Our Mission
Our aim is to elevate the voices and work of diverse authors who are experts in their respective fields. We want to read texts that help us to challenge internalised biases, to learn and unlearn, so that we can become the most effective environmentalists and feminists that we can be. We are interested in reading works that explore how feminism and environmentalism intersect with other facets of identity including race, socio-economic status, (dis)ability, gender, culture and sexuality.
Fifth Wave Book Club is an inclusive space. People of all identities are most welcome here. Absolutely no discriminatory rhetoric will be tolerated.
We are not a place for pretending we are perfect or always going to get it ‘right’ when it comes to feminism, environmentalism and allyship. We welcome genuine mistakes as a tool for growth and correction. We also are not a place for performative allyship and hope that in reading these works, we will live our values more authentically in our day-to-day lives. We understand that our book club picks often explore challenging content, please remember to engage in self and community care whenever you need to during the reading cycle.
Our book picks will position us to do some (at times, uncomfortable) introspection. That’s the point! We are all at different stages of this journey, but we know that the work doesn’t start ‘out there’. It starts ‘in here’ – with ourselves – you, me, us.
How It Works
We read progressive, intersectional feminist non-fiction. Our reading cycle currently is two months –which allows us time to read the work and digest/share what we’ve learned. As we read, we share excerpts we feel are important on our Instagram page. We end the reading cycle with a summary / review of the text published on our website, and with our key takeaways from the book, published on instagram.
We are less interested in critiquing the creator’s technical abilities as a writer, and more interested in learning from their research/expertise/lived experience. We invite members of our book club to join in virtual book club discussions via comments or DMs at any point in the reading cycle.
We have also recently started interviewing creators and activists who are change-makers in their respective fields. Keep an eye out for more interviews in future!
What’s In A Name?
When we launched about a year ago, we were called Angry Girl Book Club. The name was about how women often feel social and cultural pressure to be ‘nice’ – when, really, marginalised groups have every right to feel angry. It was about how anger can be a transformative tool for good. We still really value these ideas!
However, we have outgrown that name and we’re now Fifth Wave Book Club. The name ‘fifth wave’ refers to the ‘waves’ of feminism. We currently find ourselves in the midst of the fourth wave – we feel the name ‘fifth wave’ aligns with our mission of looking to the future of intersectional feminism, and making this future a reality by reading progressive texts, learning from a diverse range of authors and interviewing activists, creatives and change-makers.
Get In Touch
We would love to hear from you!
If you are an author or publisher who would like your work reviewed, if you have an interview request, if you have feedback or book/interview recommendations - get in touch via DMs or send us an email at @fifthwavebookclub.com.
