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In 1963 Gloria Steinem, then a young freelance journalist, took a job as a Bunny at the New York Playboy Club and wrote about what she saw there; she later said she could not get other assignments for a while because she had been a Bunny. Six years later, “After Black Power, Women’s Liberation” in New York magazine made her a national voice of the women’s movement, and in 1972 she co-founded Ms., whose 300,000 test copies sold out in eight days. Her books came more slowly than her journalism: essays, a portrait of Marilyn Monroe, a book on self-esteem, and late in life two memoirs, the second published weeks after her death on 2 September 2026. This guide covers her ten key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 key books · 1963–2026 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Gloria Steinem published around a dozen books. The best known are Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983), her first essay collection, Revolution from Within (1992) and her memoir My Life on the Road (2015), the basis of the film The Glorias (2020). Start with My Life on the Road: it tells her life through fifty years of travel and organising, and leads naturally back to the essays.
Where to Start with Gloria Steinem
If you want her life story
→ My Life on the Road (2015) — fifty years of travel, organising and listening.
If you want the essays that made her name
→ Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983) — including “I Was a Playboy Bunny” and “If Men Could Menstruate”.
If you want feminism turned inward
→ Revolution from Within (1992) — her 1992 book on self-esteem.
If you want her short, quotable side
→ The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off! (2019).
10 Gloria Steinem Books, in Order
The Beach Book
Her first book, published by Viking, is a playful compendium for a day by the sea: stories, poems, song lyrics, games, instructions for building sandcastles and burying friends in sand, and a reading list that runs from Proust and Melville to the National Enquirer. The economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote the introduction, and the original dust jacket was made of foil so it could double as a tanning reflector.
Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions
Her first essay collection, drawn from two decades of journalism. It includes “I Was a Playboy Bunny”, her 1963 undercover report; the satire “If Men Could Menstruate”; “Erotica vs. Pornography”; and “Ruth’s Song”, a memoir of her mother.
Before the Playboy Bunny story: Nellie Bly went undercover →
Marilyn
A short biography of Marilyn Monroe, with photographs by George Barris, that looks past the films to Norma Jeane Baker, the girl underneath the icon. Steinem admits that as a teenager she walked out of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, embarrassed by Monroe’s performance, and came to admire her only later. Library Journal called it an “even-handed introduction to the Monroe phenomenon”.
Revolution from Within
Steinem argues that self-esteem is the basis of any real democracy, and that women’s sense of self is worn down by the demand to fill many roles at once. After 250 pages she considered a failure, a therapist friend told her she had a self-esteem problem herself, and she rewrote the book with her own story in it. Some feminist critics were unsure whether it was social criticism or a self-help book.
Moving Beyond Words
A collection of earlier essays with new introductions. The first and longest, “What If Freud Were Phyllis?”, imagines a matriarchal world and a “Dr. Phyllis Freud” to show the bias in his theories. Others cover women and sport, class, economics, the advertisers’ hold over women’s magazines (“Sex, Lies and Advertising”, written when Ms. dropped advertising) and, in “Doing Sixty”, growing older.
Doing Sixty & Seventy
A short book from the small Elders Academy Press in San Francisco, updating her 1994 essay “Doing Sixty”. She writes about the stereotypes and invisibility that older women face, and describes her own sixties and seventies as a new stage that can bring more freedom, not less.
As If Women Matter
A selection of her essays published in India by Rupa, compiled with the Indian activist Ruchira Gupta, founder of the anti-trafficking organisation Apne Aap. Steinem had spent two years in India in the late 1950s as a Chester Bowles Asian Fellow.
My Life on the Road
A memoir told through travel: her childhood on the road with her father, an antiques dealer, then decades of travelling the country and the world as a campaigner and organiser, and the people she met along the way. The dedication thanks Dr John Sharpe, the London doctor who helped her obtain an illegal abortion at 22. It was adapted as the film The Glorias (2020), with Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander as Steinem.
The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off!
A small illustrated book of her sayings on relationships, patriarchy and activism, with illustrations by Samantha Dion Baker and a new introduction and essays by Steinem. It includes a few lines from friends such as bell hooks and Flo Kennedy, and ends with blank pages for readers’ own quotations.
An Unexpected Life
Her final memoir, published in September 2026, weeks after her death. It goes back to her childhood in Toledo, Ohio: the road trips with her itinerant father, caring for her mother, a rat bite that showed her what poverty meant, and the reading that took her elsewhere, before following her into the women’s movement and the people who inspired her.
In What Order to Read Gloria Steinem
Steinem’s books do not form a sequence, so you can read by interest. Publication order does show a shift: the essay collections of 1983 and 1994 are journalism and argument, Revolution from Within (1992) turns to the inner life, and the two memoirs of 2015 and 2026 look back on how she became who she was.
A good order is to read My Life on the Road first for the story, then Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions for the voice that made her famous, and finish with An Unexpected Life, which fills in the childhood the earlier memoir only sketches.
