Feminism Without Borders by Chanda Talpade Mohanty is a collection of writings that present transnational realities which can guide feminist thought about the production of knowledge, identity politics and worldwide economic and political questions.

For a novel that I loved and will never forget, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. It is set in Kerala, India, in the 1960's and deals with family tragedy amid cultural upheaval, including the legacy of a caste system and breaking of social taboos. When such big things are happening, only small things are said.

In terms of scholarly books - one that was very influential for me was Mari Jo Buhle's Women and American Socialism: 1870-1920. Great book on women's political activism and their involvement in US socialist activism.

For pleasure I tend to lean to historical mysteries and one of the best series is by Miriam Grace Monfredo. The first in the series is Seneca Fall Inheritance - set in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848 during the women's rights convention. The rest of the series bring the characters into the Civil War and the politics of this period.

Chicana/o Cultural Studies is a theoretical reader that brings together different perspectives related to an emergent area . The essays represent a broad range of perspectives on culture focusing on media, performance, visual studies, and literature as they capture the shifting terraine of Chicana/o cultural studies.

Menendez's first novel, LOVING CHE, probes deeply into what some have perceived as Cuba's continued infatuation with Che Guevara. The novel provides alternating narratives of intrigue and romance as the protagonist attempts to reconstruct her family history. The writing is innovative and fresh in that it offers a perspective that transcends the somewhat reactionary posture which has been prevalent in other works and represented by the media at large. Simply stated, one leaves this novel wanting more.

In Ordinary Violence, by Mary White Stewart, the author convincingly and eloquently links the "taken for granted realities that shape the lives of men and women in every society" and shows us how these cultural structures assure that there is no place in the world where it is "safer or better to be a woman."

I loved A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell, author of another of my favorite books, The Sparrow. In the story of Charlotte Blum, a Belgian teenager, who hopes to escape the Nazis by trudging over the Alps to Italy, Russell gives us a haunting novel about real communities in Northern Italy and the ordinary heroes who sheltered thousands of Jews during WWII.

Gary Cross, The Cute and the Cool: Wondrous Innocence and Modern American Children's Culture.
Scholarly, but reader-friendly, this fascinating study explores American cultural attitudes to children, specifically how "cute" toddlers turn into "cool" teenagers and the multiple implications of these shifts.

Alice Munro, Runaway: Stories.
The description "stories about women of all ages and circumstances, their lives made palpable by the subtlety and empathy of this incomparable writer" perfectly captures the unique gift of this Canadian author.

Ann Ardis, New Women, New Novels: Feminism and Early Modernism
One of the first and best studies of British feminist fiction of the late 19th Century, by a scholar on the University of Delaware faculty.

Lensey Namioka, Who's Hu?
An unjustly neglected comic novel about the coming-of-age of a Chinese-born teenager growing up in suburban America of the 1950s, facing racism and sexism on her way toward becoming a mathematician.

The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood by Sharon Hays
Hays examines the meaning of motherhood in contemporary U.S. culture and the implications of the ideology of "intensive mothering" for women as mothers and members of the paid labor force.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The novel follows the story of three friends during their years at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school, and later as adults. Although this sounds like a familiar narrative it is something quite the contrary. Forbes Magazine called it "an elegant nightmare of a novel" and Nature said it was "the finest expression of moral disquietude over advances in biomedical science since Aldous Huxley's Brave New World."