Madame Curie: Marie Curie was a scientific genius and the only woman to win two Nobel Prizes. This book was written by her daughter, so I am very curious to read more about her life from a voice inside her own family!
Get Happy: I know the outlines of Judy Garland's life...the child stardom, the weight issues that led to the studio pushing drugs on her that she was never really able to shake, the unhappy marriages. But I know very little of who she was outside of the Hollywood story and I want to change that!
Zelda: F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald were both writers and creatives, but of course he's the one that gets all the plaudits. I'm looking forward to reading more about her.
Empress Dowager Cixi: She was a concubine who maneuvered herself into position to effectively rule China as the power behind first her son and then her nephew, and I am excited to read about a royal woman outside of the European sphere!
Jane Austen: She wrote only six complete novels but all are regarded as classics of the English language. I actually know quite little about her life so I am really interested in finding out more.
If This Was Happiness: Gilda is an incredible movie, and no one who has ever seen it can forget Rita Hayworth's performance in it. But despite the glamour that that movie, or her high profile marriages to Orson Welles and Prince Aly Khan, her life was full of struggles and I am really curious to learn more about her.
Femme Fatale: Mata Hari is a name that evokes danger and intrigue...she was a stripper! She was a spy! She was actually Margaretha Zelle MacLeod, no more exotic than any other Dutch girl, but she was also both of the things she was accused of being and I want to learn more about her!
Catherine the Great: Had to get at least one member of Russian royalty in here! I have not watched the popular Hulu series based on her life because it is apparently just incredibly historically inaccurate, which is a shame because her life was actually incredibly interesting.
The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green was an incredibly rich, successful business woman during the Gilded Age, a time when "success" for women was usually defined as good marriage. She was also a legendary cheapskate. I am always interested in women breaking the conventions of their time!
The Duchess: I do enjoy biographies of scandalous aristocrats, and in her time Georgiana Spencer was pretty much as fashionable and dramatic as it was possible to be.
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