracelets, Wonder Woman is a beloved icon of female strength in a world of male superheroes. But this close look at her history portrays a complicated heroine who is more than just a female Superman. The original Wonder Woman was ahead of her time, advocating female superiority and the benefits of matriarchy in the 1940s. At the same time, her creator filled the comics with titillating bondage imagery, and Wonder Woman was tied up as often as she saved the world. In the 1950s, Wonder Woman begrudgingly continued her superheroic mission, wishing she could settle down with her boyfriend instead, all while continually hinting at hidden lesbian leanings. While other female characters stepped forward as women’s lib took off in the late 1960s, Wonder Woman fell backwards, losing her superpowers and flitting from man to man. Ms. magazine and Lynda Carter restored Wonder Woman’s feminist strength in the 1970s, turning her into a powerful symbol as her checkered past was quickly forgotten. Exploring this lost history as well as her modern incarnations adds new dimensions to the world’s most beloved female character, and Wonder Woman Unbound delves into her comic book and its spin-offs as well as the myriad motivations of her creators to showcase the peculiar journey that led to Wonder Woman’s iconic status”–

      • Historical Fiction From The Time Period of the Movie

        • Todd, Charles An unwilling accomplice Summary:“World War I Battlefield nurse Bess Crawford’s career is in jeopardy when a murder is committed on her watch, in this absorbing and atmospheric historical mystery from New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd. Home on leave, Bess Crawford is asked to accompany a wounded soldier confined to a wheelchair to Buckingham Palace, where he’s to be decorated by the King. The next morning when Bess goes to collect Wilkins, he has vanished. Both the Army and the nursing service hold Bess negligent for losing the war hero, and there will be an inquiry. Then comes disturbing word from the Shropshire police, complicating the already difficult situation: Wilkins has been spotted, and he’s killed a man. If Bess is to save her own reputation, she must find Wilkins and uncover the truth. But the elusive soldier has disappeared again and even the Shropshire police have lost him. Suddenly, the moral implications of what has happened–that a patient in her charge has committed murder–become more important to Bess than her own future. She’s going to solve this mysterious puzzle, but righting an injustice and saving her honor may just cost Bess her life” —

        • Coelho, Paulo The spy : a novel Summary:In his new novel, Paulo Coelho, best-selling author of The Alchemist and Adultery, brings to life one of history’s most enigmatic women: Mata Hari. When Mata Hari arrived in Paris she was penniless. Within months she was the most celebrated woman in the city. As a dancer, she shocked and delighted audiences; as a courtesan, she bewitched the era’s richest and most powerful men. But as paranoia consumed a country at war, Mata Hari’s lifestyle brought her under suspicion. In 1917, she was arrested in her hotel room on the Champs Elysees, and accused of espionage. Told in Mata Hari’s voice through her final letter, The Spy is the unforgettable story of a woman who dared to defy convention and who paid the ultimate price.

        • Perry, Anne We shall not sleep : a novel of World War I Summary: After four long years, peace is finally in sight. But chaplain Joseph Reavley and his sister Judith, an ambulance driver on the Western Front, are more hard pressed than ever. Behind the lines, violence is increasing: soldiers are abusing German prisoners, a nurse has been raped and murdered, and the sinister ideologue called the Peacemaker now threatens to undermine the peace just as he did the war. Then Matthew, the third Reavley sibling and an intelligence expert, suddenly arrives at the front with startling news. The Peacemaker’s German counterpart has offered to go to England and expose his co-conspirator as a traitor. But with war still raging and prejudices inflamed, such a journey would be fraught with hazards, especially since the Peacemaker has secret informers everywhere, even on the battlefield. For richness of plot, character, and feeling, We Shall Not Sleep is unmatched. Anne Perry’s brilliantly orchestrated finale is a heartstopping tour de force, mesmerizing and totally satisfying.

      Other Leading Women

          • Wallach, Janet Desert queen : the extraordinary life of Gertrude Bell, adventurer, adviser to kings, ally of Lawrence of Arabia Summary: Turning away from the privileged world of the “eminent Victorians,” Gertrude Bell (1868—1926) explored, mapped, and excavated the world of the Arabs. Recruited by British intelligence during World War I, she played a crucial role in obtaining the loyalty of Arab leaders, and her connections and information provided the brains to match T. E. Lawrence’s brawn. After the war, she played a major role in creating the modern Middle East and was, at the time, considered the most powerful woman in the British Empire. In this masterful biography, Janet Wallach shows us the woman behind these achievements–a woman whose passion and defiant independence were at odds wit the confined and custom-bound England she left behind. Too long eclipsed by Lawrence, Gertrude Bell emerges at last in her own right as a vital player on the stage of modern history, and as a woman whose life was both a heartbreaking story and a grand adventure.

