Malala among UK academics' top 20 books that changed the world

Titles by Malala Yousafzai, Anne Frank and Reni Eddo-Lodge have been voted on to a list of the Top 20 "most influential books in history written by women" by academics, booksellers, publishers and librarians ahead of Academic Book Week next week (23rd-28th April 2018).

The diverse list of books spans subject areas as varied as politics, feminism, race and photography and recognises authors living and deceased.

Resonating with the current cultural moment, it includes feminist writings of Bell Hooks, Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler and Germaine Greer, as well as girls education campaigner Yousafzai's I am Malala (Little, Brown), Cambridge University classicist Mary Beard's Women & Power: A Manifesto (Profile), Shere Hite's study of female sexuality Hite Report, and Nobel Prize-winner Svetlana Alexievich's first book, oral history of women in the Second World War, The Unwomanly Face of War.

Other titles that made it onto the list discuss race, such as Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Eddo-Lodge's British Book Awards-shortlisted Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race, science, such as Rebecca Skloot's Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, politics, such as globalisation in Naomi Klein's No Logo and totalitarianism in Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, and art in Susan Sontag's On Photography.

Classics also make an appearance, featuring Mary Shelley's 1823-published Frankenstein, Charlotte Bronte's 1847-published Jane Eyre, and Virginia Woolf's 1929-published Room of One's Own.

A public vote is now open until 2pm Thursday 26th April to find the book that has been the "most influential". The winning title will be unveiled during Academic Book Week.