The Voyage of the Narwhal
by Andrea Barrett

A true endurance adventure with leadership perspectives! K. Beisner

Amazon.com review excerpt: And what of the women left behind? Lavinia knows little of the dangers of ice and lives only for Zeke's return. Though they get less page time, Barrett is in fact as concerned with her female characters as she is with her seafarers. Like the heroines of her National Book Award-winning Ship Fever, who bump up against science and history in which only men's triumphs are written, they must somehow escape social tyranny or retreat into the consolations of storytelling or silence.

Some Memories of Drawings
by Georgia O'Keefe, Edited by Doris Bry

Some Memories of Drawings provides a rare glimpse into the creative process in the artist¹s own words.

The Prodigal Summer
by Barbara Kingsolver

This is the story of a city girl, entomologist, and new widow and how the environment she studies teaches her how to find a place for herself in the world.

Book excerpt: The ghost of a creature long extinct was coming in on silent footprints, returning to the place it had once held in the complex anatomy of this forest like a beating heart returned to its body. This is what she believed she would see, if she watched, at this magical juncture: a restoration.

Graining the Mare-The Poetry of Ranch Women
Edited by Teresa Jordan

The true west is in these words, wrenched from the souls who live it!

Women
Photographs by Annie Leibovitz
Essay by Susan Sontag

Leibovitz creates a reflection of contemporary American womanhood that mirrors both women's accomplishments and the challenges they still face individually and as a group.

"Each of these pictures must stand on its own," Susan Sontag writes in the essay that accompanies the portraits. "But the ensemble says, So this is what women are now -- as different, as varied, as heroic, as forlorn, as conventional, as unconventional as this."

Daughter of the Air: The Brief Soaring Life of Cornelia Fort
By Rob Simbeck

Book Description: Praised by the Daily Oklahoman as "touching and entertaining," Rob Simbeck's biography of Cornelia Fort is wonderfully evocative and moving. Like Beryl Markham's and Amelia Earhart's, Cornelia Fort's daring life as a pilot was both inspiring and groundbreaking. Raised on her parents' Nashville estate and educated at a prestigious finishing school, Fort rejected the role expected of her in society to become a pilot. A member of the first women's flight squadron and one of the few to witness the bombing of Pearl Harbor from the air.

Wild Women: Crusaders, Curmudgeons and Completely Corsetless Ladies in the Otherwise Virtuous Victorian Era
by Autumn Stevens

Review by Ingram: A fascinating and sometimes humorous glimpse into the lives of 150 19th-century American women who refused to whittle themselves down to the Victorian model of proper womanhood. 50-black-and-white photos.

Hispanic Firsts: 500 Years of Extraordinary Achievement
by Nicolas Kanellos

From School Library Journal: Grade 5 Up--Kanellos collects "the contributions and achievements of Hispanics as pioneers of American culture" and highlights those "that succeeded in breaking barriers"--from the introduction of sugar cane to the New World in 1493 to the election in 1997 of Loretta Sanchez, the first Mexican American U.S. congresswoman. Specific accomplishments of individuals and groups as well as notable events and places are recorded in the areas of art and design, business and commerce, education, film, and more!

Girls Can't Be Pilots: An Aerobiography
by Margaret J. Ringenberg

Margaret J. Ringenberg's dream took flight in the Women's Flying Training Detachment in 1943. More than 50 years later she is still living her dream. Readers will relate to her "down-to-earth" style as she shares her unique perspective on life as a female aviator. As a World War II ferry pilot, flight instructor, corporate pilot, and air racer, Mrs. Ringenberg has not only made history, set records, and won trophies; she has changed lives, all while doing what she loves-flying.

Women of Consequence: The Colorado Women's Hall of Fame
by Jeanne Varnell

Reader review: This book introduces the reader to fifty-nine extraordinary women whose significant contributions to civilization have been made in an incredible variety of fields including science, the arts, social activism, politics, humanitarianism, and commerce, to name a few. Some of the women are famous, and some are not. Famous or not, each woman's story is fascinating and engrossing. If you love good biographies, buy a copy of this book.