A reading path
1. My Life on the Road (2015)
2. Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983)
3. Moving Beyond Words (1994)
4. Revolution from Within (1992)
5. An Unexpected Life (2026)
Everything Else Gloria Steinem Published
Beyond the 10 key books: 2 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Early and contributed work
2
2 books · 1957–2003
- 1957The Thousand Indiasa booklet written during her fellowship in India
- 2003The Media and the Movement: A User’s Guideessay in Sisterhood Is Forever, edited by Robin Morgan
The years · 1934–2026
Quick facts about Gloria Steinem
- Known for
- Gloria Steinem is known as the best-known public face of American second-wave feminism: a journalist who co-founded Ms. magazine in 1972 and spent five decades on the road campaigning for women’s rights.
- 1934
- Born in Toledo, Ohio
- 1963
- Undercover as a Playboy Bunny
- 1972
- Co-founds Ms. magazine
- 2013
- Presidential Medal of Freedom
- 2026
- Dies in New York City, aged 92
- Born
- 25 March 1934, Toledo, Ohio
- Died
- 2 September 2026, New York City, aged 92
- Education
- Smith College, 1956, then two years in India as a Chester Bowles Asian Fellow
- Founded
- Ms. magazine (1972), as one of its founding editors
- Married
- David Bale, in 2000; he died in 2003
- Honours
- National Women’s Hall of Fame (1993), Presidential Medal of Freedom (2013), Princess of Asturias Award (2021)
- On screen
- Played by Alicia Vikander and Julianne Moore in The Glorias and by Rose Byrne in Mrs. America (both 2020)
The red mark is 1983: Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, the collection of her essays and reporting that made her name in book form.
How Gloria Steinem Writes: Journalism First
Steinem was a magazine journalist before she was an activist, and her books keep the habits of the trade. Her best-known pieces are reported: for “I Was a Playboy Bunny” she took a job at the club and reported from the inside. Most of her books are collections of such pieces, often reprinted with new introductions that say what changed since.
Her arguments often work by reversal. “If Men Could Menstruate” imagines periods as a source of male pride, and “What If Freud Were Phyllis?” rewrites Freud for a matriarchal world, so that the bias in the original becomes visible. The tone is dry and joking rather than angry, which is part of why the lines travel well enough to fill a book of quotations.
From Revolution from Within on, she puts more of herself on the page: her mother’s illness, her own self-doubt, her abortion at 22, her father’s life on the road. The two memoirs are built less on her own achievements than on the people she met, in line with her conviction that change grows from the bottom up. For another writer who mixed feminist argument with personal history, see the guide to the books of bell hooks.
Frequently asked questions about Gloria Steinem’s books
How many books has Gloria Steinem written?
Around a dozen. Ten are the key books on this page, from The Beach Book (1963) to An Unexpected Life (2026); the rest are her early booklet The Thousand Indias (1957) and essays contributed to other books.
What are Gloria Steinem’s books in order?
The Beach Book (1963), Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983), Marilyn: Norma Jeane (1986), Revolution from Within (1992), Moving Beyond Words (1994), Doing Sixty & Seventy (2006), As If Women Matter (2014), My Life on the Road (2015), The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off! (2019) and An Unexpected Life (2026).
Where should I start with Gloria Steinem?
With My Life on the Road (2015), her memoir of fifty years of travel and organising. If you would rather start with her journalism, read Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983), which contains “I Was a Playboy Bunny” and “If Men Could Menstruate”.
What is Gloria Steinem’s most famous book?
Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983), which collects the essays and reporting that made her name. Her memoir My Life on the Road (2015) is the most widely read of her later books and was filmed as The Glorias.
Is Gloria Steinem still alive?
No. She died on 2 September 2026 at her home in New York City, aged 92. Her final memoir, An Unexpected Life, was published later that month.
Is The Glorias based on a book?
Yes. Julie Taymor’s film The Glorias is based on My Life on the Road. It premiered at Sundance in January 2020 and was released on Prime Video that September, with four actresses playing Steinem at different ages, including Alicia Vikander and Julianne Moore. Rose Byrne played her in the 2020 series Mrs. America.
Did Gloria Steinem really work as a Playboy Bunny?
Yes, briefly, in 1963, as an undercover assignment at the New York Playboy Club. Her account, “I Was a Playboy Bunny”, is in Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, and it was filmed for television as A Bunny’s Tale (1985), with Kirstie Alley as Steinem.
What is Revolution from Within about?
Self-esteem. Steinem argues that women’s confidence is worn down by social expectations and that self-respect is the basis of real democracy. She rewrote it after a therapist friend told her she had a self-esteem problem herself, and some feminist critics were unsure whether it was social criticism or self-help.
Was Gloria Steinem involved in any controversies?
Two are often raised. From the late 1950s to 1962 she worked for the Independent Research Service, which was largely financed by the CIA; she disclosed this in 1967 and defended it, and in 1975 the feminist group Redstockings questioned whether she still had CIA ties, which she denied. In 2016 she said on Real Time with Bill Maher that young women backing Bernie Sanders were going where “the boys” were; after criticism she apologised and said she had been misinterpreted.
Did Gloria Steinem coin “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament”?
No. The line is often credited to her, but she attributed it to an Irish taxi driver in Boston.
Footnotes
- Gloria Steinem — Wikipedia
- Gloria Steinem, trailblazing journalist and activist, has died — NPR, 2026
- An Unexpected Life — Penguin Books Australia
- Moving Beyond Words — Kirkus Reviews
- B-Sides: Gloria Steinem’s The Beach Book — Public Books
- The Glorias — Wikipedia
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“When humans are ranked instead of linked, everyone loses.”
— Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road (2015)
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