Celebrate Women's History Month with the memoirs of these female musicians

Happy Women's History Month!

March serves to celebrate and celebrate the vital role of women in society — including the ways in which women have shaped and advanced the world of music.

Some of music's biggest female artists have given fans a first-hand account of their influence, sharing the obstacles they've overcome and the triumphs they've earned in powerful, moving memoirs.

In honor of Women's History Month and International Women's Day on Friday (March 8), we've rounded up 14 of our favorite memoirs from female musicians. See them below.

What is a name? With over 150 million records sold, 46 Grammy nominations (eight wins), Oscar, Emmy and Tony nominations, Barbra Streisand has certainly made a name for herself.

In her memoir 2023, My name is Barbara, the legend takes readers through an iconic career spanning music and film. Streisand describes everything from her childhood in Brooklyn, her struggles to start an acting career (which led her to singing), to her big break in Funny girlbecame an EGOT winner to fall in love with actor James Brolin, her husband since 1998.

Britney Spears in her own words. The pop star took the literary world by storm with her memoir, The Woman In Me, which was released last October. Spears digs deep into her past, sharing untold stories from her childhood, career, high-profile relationships, and breaking free from her conservative status quo.

Melissa Ethridge offers life lessons from tragedy and triumph Speaking to My Angels, her best-selling memoir that was released last September. The books come more than 20 years after the Grammy winner released her first memoir The Truth Is…: My Life in Love and Music.

The elusive singer gives an honest, unfiltered account of her life in her memoir, recounting “the ups and downs, the triumphs and the traumas, the disasters and the dreams, that have made me the person I am today.” The meaning of Mariah Carey.

“Writing this memoir was incredibly hard, humbling, and healing,” Carey wrote in the description. “My sincere hope is that you will be moved by a new understanding, not only of me, but of the resilience of the human spirit.”

The The concept of Mariah Carey available in hardcover, Kindle and audiobook.

The National Book Award-winning coming-of-age has become a staple in music literature, with Smith reliving her youth alongside Robert Mapplethorpe as artists chasing their dreams in New York. Just Kids by Patti Smith available in hardcover and audio CD.

Billie Holiday's brutally honest autobiography chronicles the iconic jazz singer's difficult upbringing in Baltimore during which she worked in a brothel throughout her burgeoning music career – touching on Holiday's devastating racism and addiction to the heroine who ended her life too soon.

Lady Sings the Blues available in hardcover, paperback and Kindle.

Part autobiography, part narrative documentary, Alicia Keys is candid More about myself: A journey. shares her path from her childhood in Hell's Kitchen and Harlem to stardom, pulling back the curtain on her “complicated relationship with her father, the folksy nature that characterized her early career, the loss of privacy around the her romantic relationships and oppressive expectations of female perfection.”

Country icon takes fans through 175 songs in 2020 memoir Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics.

Parton's 1994 memoir, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Businessdelves into her life since leaving home at 18 to pursue a music career, touching on “her personal philosophies, her marriage, her friendships and her achievements.”

Named after her verse on “Modern Girl,” the Sleater-Kinney guitarist shares her experience leaving a difficult family situation and moving into a world where music heals, reinvents, and creates a sense of community. Hunger makes me a modern girl by Carrie Brownstein. The funny, honest look at Brownstein's life also chronicles the booming enthusiasm of the era's independent music subculture.

In Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for the Better by Tina Turner, the living legend sheds light on her path to peace in her memoir, in which she details how her Buddhist practices helped her through the darkest moments of her life.

Released in 2013, this deeply personal memoir touches on the extraordinary life of Carole King who inspired Broadway Beautifulwhich chronicles “her journey as a performer, mother, wife and current activist.”

Nina Simone shares her powerful, triumphant and stormy life in her memoir, I put a spell on you. Going through the highest highs of her career success and the lowest lows of failed marriages, arrest and threat of imprisonment, mental breakdown, poverty and attempted suicide.

Jennifer Lopez reveals a transformative two-year period as an artist and mother in her 2015 memoir. True love. In the book, Lopez talks about facing challenges, overcoming fears, and ultimately emerging as a stronger person.

In her characteristically down-to-earth memoir, My storyReba McEntire tells the funny, inspiring story of her life from her “childhood in Oklahoma working cattle with her ranching family to her days on the rodeo competition circuit, from her early years as a honky-tonk performer to her many awards and sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall.”

McEntire's new lifestyle book, Not So Fancy: Simple Lessons for Living, Loving, Eating and Dusting Your Bootswill be released in October.