          • Doran, Susan Elizabeth I and Her Circle Summary:This is the story of Elizabeth I’s inner circle and the crucial human relationships which lay at the heart of her personal and political life. Using a wide range of original sources–including private letters, portraits, verse, drama, and state papers–Susan Doran provides a vivid and often dramatic account of political life in Elizabethan England and the queen at its center, offering a deeper insight into Elizabeth’s emotional and political conduct–and challenging many of the popular myths that have grown up around her. It is a story replete with fascinating questions. What was the true nature of Elizabeth’s relationship with her father, Henry VIII, especially after his execution of her mother? How close was she to her half-brother Edward VI – and were relations with her half-sister Mary really as poisonous as is popularly assumed? And what of her relationship with her Stewart cousins, most famously with Mary Queen of Scots, executed on Elizabeth’s orders in 1587, but also with Mary’s son James VI of Scotland, later to succeed Elizabeth as her chosen successor? Elizabeth’s relations with her family were crucial, but just as crucial were her relations with her courtiers and her councillors. Here again, the story raises a host of fascinating questions. Was the queen really sexually jealous of her maids of honour? Did physically attractive male favourites dominate her court? What does her long and intimate relationship with the Earl of Leicester reveal about her character, personality, and attitude to marriage? What can the fall of Essex tell us about Elizabeth’s political management in the final years of her reign? And what was the true nature of her personal and political relationship with influential and long-serving councillors such as the Cecils and Sir Francis Walsingham? And how did courtiers and councillors deal with their demanding royal mistress? –Provided by publisher.

          • Shipman, Pat Femme fatale : love, lies, and the unknown life of Mata Hari Summary:A portrait of the notorious early twentieth-century spy considers the theory that she may have been innocent of the charges for which she was executed, in an account that profiles her as a complicated seducer of men who had an unusual talent for manipulation.

          • Barcella, Laura Fight like a girl : 50 feminists who changed the world Summary: Nearly every day there s another news story, think piece, or pop cultural anecdote related to feminism and women s rights. Conversations around consent, equal pay, access to contraception, and a host of other issues are foremost topics of conversation in American media. And today s teens are encountering these issues from a different perspective than any generation has before but what s often missing from the current discussion is an understanding of how we ve gotten to this place. “Fight Like a Girl” introduces readers to the history of feminist activism in the U.S. in an effort to celebrate those who paved the way and draw attention to those who are working hard to further the feminist cause today.”

          • Schneider, Dorothy Into the breach : American women overseas in World War I Summary: During the First World War, thousands of American women sailed to Europe, some to try to end the war, most to participate in its conduct or succor its victims. A few hundred were members of the U.S. Army; more than 10,000 held quasi-military status as nurses (but without military pay, benefits, or pensions); another 10,000 found or created their own wartime jobs. Although most of these women have vanished completely from memory, the accounts they left of themselves remain to reveal them in all their remarkable diversity. Memoirs, letters, newspaper reports, novels and diaries, from doctors, pilots, photographers, journalists, interpreters, telephone operators and entertainers tell the story of these neglected veterans of World War I.

          • Downey, Kirstin Isabella : the warrior queen Summary:Drawing on new scholarship, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Woman Behind the New Deal presents a biography of Isabella of Castile, the controversial Queen of Spain who sponsored Christopher Columbus’ journey to the New World, established the Spanish Inquisition and became one of the most influential female rulers in history.

          • Tremlett, Giles Isabella of Castile: Europe’s First Great Queen Summary: In 1474, when Castile was the largest, strongest, and most populous kingdom in Hispania (present day Spain and Portugal), a twenty-three-year-old woman named Isabella ascended the throne. At a time when successful queens regnant were few and far between, Isabella faced not only the considerable challenge of being a young, female ruler in an overwhelmingly male-dominated world, but also of reforming a major European kingdom riddled with crime, debt, corruption, and religious factionism. Her marriage to Ferdinand of Aragon united two kingdoms, a royal partnership in which Isabella more than held her own. Their pivotal reign was long and transformative, uniting Spain and setting the stage for its golden era of global dominance. Acclaimed historian Giles Tremlett chronicles the life of Isabella of Castile as she led her country out of the murky Middle Ages and harnessed the newest ideas and tools of the early Renaissance to turn her ill-disciplined, quarrelsome nation into a sharper, truly modern state with a powerful, clear-minded, and ambitious monarch at its center. With authority and insight he relates the story of this legendary, if controversial, first initiate in a small club of great European queens that includes Elizabeth I of England, Russia’s Catherine the Great, and Britain’s Queen Victoria.

