Map Monday – The Eights

Submitted: 10th March 2025

Map Monday – The Eights

The map in this book is more historical and philosophical than geographical in many ways. It’s a story about a group of women who were the first women to study at Oxford University.

Now this is a map of historical significance – the years leading up to this date would have been a series of challenges and knock backs. Now, the women place Oxford on the map well and truly as they should be.

Map locations in The Eights

The book:

Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1000-year history, the world’s most famous university has admitted female students.

This is one of those novels that you think is pure fiction but is actually inspired by real facts. This is the story of three women who weren’t allowed to study at Oxford and weren’t respected when they did. But they weren’t having any of that nonsense. It delves deep into their lives and their struggles of wanting to attend a university and a prestigious one at that. It was really interesting to see what they went through and too think this is fairly recent – only 1920s! We have come far but not really when you think about it.

What a jewel of a read! I got angry on their behalf. Felt like storming in one of those meetings myself. This is going to be good for book clubs and plenty of discussions.

A really good insightful read!