A fantastic tour of 25 ancient deities, the book reclaims these feminist icons for a new generation, divinely illustrated by Georgia Perry. We meet Athena the strong woman of Classical Greece, rule-breaking Freyja from Scandinavia, laugh at yourself with Uzume of Japan, get what you're owed with Oshun from Yoruba, embrace ambition, be a bitch, learn the power of female solidarity, make your own luck, gain respect, be unapologetic, understand love, find balance, keep it kind, play the long game, prioritise self care, say no, build resilience, enjoy single life, take care of your mental health, learn to be adaptable, beat fear, own your sensuality and discover the importance of old ladies. From the myths of the Mayan Mexico, Russia, China, India, Scotland, Australia, Bali, Tibet and Mesopotamia, the goddesses' stories in this book reflect the expectations that both hamper women and provide them with timeless models of how to live their best lives. Why settle for being a mere mortal when you could live like a goddess? Faber paperback, 247pp, illus.

A beautifully told award winning biography, the first full study for over 30 years which incorporates recent archival discoveries to reveal more about Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She famously wrote 'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways', shortly before defying her family by running away to Italy with Robert Browning. But behind the romance of her extraordinary life stands a thoroughly modern figure. Born in 1806, a time when women could neither attend university nor vote, Elizabeth achieved lasting literary fame and remains Britain's greatest woman poet whose work has inspired writers from Emily Dickinson to George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. Here is the woman as a literary giant and high-profile activist for the abolition of slavery who believed herself to be of mixed heritage, and a writer who defied chronic illness and long term disability to change the course of cultural history. The book holds up a mirror to the woman, her work and the art of biography in itself and a life that remains an electrifying study in self invention. Sampson makes a convincing claim that EBB was the first female lyric poet and her point is that Aurora Leigh provides us with a model for understanding how EBB forged a new relationship between female subjectivity and public utterance. 322pp, paperback, colour illus.

Sub-titled 'The Scandalous High-Society Life of the Formidable Lady Killmore'. Enid Lindeman stopped traffic in Manhattan, silenced gamblers in Monte Carlo, and walked her pet cheetah through Hyde Park on a diamond collar. She stood almost six feet tall with silver hair and flashing turquoise eyes. In early 20th century society where women were expected to be demure and obedient, Enid gallivanted through life accumulating four husbands and numerous lovers, her high-jinks fascinating British gossip columnists during the inter-war years. She drove an ambulance in World War One and hid escaped Allied airmen behind enemy lines in World War Two, played bridge with Somerset Maugham and entertained Hollywood royalty in the world's most expensive private home on the Riviera, allegedly won in a game of cards. Enid bedazzled men with her beauty, outlived four husbands - two shipping magnates, a war hero and a larger-than-life Irish Earl - spent two great fortunes and earned the nickname 'Lady Killmore'. From Sydney to New York, London to Paris and Cairo to Kenya, Robert Wainwright's biography restores the remarkable Enid to thrilling, vivid life and her contributions to fashion, culture, architecture, and horse racing across three continents. Enid is admirable for her loyalty, generous spirit and disregard for the strictures of polite society and we go with her into the winemaking industry in Australia to horse breeding in Kenya and South Africa. 356pp, paperback with many archive photos.

A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, sub-titled 'The Women Who Ran Britain's Trailblazing Military Hospital', Moore is superb at describing the medical advances that resulted in seven research papers by Endell Street doctors being published in The Lancet, among the first ever by women. It is impossible not to love the Suffragette surgeons as they fought the wounded abroad and for women's rights at home, and luckily for us this spectacular story fell into the hands of one of our finest biographers. She tells the forgotten and inspiring story of a London hospital during the First World War which was staffed entirely by women. At this time, the Suffragettes suspended their campaigning and joined the war effort. For pioneering Suffragette doctors and life partners Flora Murray and Louisa Garrett Anderson that meant moving to France, where they set up two small hospitals amidst fierce opposition. Their medical and organisational skills were so impressive that in 1915 Flora and Louisa were asked by the War Ministry to return to London and establish a new military hospital in a vast and derelict old workhouse in Covent Garden's Endell Street. There they created a 573-bed hospital staffed from top to bottom by female surgeons, doctors and nurses, which received 26,000 wounded men over the next four years. The book celebrates an extraordinary group of groundbreaking women who challenged and changed Britain's medical establishment and this is an extraordinary story, beautifully told. 376pp, colour and archive photos. Paperback.