In this urgent and groundbreaking book, Laura Bates goes undercover in one of the darkest and most dangerous corners of the internet. 

Men Who Hate Women is the result: a deep dive into incels and other misogynists networks via interviews with former members and the people fighting against them. Bates exposes how ideas are spread from the darkest corners of the internet – via trolls, media and celebrities – to schools, workplaces and the corridors of power, becoming a part of our collective consciousness.

Shop Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates (Simon & Schuster) at Bookshop, £9.49

This revolutionary book reclaims feminism from consumerism by exploring state violence against women, reproductive justice, transmisogyny, sex work, gendered Islamophobia and much more. Olufemi brilliantly shows us that the struggle for gendered liberation is a struggle for justice, one that can transform the world for everybody.

Shop Feminism, Interrupted by Lola Olufemi (Pluto Press at Bookshop.org, £12.34

Ione Gamble (the founder of Polyester Zine) never imagined that entering adulthood would mean being diagnosed with an incurable illness. Watching identity politics become social media fodder from the confines of her sickbed, Gamble began to pick apart our obsession with self-care, personal branding and productivity.

Using her experience with disability to cast a fresh gaze on the peculiar cultural moment in which young women find themselves, Poor Little Sick Girls explores the pressures faced and the power of existing as an unacceptable woman in our current era of empowerment.

Shop Poor Little Sick Girls by Ione Gamble (Dialogue) at Bookshop.org, £16.14

A powerful and honest memoir from journalist and advocate Lucy Webster. From navigating the worlds of education, work, dating and friendship to managing care, contemplating motherhood and learning to accept your body against a pervasive narrative that it is somehow broken and in need of fixing, The View From Down Here shines a light on what it really means to move through the world as a disabled woman.

Shop The View From Down Here by Lucy Webster (Dorling Kindersley) at Bookshop.org, £16.14

This book explores how conservative and anti-feminist ideas are spread through social media and how ‘collapse’ as a dominant framework for discussing societal issues often paves the way for conservative ideologies in mainstream discourse.

Collapse Feminism emphasises the urgency of countering the ‘collapse’ narrative and explores bold new ways to fight back, ensuring a more inclusive, forward-thinking society for women in the 21st century.

Shop Collapse Feminism by Alice Cappelle (Watkins Media Limited) at Bookshop.org, £10.44

In this sweeping history, Paula Akpan takes us into the worlds of queens and warriors who ruled vast swathes of the African continent, yet beyond the lands they called home, so few of us have ever heard their names.

When We Ruled follows their stories and how they came to rule and influence the futures of their people. With reigns spanning pre-colonial Nigeria to the farming villages of Rwanda, the hills of Madagascar to apartheid South Africa, these rulers’ stories offer us fascinating insight into life in these regions. Akpan shows how societies thrived, expanded and fractured before colonial influence, while also exposing the deep scars colonisation left behind. (out 8 May)

Shop When We Ruled by Paula Akpan (Orion Publishing) at Bookshop.org, £20.90

Veiled Threat is a brilliant examination of what it is to be a visibly Muslim woman in modern Britain. From being bombarded by racist stereotypes to being subjected to structural inequalities on every level, Asbali asks why Muslim women are forced to contend with the twin oppressions of state-sanctioned Islamophobia and the unrelenting misogyny that fuels our world, all while being told by white feminists that they need saving.

Shop Veiled Threat by Nadeine Asbali (Biteback Publishing) at Bookshop.org, £18.04

Koa Beck boldly examines the history of feminism, from the true mission of the suffragettes to the rise of corporate feminism with clear-eyed scrutiny and meticulous detail. In White Feminism, she also examines overlooked communities, including Native American, Muslim, transgender and more – and their difficult and ongoing struggles for social change.

Shop White Feminism by Koa Beck (Simon & Schuster) at Bookshop.org, £9.49

In this history of women’s friendship, cultural historian Tiffany Watt Smith reckons with the ways we understand this complex and vital connection. She takes us from Japan to the Ivory Coast, The Mindy Project to Zadie Smith’s Swing Time, from prisons to film sets to hospital wards and elder communities, untangling the assumptions about good and bad friends we live by.

Weaving together history, interviews and memoir, Bad Friend offers what’s long overdue: a more expansive, more rebellious vision of friendship fit for 21st century life. (out 24 April)

Shop Bad Friend by Tiffany Watt Smith (Faber & Faber) at Bookshop.org, £18.04

With warmth and humour, Elizabeth Lovatt reimagines the women who both called and volunteered for the Lesbian Line in the 1990s, while tracing her own journey, including accidentally coming out, disastrous dates and finding her chosen family.

With callers and agents alike dealing with first crushes, breakups, sex, marriage, loneliness and illness (or simply the need to know the name of a gay bar on a night out), this is a celebration of the ordinary lives of queer women.

Shop Thank You For Calling The Lesbian Line by Elizabeth Lovatt (Dialogue) at Bookshop.org, £19