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Emma Watson's book fairies are hiding feminist books all over the world

They're at it again.

Rachel Thompson

on March 8, 2017

Women around the world are today celebrating International Women's Day 2017 (IWD) by hiding feminist books in plain sight in public places for people to find and enjoy.

People in the UK, United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, Singapore, France, Italy, Germany and Hungary and Slovakia have been posting about their book-hiding endeavours.

Emma Watson tweeted about the global project, which is being organised in collaboration with The Book Fairies as part of her feminist bookclub initiative Our Shared Shelf's collaboration with Books on the Underground.

Watson took to the London Underground in late 2016 to hide copies of Maya Angelou's Mom & Me & Mom. But Watson has taken the project to a global scale to mark IWD.

Readers who find the books are encouraged to return the books to a public place for another person to enjoy.

Commuters in London woke up to books in train and Tube stations across the city.

Copies of Gloria Steinem's My Life on the Road and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis were left at Platform 9 and 3/4 at King's Cross St Pancras station.

An assortment of feminist books were left on benches at Elephant and Castle Tube station in central London.

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A copy of Caitlin Moran's How to be a Woman was left at Clapham North station.

In Milan, Italy, copies of books by Steinem and Moran were left in Piazza Gae Aulenti.

People in Paris were also taking part in the initiative.

In Budapest, Hungary, one reader found a copy of Persepolis at Deák Ferenc tér.

In Berlin, Germany, copies of Mom & Me & Mom were left on benches at the Schönhauser Allee metro station.

A copy of Moran's How to be a Woman popped up in Bratislava, Slovakia.

In Dubai, United Arab Emirates, copies of Persepolis were hidden in plain sight at metro stations.

And a copy of Moran's book was left on public transport in Dubai.

In Singapore, copies of Steinem's text were placed in the arms of statues on Market Street.

And, in Auckland, New Zealand, a copy of Persepolis was hidden at the Britomart Transport Centre.

Happy International Women's Day!

Topics Books

Rachel Thompson

Features Editor

Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.

A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.

Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.