Caitlin Moran March Takeover

One of those new voices in writing that calls out to you from the first page, saying, "I've been watching the world and myself for a long while, and I want to tell some truths about both no-one else has ever noticed before." At first dark and filthy about the realities of female Millennial life, Luster then pivots into series of sharp observations on long-term relationships, lust and race that plays like a movie in your head. And, like all the best, truthful books, it's funny.

I would boldly claim that reading Bridget Jones's Diary is as much a part of being a modern woman as getting your first period, or buying your first hold-up stockings - before realising "hold up stocking" is a lie, and they always fall down. If you've only seen the movies, you'll be astonished how much cleverer and nuanced Bridget is on the page - she is constantly aware of how ridiculous and compromised her feminism is. I re-read this ever three years or so, and bark laughing. Finding "being a modern woman difficult" never dates. Only the sheer number of cigarettes smoked - my God, we were like beagles in the 90's - seems weird now.

This is one of those books you can confidently gift to anyone - knowing you've just basically given them a warm bath of joy that they will, in turn, gift to others. A slightly zazzed-up autobiography, Love, Nina covers the years Stibbe - well-read, working-class girl from the Midlands - worked as an au pair to a London literary scion, who lived next door to Alan Bennett. He's always popping over with a rice pudding and a dolourous quote, whilst the teenage Nina tries to work out how to hang out with posh clever people, how she feels about wooden earrings, and who to kiss. Imagine if Adrian Mole had looked after Edina Monsoon's kids. It's that. But ... better.

If you want to read one book that explains why it's often so inexplicably hard to be a woman, this is the book for you. Then give it your daughters, in order that you can just boggle together at how tardy the world has been in noticing that 52% of the population is female. iPhones that are too big for womens' hands to use; seatbelts that cut into our breasts; heart-attack diagnoses that only register male symptoms, leading to thousands of deaths - this book was exhaustively researched over five years, gathering together previously ignored data, but wears its intelligence lightly, with an amusing dusting of occasional fury. Possibly one of the most important books of the last ten years.

The hair. The hair is the first thing that pulls you into Americanah - the loving descriptions of the pain and joy of the salon if you have Afro hair, and regularly spend whole days being combed, plaited, braided and teased in order to achieve your Ideal Hair. But what is Ideal Hair if you are black, living in a majority-white country? When Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, after studying in America, she starts viewing her race in a whole new light. Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche writes fiction and non-fiction like an angel - by turns light and furiously funny, then suddenly WHAM with an observation that leaves you breathless - but there's a particular magic to Americanah that turns you into someone slightly different by the end.