          • Cooper, Helene Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Summary: The harrowing, but triumphant story of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, leader of the Liberian women’s movement, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first democratically elected female president in African history. When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won the 2005 Liberian presidential election, she demolished a barrier few thought possible, obliterating centuries of patriarchal rule to become the first female elected head of state in Africa’s history. Madame President is the inspiring, often heartbreaking story of Sirleaf’s evolution from an ordinary Liberian mother of four boys to international banking executive, from a victim of domestic violence to a political icon, from a post-war president to a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author Helene Cooper deftly weaves Sirleaf’s personal story into the larger narrative of the coming of age of Liberian women. The highs and lows of Sirleaf’s life are filled with indelible images; from imprisonment in a jail cell for standing up to Liberia’s military government to addressing the United States Congress, from reeling under the onslaught of the Ebola pandemic to signing a deal with Hillary Clinton when she was still Secretary of State that enshrined American support for Liberia’s future. Sirleaf’s personality shines throughout this riveting biography. Ultimately, Madame President is the story of Liberia’s greatest daughter, and the universal lessons we can all learn from this “Oracle” of African women.

          • Castor, Helen She-wolves : the women who ruled England before Elizabeth Summary: When Edward VI – Henry VIII’s longed-for son – died in 1553, extraordinarily, there was no one left to claim the title King of England. For the first time, all the contenders for the crown were female.
            In 1553, England was about to experience the ‘monstrous regiment’ – the unnatural rule – of a woman. But female rule in England also had a past. Four hundred years before Edward’s death, Matilda, daughter of Henry I and granddaughter of William the Conquerer, came tantalisingly close to securing her hold on the power of the crown. And between the 12th and the 15th centuries three more exceptional women – Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, and Margaret of Anjou – discovered, as queens consort and dowager, how much was possible if the presumptions of male rule were not confronted so explicitly. The stories of these women – told here in all their vivid humanity – illustrate the paradox which the female heirs to the Tudor throne had no choice but to negotiate. Man was the head of woman; and the king was the head of all. How, then, could a woman be king, how could royal power lie in female hands?

          • Mayor, Adrienne The Amazons : lives and legends of warrior women across the ancient world Summary:Amazons–fierce warrior women dwelling on the fringes of the known world–were the mythic archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Heracles and Achilles displayed their valor in duels with Amazon queens, and the Athenians reveled in their victory over a powerful Amazon army. In historical times, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Roman general Pompey tangled with Amazons. But just who were these bold barbarian archers on horseback who gloried in fighting, hunting, and sexual freedom? Were Amazons real? In this deeply researched, wide-ranging, and lavishly illustrated book, National Book Award finalist Adrienne Mayor presents the Amazons as they have never been seen before. This is the first comprehensive account of warrior women in myth and history across the ancient world, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Great Wall of China.

          • Dumenil, Lynn The second line of defense : American women and World War I Summary: In tracing the rise of the modern idea of the American “new woman,” Lynn Dumenil examines World War I’s surprising impact on women and, in turn, women’s impact on the war. Telling the stories of a diverse group of women, including African Americans, dissidents, pacifists, reformers, and industrial workers, Dumenil analyzes both the roadblocks and opportunities they faced. She richly explores the ways in which women helped the United States mobilize for the largest military endeavor in the nation’s history. Dumenil shows how women activists staked their claim to loyal citizenship by framing their war work as homefront volunteers, overseas nurses, factory laborers, and support personnel as “the second line of defense.” But in assessing the impact of these contributions on traditional gender roles, Dumenil finds that portrayals of these new modern women did not always match with real and enduring change. Extensively researched and drawing upon popular culture sources as well as archival material, The Second Line of Defense offers a comprehensive study of American women and war and frames them in the broader context of the social, cultural, and political history of the era.

          • Estes, Clarissa Pinkola Women who run with the wolves : myths and stories of the wild woman archetype Summary: Within every woman there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. Her name is Wild Woman, but she is an endangered species. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D., Jungian analyst and cantadora storyteller shows how women’s vitality can be restored through what she calls “psychic archeological digs” into the ruins of the female unconsious. Using multicultural myths, fairy tales, folk tales, and stories, Dr. Estes helps women reconnect with the healthy, instinctual, visionary attributes of the Wild Woman archetype. Dr. Estes has created a new lexicon for describing the female psyche. Fertile and life-giving, it is a psychology of women in the truest sense, a knowing of the soul.

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