Happy International Women’s Day. Here our staff share some of the most interesting women they’ve met in books.

There’s a lot of hate out there for the character of Sansa Stark, but I’m going to come out and say that I think she’s one of the most interesting, smartest, and strongest characters in George R.R. Martin’s Westeros. Over the course of five novels we’ve seen her evolve from a naive young girl who believes in the romantic ideals that she was raised on, to a strong young woman who’s managed to survive the viper’s nest of lies and conspiracies that is King’s Landing. That she manages to do so without losing her sense of self or her moral compass is a credit to her strength of character. A lot of the rage that’s directed towards her seems very gendered: she’s weak, she’s a pawn, she’s gullible; she likes pretty dresses and lemon cakes; she believes in love and chivalry. Most importantly, she doesn’t fit the Strong Female Character trope like sword-wielding fan-favourite Arya does.

Well FYI haters: Arya wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in Kings Landing, and being a ‘strong female character’ doesn’t have to mean ‘being like a man’. Just ask the Queen of Thorns. – Lian Hingee, Digital marketing manager

While I’ve come across lots of interesting women in my reading life, the one who springs first to mind is photographer, journalist, adventurer Amory Clay – the central character of William Boyd’s Sweet Caress. Boyd is certainly no stranger to crafting interesting women in his fiction having already gifted readers spy Eva Delectorskaya in his earlier work, Restless, and his Amory Clay is a larger-than-life character whose accomplishments are ones that any person would be envious of. – Mark Rubbo, Managing director

Last year saw the release of so many standout books featuring female characters that worked to challenge the stale convention of ‘likability’, from Miranda July’s The First Bad Man, to Rebecca Starford’s Bad Behaviour. I wrote about my top picks from 2015 here.

And while it’s only March, I feel as though I’ve already met the most interesting character I’ll read all of this year. Jennifer Down’s Our Magic Hour is a slice-of-life study of grief and its effects on a young friendship group, and the story’s twenty-something Audrey is fascinating to spend time with. She is generous, witty, flawed and completely real. I don’t think a book needs to be relatable to be affecting, but my reading of Our Magic Hour was definitely strengthened by how close-to-home its portrayals of Audrey and her friends were. – Stella Charls, Marketing and events coordinator

Amy Dunne (from Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl) holds a rare position in the feminist zeitgeist; she is hero and villain – a revolutionary of sorts. Flynn reveals her character initially through a diary, as Amy relays the distress of her partnership to an emasculated man. She speaks truth to this common situation, and then sensationalises it in a way that reaches far beyond any woman’s darkest emancipation fantasies. And yet… Amy is ultimately a hypocrite. She believes in the feminine inferiority – not of herself, but all other women around her – and her reliance on that myth gets her into the most trouble. In reality, Amy is a misogynist and through this anti-heroine, Gillian Flynn teaches us not of the fury of a woman scorned (such a tired cliché) but that we should never underestimate other women. – Jemima Bucknell, Online fulfilment manager

A woman who I think is absolutely amazing right now (well, she’s only 10-years-old, but lets not be ageist) is Squishy Taylor. Squishy’s mum works for the UN in Geneva, while her Dad looks after a new baby with her stepmum, Alice. Squishy has two ‘bonus sisters’ with whom she jumps off beds, has daring escapades and gets in trouble with. Squishy is so brave that she has only just learnt how to rock climb, yet she doesn’t mind climbing up and down walls outside her apartment building when the need calls for it. She’s not afraid of ghosts and she can pick a lock with a bobby pin quick smart! Squishy’s not really into homework – she favours the school of life – but I think she’s one of the smartest kids I’ve (literaturely) met.

Speaking of smart and adventurous 10-year-olds, have I told you about my buddy, Pippi Longstocking? She has her own house, her own gold coins, as well as a pet monkey and a horse. And boy, does she know how to have fun. – Angela Crocombe, Children’s buyer

Stella Gibbon’s Cold Comfort Farm was pressed upon me a few years ago by a particularly interesting woman (my mum!). In its pages, pragmatic Flora Post finds herself surrounded by a host of melodramatic family members who seem almost to enjoy wallowing in misery. Unimpressed and undaunted, Flora promptly sets about fixing their dysfunctional lives. It could have been preachy, but it isn’t – it’s hilarious – and Flora remains one of my heroes today.

