Recs if you like Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China...

(Auto)Biographies, memoirs, and stories of influential women, both well and lesser known

because the well-behaved ones rarely do. // This is a list of non-fiction books about the women throughout history who refused to play by the rules. (note: some of these women did participate in crimes against humanity/colonialism/slavery/etc, this list does not condone such behaviours, but is instead determined to bring the lives of influential women into the limelight).

These are history books about less acknowledged history, of course this tends to happen most with history from non-white, colonised places but has happened in many others too. It is important to draw attention to these issues so that they are not forgotten (non-fiction only)

They're cute, they're smart, they're surviving this sh!t

Non-fiction about topics/topics presented in a way that they feel almost like gossip.

they were wild back then i'm serious