On visiting the home of the late Karen Blixen, Annabelle Hirsch found herself captivated by the Out of Africa author’s belongings, including a writing desk and a set of copper pans, and began dreaming up a project about the small, significant objects that changed the lives of women. The result is A History of Women in 101 Objects, an ambitious and expansive essay collection that tells the stories of female progress not via grand military campaigns or power struggles but through the quieter, less visible moments in which they asserted their individuality or fought for their freedom. In this “cabinet of curiosities”, Hirsch blends the practical (a Miele vacuum cleaner, a safety bicycle) with the sartorial (the miniskirt, the bikini) and the political (a hunger strike medal awarded to suffragette prisoners; the “manifesto of the 343”, a petition started by Simone de Beauvoir to legalise abortion).
These essays are narrated by a glittering cast of female directors, writers, musicians, actors and activists, who each bring warmth, curiosity and passion to their topic. Miriam Margolyes delightedly reflects on a 16th-century glass dildo (“In a well-to-do household, masturbation was to be aided by the very finest glassware”); Margaret Atwood tells the story of the Malleus Maleficarum, the 15th-century treatise on witchcraft; and Cynthia Erivo hails Aretha Franklin’s Respect, which, along with Nina Simone’s Mississippi Goddam, was “a hymn of the civil rights movement”. Meanwhile, it falls to Helena Bonham Carter to extol the multifunctional virtues of the hatpin, which, as well as holding one’s hat in place, could be used as a weapon of self-defence against any man who “wouldn’t leave you in peace”.
• A History of Women in 101 Objects is available via Canongate.
Further listening
The Satsuma Complex
Bob Mortimer, Simon & Schuster, 6hr 52min
This surreal crime novel featuring a shy solicitor’s assistant and a talking squirrel is read by the author alongside the actor Sally Phillips.
The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky, SNR Audio, 37hr 19min
Actor David Rintoul narrates the classic philosophical novel about three brothers and their cruel, neglectful father.
