To learn more about the lives of women in different cultures, these books are good starting points. Some fictional, some personal stories, some more objective coverage -- all would be good choices for personal learning, study groups and reading groups, or for classroom use.
1. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
by Jung Chang
2. The House of the Spirits
by Isabel Allende3. Spring Moon : A Novel of China
by Bette Bao Lord4. The Norton Book of Women's Lives
by Phyllis Rose (Editor). Twentieth century women from many cultures tell their own stories.5. Women on the Margins : Three Seventeenth-Century Lives
by Natalie Zemon Davis. Three very different 17th century women: one Catholic, one Protestant and one Jewish; from Europe, North and South America.6. First Generations : Women in Colonial America
by Carol Berkin. The lives of women in early America are as different from today's modern American lives as are the lives of women in another country.