Great Women's Speeches

As a woman, it is important to have females to look to: for inspiration; in times of uncertainty; or simply just to learn from. This book does all of that and more.

Beautifully illustrated, and concentrating on one female at a time - from Queen Elizabeth I to Emma Watson - covered in here are women from all walks of life who have achieved wonderful things.

A perfect gift for any woman in your life.

This is a book to dip into, to savor and to save. It will give girls and women a wonderful sense of what female speakers have talked about over the centuries. This title begins with a speech by Elizabeth I and ends with one given by Maya Lin. In between are many voices and authors with which readers are familiar and others that are new. To name just a few of those included: Sojourner Truth, Mary Church Terrell, Nellie MCClung, Nancy Astor, Eleanor Roosevelt, Hilary Clinton, Angela Merkel, and Emma Watson. I will want a hard copy of this title when it is issued as it is a book to return to time and again.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions are my own.

I love non-fiction that makes you feel empowered and inspired - this beautiful book and collection of women's speeches does exactly that. Anna Russell takes you through a history of Women's Speeches from around the globe including short bio's about each Womxn which is incredibly useful.

I found each page was filled with inspiration, insightful information and illustrations to admire. Anna Russell has included a multitude of speeches from remarkable Women including Queen Elizabeth I, Emmeline Pankhurst, Emma Watson, Malala Yousafzai and Michelle Obama. This is the type of book you want to share with your friends, your sisters, your daughters and to just have on show for everyone to read and consume.

I loved the diversity of the book, the learnings from each speech but ultimately the way that every orator enforces the power of equality for all.

Wonderful selection of speeches. A great trip down history’s long path for women. Loved every excerpt.

**I received and voluntarily read an e-ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

There are some amazing speeches to be found in this book. As with all collections such as this one, you feel as if there are a few speeches that were missed, You'll find some bits and pieces that you've heard before, but I guarantee you've probably never seen or heard most of these speeches in their entire form.

Overall, it's great collection of speeches from women around the globe. I'd definitely recommend adding it to any girl's shelf to help her feel empowered when she's feeling down.

Great Women's Speeches is a book that collates a great selection of speeches from herstory this book is beautifully colourful with illustrations full of character. The introduction to each character of biographical details is great for providing context around the speech. Along with the additional reading suggestions at the back of the book make for a great read for any lady, young or mature. With extracts of speeches from Sojourner Truth to Michelle Obama, from Elizabeth I to Malala Yousafzai. This compilation provides a solid background to any discussion that women have always been there, creating herstory to compliment history, With many of the speeches coming from events that demonstrate that women can be in positions of power, even in past centuries.

About the Book:
Great Women's Speeches is a curated collection of excerpts from, unsurprisingly, speeches made by women, accompanied by contextual background and biography by Anna Russell, and visually striking illustrations by Camila Pinheiro. The result is a volume beautiful in its content, if not always in design (see below).

The collection is also inclusive in its choices. With all but one entry taken from the 19th = 21st centuries, readers will learn from a diverse group of women around the globe.

The Good:
The first thing that will catch your eye is Ms. Pinheiro's gorgeous artwork. With an illustration of each and every one of the dozens of women featured, the book becomes bright, colorful, and engaging. Her work turns the book from a collection of information into a celebration of feminine power. Pinheiro's pictures are complemented by monochrome, full-page block quotes interspersed throughout the book.

While heavily skewed toward the modern and western populations of women, the book does feature speakers from all identities around the world. To be fair, I am unsure how many recorded speeches there are by women prior to the 19th century given the patriarchal gatekeeping of public communications.

Finally, I would like to thank Ms. Russell for including short but informative biographies of each speaker. Her addition ensures we do not just read a nicely written speech, but also that we engage with the background of each woman and her situation. The reader is grounded in rich context that brings deeper meaning to each entry.

The Bad:
While the illustrations were beautiful and eye-catching, the size and detail was inconsistent throughout the book. Many readers may well enjoy this variation, but I personally would have enjoyed more consistency in design.

Other design aspects were disappointing as well. For one, the blocks of text in which the speeches, and occasionally biographies, are set are more intimidating to the eye than inviting. Although it is not precisely a textbook, the text design doesn't feel too far off.

For another, the cover design does not do justice to the book. While the bright colors are indicative of its contents, the cover does not clue the reader in to the beautiful illustrations they will find. It may have been better served by tastefully highlighting some of the women featured.

Lastly, and this is very nit-picky of me, the introduction has random sketches in the margins. It feels hectic, disconnected, and, once again, unrepresentative of the illustrations to come.

Who Will Like This Book:
This book is excellent for a reader passionate about women's history, women's rights, or oration. It is certainly in the style of a coffee-table book, something beautiful to share with others, but also something you may peruse more casually rather than sitting down for an extended period of time with the intention of reading.

These speeches are well laid out and beautifully illustrated. Before each speech, there is background on the woman and the context that the speech was given in. Overall, this is a good reference to great woman's speeches throughout history.

This was awesome! Most of these women I had never heard of which was so fun to learn new things. I’ve been looking for a book like this to give to my niece, so now I’ve finally found one!

5 stars for this anthology of women’s speeches.

This is a wonderful book of speeches made by women, from Queen Elizabeth’s ‘heart and stomach of a man’ address in 1588 up to the present day. Excerpts from over 50 women’s speeches are featured, in each case alongside biographical details and the context of the speech. Plus Camila Pinheiro’s beautifully bold and vivid illustrations burst from the page.

The selection is a satisfying mix of, for example, writers, activists, artists and politicians. There are extremely well-known women (for starters: Virginia Woolf, Sojourner Truth, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Michelle Obama, Toni Morrison, Emmeline Pankhurst, JK Rowling, Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel, Malala Yousafzai) as well as some women previously unknown to me. As with any anthology, the reader might wonder why some of their own favourites were not included – I think the difficulties Anna Russell faced in narrowing her selection is shown in the fact that there is a ‘More Women to Inspire’ section that runs to five pages. This is followed by a concise list of recommended reading.

I can’t recommend this book enough. It reminds me of my dog-eared old copy of The Penguin Book of Women’s Lives, in that it is a book to dip into – for inspiration, for nourishment, for renewal – over and again for years to come.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book in return for an honest review.

Firstly, let me say that this book is aesthetically beautiful! The cover is so pretty. Inside it is filled with bright colourful pages and illustrations of the women. I love the layout. It gives some background information about the women and then an explanation of what the speech is about, where it took place, etc. This was by far my favourite aspect of the book.

I enjoyed the speeches and found some great quotes in there. It definitely made me more curious about certain women and I ended up Googling them afterwards to find out more information. It is not an extremely detailed book but if you want a quick guide and reference it is great. There will probably be a lot of women you haven’t heard of before and then you can look for more information elsewhere on them. This is always good because it is important to educate yourself on such things in my opinion.

I would highly recommend this as a gift for the woman in your life. I think in particular it is an important book for young women and teenagers to educate them on the importance of womanhood and what we have had to deal with and how to handle it.

(Thank you to Netgalley for the advance copy of this book. All thoughts are my own).

A extensive and fascinating collection of speeches delivered by women throughout history. Aesthetically stunning the colours and illustrations really brought the book to life. The short bio before the speech was brilliant to provide an overview as there were any I’m ashamed to admit I did not know who they were. This book does a great job of amplifying voices which have been lost in history.

This book was full of incredible speeches made by incredible women (primarily in the last 200 years). I was unfamiliar with most of the speeches, and many of these incredible women. I appreciated that there was a brief bio before an excerpt from a speech they gave, and I loved the illustrations of all the women.