When I was Puerto Rican
by Esmeralda Santiago

Review from Booklist: In Santiago's memoir, she lovingly recalls her own passage through childhood. At once heart-wrenching and remarkably inspirational, this lyrical account depicts rural life in Puerto Rico amid the hardships and tensions of everyday life, and Santiago's awakening as a youn woman, who, although startled by culture shock, valiantly confronted New York head-on. It is both a stirring and poignant reminder of the capacities of the human spirit.

Close Range: Wyoming Stories
by Annie Proulx

Reader Review : This collection of Annie Proulx's short stories is so good I had to keep putting it downk, bowled over by the genius of her prose and the virtuoso evocatin of places and people hanging on to a bitter living way out beyond the end of their luck.

The Hungry Ocean
by Linda Greenlaw

Reader Review : Author Linda Greenlaw captures the highs and lows of commercial fishing in the North Atlantic. Her prose is simplistic, but to the point. We are constantly reminded of the sea and how it adjudicates over fisherman, ships, and the lives of anyone who dares to venture out into it. The author is an amazing woman who chased her dreams and found a home at sea.

There's This River - Grand Canyon Boatman Stories
edited by Christa Sadler

Reader review: This is a very fun book. It contains stories (and photos, paintings, and drawings) by the men and women who know and love the Canyon best. The stories are funny and touching and really give a sense of why the Canyon is such a special and wonderful place. The artwork and photos are a nice bonus. Raechel M. Running's portraits of the boatmen (a generic term: both men and women refer to themselves as boatmen) are particularly good. Reviewer: Bob Day, Mountain View, California

Queen Bess - Daredevil Aviator
by Doris L. Rich

Here is the brief but intense life of Bessie Coleman, America's first African American woman aviator. Born in 1892 in Atlanta, Texas, she became known as "Queen Bess", a barnstormer and flying-circus performer who defied the strictures of race, sex, and society in pursuit of a dream. Includes 30 duotone photographs.

First Instrument
Music CD by Rachelle Ferrell

Customer Review: Like none other today! This album has got to be my favorite yet of any artist as a whole. I relished upon the seemingly private and personal "With Every Breath I Take" and "Extensions," both of which were hopelessly romantic ballads. She breathed new life into such standards as "Bye Bye Blackbird" and "My Funny Valentine." Ms. Ferrell clearly wants the listener to gain a sense of her voice: limitless (it would seem) and flexible. She can "comp" on the high and low ends of her well-used, multiple octave range. Reviewer: VSF, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Cowgirls : Women of the American West
by Teresa Jordan

American lore has slighted the cowgirl, although at least one can still be found in nearly every ranching community. Like her male counterpart, she rides and ropes, understands land and stock, and confronts the elements. Jordan traveled 60,000 miles in the West, talking with authentic cowgirls to compile this portrait. Includes 108 photographs.

Feminine Ingenuity - How Women Inventors Changed America
by Anne L. Macdonald

From Kirkus Reviews: Macdonald (No Idle Hands, 1988) presents a sprightly, informative chronicle of women inventors in America--a two-steps- forward/one-and-a-half-steps-back history that aptly mirrors the rise and fall of feminist movements over two centuries. American females owe their start in inventing, Macdonald says, to the Patent Act of 1790, created by a new Congress eager to encourage technological progress and to open the patent system to all--including women--on an equal basis.

The Nearsighted Naturalist
by Ann Haymond Zwinger

Seeking out wildflowers and white water, Ann Zwinger has called many places home. The Nearsighted Naturalist brings together work from more than two decades in her career as one of our most distinguished natural history writers. From the Indiana landscape of her youth to New Zealand's Kapiti Island, Zwinger leads an ever-widening armchair tour of places both ordinary and astonishing.