On a quieter and darker note, I’m also devoted to Tenar of the Ring from Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea series. Tenar makes her first appearance as a child in The Tombs of Atuan (the first book ever to make my hair actually stand on end), but it’s two books later in Tehanu that I really fell in love with her as a character.

Now middle-aged and widowed, Tenar is a survivor. She is sick of grief and fear but embroiled in both. She cares for a motley household of misfits – a hedge-witch, a widow, a mutilated child, and a wizard shattered by the loss of his magic. For her efforts Tenar is dismissed, threatened or feared by those around her. Plagued with doubt, exhausted and assailed by violence – still she persists: ‘There was nothing left, nothing to be done, but she must do it.’

Tehanu takes place far away from the stereotypical fantasy stage of grand deeds and great men. Instead we are shown women’s domestic lives, and their power within the bounds forced upon them. As you can imagine, it’s an angry book, yet Tenar is a shining light of determination and courage within it. – Eleanor Jenkins, bookseller

Sidra is the narrator of ‘Willing’ – the opening story from Lorrie Moore’s Birds of America – and while I frequently forget entire novels worth of information, I always remember this story of the movie star who leaves Hollywood and returns to her hometown, lives in a hotel, and starts a relationship with a dumb but sweet man who bores her. Sidra has all the best characteristics of a Lorrie Moore narrator: she possesses enough charm and wit for us to follow her along, even though we’re ultimately reading about her lack of decision-making. This kind of passivity is hard to pull off – and, in my experience, infuriates university students when you get them to read it. But Moore has such a clear vision that it’s almost impossible to doubt her as a writer. – Chris Somerville, Online team member

Two characters come to mind for me: the dwarf Cheery from various Discworld novels, and Sara Crewe from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess.

In Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, dwarfs aren’t much different from regular fantasy dwarfs – they generally prefer to spend their time underground in mines, and both the males and females support impressive beards. Notably, dwarfs are always ‘he’s’, even if they’re a she, and Cheery becomes one of the first of her kind to openly announce herself as female. This is made even more difficult for her by the fact that she’s a member of the City Watch where, ‘You can be any sex you like provided you act male’. In her awkward but quietly determined fashion, Cheery fights against thousands of years of tradition and forces those around her to accept her femininity – even while fiercely daring them to treat her any differently for it.

And then there’s Sara Crewe who impressed upon me the importance of princesses. To Sara, princesses weren’t pretty, little creatures that needed to be rescued. Rather, she saw princesses as having a duty to their people. Even when Sara loses all her fine things in life, she never loses her imagination or spirit to persevere. In one memorable scene, Sara is starving when by good fortune, she finds a fourpenny piece in the snowy sludge with which she is able to buy 6 hot buns. However, when she notices a a beggar child who appears even hungrier than her, she gives away 5 of them because princess ‘always shared with those poorer and hungrier than themselves’.

We should all subscribe to Sara’s idea of princesses. She knew that clothes and money have nothing to do with royalty, but rather, it’s about being the best person you can be. – Dani Solomon, Children’s bookseller

Olive Kitteridge (the titular character from Elizabeth Strout’s linked short-story collection) is an unforgettable, uncomfortable character that struck a chord with me. Annoyingly, she’s the kind of female character that I find myself on the verge of describing as ‘challenging’ or ‘complicated’ to others – ‘annoyingly’ because isn’t everyone challenging and complicated? A genuine tour de force on the page, Olive doesn’t play by any of the rules expected of female characters and she feels so true-to-life, she makes me cringe in recognition.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention Elena and Lina from Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels. These books are some of the most important books to me in how I see myself as a woman, and, as with Olive, these two women are unforgettable characters. – Bronte Coates, Digital content coordinator