The Library

Beauty Sick : How the Cultural Obsession With Appearance Hurts Girls and Women by Renee Engeln
In Beauty Sick, Dr. Renee Engeln reveals the shocking consequences of girls obsession with appearance on their emotional and physical health and their wallets and ambitions, including depression, eating disorders, disruptions in cognitive processing, and lost money and time. Combining scientific studies with the voices of real young women, she makes clear that to truly fulfill their potential, women must break free from these destructive desires, attitudes, and words from fat-shaming to denigrating commentary.

Body Respect : What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, and Just Plain Fail to Understand About Weight by Linda Bacon
Dr. Linda Bacon and Dr. Lucy Aphramor's Body Respect debunks common myths about weight, including the misconceptions that BMI can accurately measure health, that fatness necessarily leads to disease, and that dieting will improve health. They also help make sense of how poverty and oppression--such as racism, homophobia, and classism--affect life opportunity, self-worth, and even influence metabolism. Body insecurity is rampant, and it doesn't have to be. It's time to overcome our culture's shame and distress about weight, to get real about inequalities and health, and to show every body respect.

Body Talk : How to Embrace Your Body and Start Living Your Best Life by Katie Sturino
Learn to love yourself and body with this interactive guide from the body acceptance advocate, influencer, and founder of Megababe beauty, Katie Sturino. With Body Talk, an illustrated guide-meets-workbook, Sturino is here to help you stop obsessing about your body issues, focus on self-love, and free up space in your brain for creative and productive energy. Complete with empowering affirmations, relatable anecdotes, and actionable takeaways, as well as space to answer prompts and jot down feelings and inspirations, Body Talk encourages you to spend less time thinking about how you look and what you eat and more time discovering your inner fierceness.

F*ck Your Diet : And Other Things My Thighs Tell Me by Chloé Hilliard
Fans of Issa Rae and Phoebe Robinson will love this collection of laugh-out-loud funny and insightful essays that explore race, feminism, pop culture, and how society reinforces the message that we are nothing without the perfect body. The perfect mix of cultural commentary, conspiracies, and confessions, F*ck Your Diet pokes fun at the all too familiar, misguided quest for better health, permanent weight loss, and a sense of self-worth.

Happy Fat : Taking Up Space in a World That Wants to Shrink You by Sofie Hagen
In Happy Fat, comedian Sofie Hagen shares how she removed fat-phobic influences from her daily life and found self-acceptance in a world where judgment and discrimination are rife. From shame and sex to airplane seats, love and getting stuck in public toilets, Sofie provides practical tips for readers--drawing wisdom from other Fat Liberation champions along the way. Part memoir, part social commentary, Happy Fat is a funny, angry and impassioned look at how taking up space in a culture that is desperate to reduce you can be radical, emboldening and life-changing.

Hunger : A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
The popular Tumblr blogger and best-selling author of Bad Feminist explores the devastating act of violence that triggered her personal challenges with food and body image, sharing advice for caring for oneself and eating in healthful and satisfying ways.

More Than a Body : Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament by Lexie Kite
Our beauty-obsessed world perpetuates the idea that happiness, health, and ability to be loved are dependent on how we look, but authors Lindsay and Lexie Kite offer an alternative vision. With insights drawn from their extensive body image research, Lindsay and Lexie lay out an action plan that arms you with the skills you need to reconnect with your whole self and free yourself from the constraints of self-objectification. They share powerful and practical advice that goes beyond "body positivity" to help readers develop body image resilience. In the process, they show how facing your feelings of body shame or embarrassment can become a catalyst for personal growth.

Physical Disobedience : An Unruly Guide to Health & Stamina for the Modern Feminist by Sarah Hays Coomer
Physical Disobedience introduces a breathtaking new perspective on wellness by encouraging nonviolence toward our bodies, revitalizing them through diet and exercise, fashion and social media, alternative therapies, music, and motherhood. The goal is no longer to keep our bodies in check. The goal is to ignite them, to set them free, and have a mighty fine time doing it.

The Body Is Not an Apology : The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor
Humans are a varied and divergent bunch with all manner of beliefs, morals, and bodies. Systems of oppression thrive off our inability to make peace with difference and injure the relationship we have with our own bodies. The Body Is Not an Apology offers radical self-love as the balm to heal the wounds inflicted by these violent systems. World-renowned activist and poet Sonya Renee Taylor invites us to reconnect with the radical origins of our minds and bodies and celebrate our collective, enduring strength. As we awaken to our own indoctrinated body shame, we feel inspired to awaken others and to interrupt the systems that perpetuate body shame and oppression against all bodies. When we act from this truth on a global scale, we usher in the transformative opportunity of radical self-love, which is the opportunity for a more just, equitable, and compassionate world--for us all.

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed To Be and Embrace Who You Are by C. Brené Brown
In this best selling book, Brown emphasizes that above all other ingredients of living an emotionally healthy life is the importance of loving ourselves. In the grips of what she took to be a breakdown, or midlife crisis, Brown came to understand she was experiencing a spiritual awakening and worked to explore its significance and the interaction of knowing and understanding yourself and loving yourself.

The Honest Body Project : Real Stories and Untouched Portraits of Women & Motherhood by Natalie McCain
The Honest Body Project was created to combat the tragic problem of poor body image in our society. Founded by photographer Natalie McCain, this project is opening the eyes of women around the world and helping them to see the beauty both outside and inside of themselves. It is a collection of black and white portraits and stories, raw and untouched, from hundreds of women who have bared their hearts and souls to be a part of the project. The Honest Body Project is a breath of fresh air, breaking down walls and helping women learn that they are not alone in their hardships. It wants to help women everywhere contribute to a better world, and to learn to love themselves and appreciate their bodies for what they are: perfectly imperfect. It is time to celebrate the true form of women.

Women Don't Owe You Pretty by Florence Given
Feminism is going to ruin your life--in the best way possible--because society screams numerous messages every moment about how women must look, act, and speak in order to earn their right to be seen and heard. The only thing any human needs to do in order to earn their right to exist, however, is to exist. Break free of the insidious narratives that hold you back from being your most authentic self.