“The female incarnation of Forrest Gump…her life reads like a trip back through the defining personalities and events of the 20th century.”—Shoreline Times After coming of age at the legendary Grossinger’s resort hotel in the Catskills, Tania Grossinger defied the conventions of an era. When women were routinely consigned to focusing exclusively on husband and family, she chose her own path, and broke ground for the generations that came after her. She started in public relations for The $64,000 Question, the TV show that was the focus of the infamous “quiz show scandals”; she was the publicist for Betty Friedan’s groundbreaking bestseller, The Feminine Mystique; and, for seven years, served as the director of broadcast promotion for Playboy Magazine and the Playboy Club. And that was only the beginning. After escaping a brief her marriage, she embarked on the next chapter of her life. Along the way she crossed paths with such iconic figures as Ayn Rand, Jackie Robinson, Joan Rivers, Timothy Leary, and Johnny Carson. Tania would also became embroiled in a real-life mystery: the unsolved disappearance of Claudia Kirschhoch, a fellow travel writer who vanished without a trace from their beachside hotel on the western tip of Jamaica. Of her first memoir, Growing Up at Grossinger’s, the Jewish Daily Forward said Tania’s “childhood was…Like a version of Kay Thomson's Plaza Hotel-dwelling Eloise by way of 'Dirty Dancing.’” Now, written as an open letter to an imaginary daughter, Tania reflects on growing beyond—in a smart, funny, and revealing account of ignoring expectations and becoming a truly independent woman.

“Like man, woman is a human being.” When The Second Sex was first published in Paris in 1949—groundbreaking, risqué, brilliantly written and strikingly modern—it provoked both outrage and inspiration. The Independent Woman contains three key chapters of Beauvoir’s masterwork, which illuminate the feminine condition and identify practical social reforms for gender equality. It captures the essence of the spirited manifesto that switched on light bulbs in the heads of a generation of women and continues to exert profound influence on feminists today.

Paris Dear Alice, Each morning I am awakened by the sound of a tinkling bell. A cheerful sound, it reminds me of the bells that shopkeepers attach to their doors at Christmastime. In this case, the bell marks the opening of the hotel door. From my room, which is just off the winding staircase, I can hear it clearly. It reminds me of the bell that calls to worship the novice embarking on a new life. In a way I too am a novice, leaving, temporarily, one life for another. Love, Alice In the tradition of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea and Frances Mayes's Under the Tuscan Sun, in Without Reservations we take time off with Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Steinbach as she explores the world and rediscovers what it means to be a woman on her own. "In many ways, I was an independent woman," writes Alice Steinbach, a single working mother, in this captivating book. "For years I'd made my own choices, paid my own bills, shoveled my own snow, and had relationships that allowed for a lot of freedom on both sides." Slowly, however, she saw that she had become quite dependent in another way: "I had fallen into the habit . . . of defining myself in terms of who I was to other people and what they expected of me." Who am I, she wanted to know, away from the things that define me--my family, children, job, friends? Steinbach searches for the answer to this provocative question in some of the most exciting places in the world: Paris, where she finds a soul mate in a Japanese man; Oxford, where she takes a course on the English village; Milan, where she befriends a young woman about to be married. Beautifully illustrated with postcards Steinbach wrote home to herself to preserve her spontaneous impressions, this revealing and witty book will transport readers instantly into a fascinating inner and outer journey, an unforgettable voyage of discovery.

When you reach the age where there is more to look back at than forward to, what do you regret, if anything? One woman’s brave memoir about a life well lived. It takes a certain kind of woman to have the courage t

At the turn of the century, a time when women had few choices, Bess Steed Garner inherits a legacy - not only of wealth but of determination and desire, making her truly a woman of independent means. From the early 1900s through the 1960s, we accompany Bess as she endures life's trials and triumphs with unfailing courage and indomitable spirit: the sacrifices love sometimes requires of the heart, the flaws and rewards of marriage, the often-tested bond between mother and child, and the will to defy a society that demands conformity. Told in letters we follow the remarkable life of Bess Steed Garner from her childhood in 1899 to her death in 1977.

Fanny Fern is a name that is unfamiliar to most contemporary readers. In this first modern biography, Warren revives the reputation of a once-popular 19th-century newspaper columnist and novelist. Fern, the pseudonym for Sara Payson Willis Parton, was born in 1811 and grew up in a society with strictly defined gender roles. From her rebellious childhood to her adult years as a newspaper columnist, Fern challenged society's definition of women's place with her life and her words. Fern wrote a weekly newspaper column for 21 years and, using colorful language and satirical style, advocated women's rights and called for social reform. Warren blends Fern's life story with an analysis of the social and literary world of 19th-century America.

1913: Suffragette throws herself under the King's horse. 1969 u Feminists storm Miss World. NOW u Caitlin Moran rewrites The Female Eunuch from a bar stool and demands to know why pants are getting smaller. There's never been a better time to be a woman: we have the vote and the Pill, and we haven't been burnt as witches since 1727.