Books to Give to Your Best Friend

Because all the single (and taken) ladies need to be heard on a global stage.

As most of us know, award-winning novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TEDxEuston talk on feminism was recently sampled in Beyoncé's "Flawless." Now this compact but passionate speech is available in book form. "The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are," writes Adichie. Girls are brought up "to see each other as competitors...for the attention of men" while boys are raised to prove themselves with their masculinity. Her conclusion: "If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture." Pair this slim but substantive book with Roxane Gay's best-selling essay collection Bad Feminist, both of which illustrate how being outspoken can sometimes also be the best way to be heard.