I had been meaning to read 'The Female Thing' ever since it got enthusiastic but skeptical lady-peer reviews. Recentlyish, it came out in paperback and I bought it and put it into my carry-on! I don't know about you, but I read books like this as a sort of booster shot, a quick medicinal jolt that reactivates my feminist—um—consciousness. So when they're not actually painful to wade through I find myself recommending them overenthusiastically, the way you would a good doctor with a short waiting-room line. Read it, it's good for you!

Feminist blogger Jessica Valenti's new book Full Frontal Feminism has a controversially betorsoed cover, which she justifies to New Yorkmag like so: "Let's face it, no young woman is going to pick up a book with the woman's symbol with a fist on it." Is that what books about feminism usually have on their covers, though? Let's look at some recently published ones.