The Ladder

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF BLOODY BRILLIANT WOMEN

A Times Best Book of the Year

The Ladder brings together discussions between women – about work, love, growth, challenge, the big decisions and the stories of their lives.

Offering inspiration and wise counsel from some of the world’s most acclaimed and influential women, this book is an insight and a trove of solidarity, turning over ideas of change, anger, illness, imposter syndrome, self-knowledge, purpose, how to not panic in a crisis and how to stop worrying you’re boring when there isn’t one.

Amidst these pages are discussions with women who have achieved extraordinary things in their fields and pursuits, from politicians like Nicola Sturgeon and Angela Rayner to scientists like Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, activists like Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, film-makers like Waad Al-Kateab, religious leaders like Rose Hudson-Wilkin and broadcasters like Joan Bakewell.

Reviews

PRAISE FOR CATHY NEWMAN

'Modern, punchy and fresh'

SUNDAY TIMES

‘Newman is a riveting teller of history …. A brilliant writer’

OBSERVER

‘A litany of fresh heroes to make the embattled heart sing’

CAITLIN MORAN

‘For far too long, women’s achievements have been airbrushed out of history… Cathy Newman has done a bloody brilliant job of painting them back in bright, vivid colours’

NICOLA STURGEON

About the author

Cathy Newman is one of Channel 4 News' main studio presenters. She joined Channel 4 News as political correspondent in January 2006 after seven years writing for the Financial Times. Cathy is an award-winning investigative journalist whose scoops have allegations of sexual harassment in Westminster, an investigation into a British paedophile who abused vulnerable boys in Kenya; and allegations of violent abuse by the British barrister John Smyth. She was the only broadcast journalist to travel with Angelina Jolie and the then foreign secretary William Hague to the Congo as part of their campaign against sexual violence.
Cathy’ first book Bloody Brilliant Women was published in 2018.