The folks over at one of my favorite blogs, Jezebel, have created a list of the 75 books every woman should read, with help from their readers. Avid and obsessive reader that I am (and former English major), I was taken aback by how many on the list I have yet to read!
Most of them are by or about women, because nearly all of the classic "to read" lists are full olf old, white men!
Here they are--and the ones highlighted in bold are the ones I have read. How many have you read?
The Lottery (and Other Stories), Shirley Jackson (high school reading)
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
White Teeth, Zadie Smith (wasn't such a fan)
The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende (loved it!)
Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion
Excellent Women, Barbara Pym
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath (I had a Sylvia Plath obsession in college...)
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri (movie was good too)
Beloved, Toni Morrison (amazing and disturbing!)
Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
Like Life, Lorrie Moore
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (classic favorite)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
The Delta of Venus, Anais Nin
A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (I know, full of cliques, but I liked the story of the sisters)
A Good Man Is Hard To Find (and Other Stories), Flannery O'Connor
The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx (excellent; I should read some of her others)
You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down, Alice Walker
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston (one of my faves)
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (I need to reread)
Fear of Flying, Erica Jong (fun romp)
Earthly Paradise, Colette
Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt (also liked The Invisible Wall, a similar type of book)
Property, Valerie Martin
Middlemarch, George Eliot (I did my English senior thesis on George Eliot)
Annie John, Jamaica Kincaid
The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir
Runaway, Alice Munro
The Heart is A Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers (high school)
The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë (need to reread)
You Must Remember This, Joyce Carol Oates
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (need to reread0
Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill
The Liars' Club, Mary Karr (didn't really "get it")
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou (I love her!)
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Betty Smith
And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie
Bastard out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison
The Secret History, Donna Tartt (excellent writer, but disturbing book)
The Little Disturbances of Man, Grace Paley
The Portable Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Parker
The Group, Mary McCarthy (classic!)
Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (I need to see the movie...)
The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing (I read tons of Doris Lessing in college)
The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank (I want to read the unexpurgated version)
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag
In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez
The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (just read this and enjoyed it--graphic novel)
Three Junes, Julia Glass
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft
Sophie's Choice, William Styron (disturbing but beautiful)
Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann
Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell (I think I read this...)
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin (one of the few sci-fi books I've read)
The Red Tent, Anita Diamant (loved it)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera (can't remember much of it)
The Face of War, Martha Gellhorn
My Antonia, Willa Cather (read for my book group--wasn't very memorable though)
Love In The Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (loved it)
The Harsh Voice, Rebecca West
Spending, Mary Gordon
The Lover, Marguerite Duras
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy (loved it)
Tell Me a Riddle, Tillie Olsen
Nightwood, Djuna Barnes
Three Lives, Gertrude Stein
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons (great movie too)
I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith (recently saw the movie of this, and I'd like to read the book)
Possession, A.S. Byatt
I need to add all these to my goodreads list!!
Most of them are by or about women, because nearly all of the classic "to read" lists are full olf old, white men!
Here they are--and the ones highlighted in bold are the ones I have read. How many have you read?
The Lottery (and Other Stories), Shirley Jackson (high school reading)
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
White Teeth, Zadie Smith (wasn't such a fan)
The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende (loved it!)
Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion
Excellent Women, Barbara Pym
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath (I had a Sylvia Plath obsession in college...)
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri (movie was good too)
Beloved, Toni Morrison (amazing and disturbing!)
Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
Like Life, Lorrie Moore
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (classic favorite)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
The Delta of Venus, Anais Nin
A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (I know, full of cliques, but I liked the story of the sisters)
A Good Man Is Hard To Find (and Other Stories), Flannery O'Connor
The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx (excellent; I should read some of her others)
You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down, Alice Walker
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston (one of my faves)
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (I need to reread)
Fear of Flying, Erica Jong (fun romp)
Earthly Paradise, Colette
Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt (also liked The Invisible Wall, a similar type of book)
Property, Valerie Martin
Middlemarch, George Eliot (I did my English senior thesis on George Eliot)
Annie John, Jamaica Kincaid
The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir
Runaway, Alice Munro
The Heart is A Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers (high school)
The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë (need to reread)
You Must Remember This, Joyce Carol Oates
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (need to reread0
Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill
The Liars' Club, Mary Karr (didn't really "get it")
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou (I love her!)
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Betty Smith
And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie
Bastard out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison
The Secret History, Donna Tartt (excellent writer, but disturbing book)
The Little Disturbances of Man, Grace Paley
The Portable Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Parker
The Group, Mary McCarthy (classic!)
Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (I need to see the movie...)
The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing (I read tons of Doris Lessing in college)
The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank (I want to read the unexpurgated version)
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag
In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez
The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (just read this and enjoyed it--graphic novel)
Three Junes, Julia Glass
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft
Sophie's Choice, William Styron (disturbing but beautiful)
Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann
Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell (I think I read this...)
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin (one of the few sci-fi books I've read)
The Red Tent, Anita Diamant (loved it)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera (can't remember much of it)
The Face of War, Martha Gellhorn
My Antonia, Willa Cather (read for my book group--wasn't very memorable though)
Love In The Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (loved it)
The Harsh Voice, Rebecca West
Spending, Mary Gordon
The Lover, Marguerite Duras
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy (loved it)
Tell Me a Riddle, Tillie Olsen
Nightwood, Djuna Barnes
Three Lives, Gertrude Stein
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons (great movie too)
I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith (recently saw the movie of this, and I'd like to read the book)
Possession, A.S. Byatt
I need to add all these to my goodreads list!!
Comments
Post a Comment