In 2013, I made a small but very personal resolution – that I would spend the year reading only books written by women. 12 months and 40 books later, I published a piece on Flavorwire.com about the project and how it had affected my life. I merely hoped that a couple of people would be touched by the story and also decide to actively read more books by female authors, thus making small strides against an industry that publishes, promotes, and awards more books written by men.
The day that the story was published, I immediately noticed a spike in Twitter followers. People – women and men – were tweeting at me from around the country, telling me they’d decided to take on their own similar only-books-by-women project and asking me to recommend titles I’d read and enjoyed. Even one of my favorite newspapers, The Guardian, dedicated two separate pieces to my story and to the idea of reading only female authors.
But there was also plenty of criticism, as there always is whenever a woman has opinions and an internet connection. People called me sexist, reverse sexist, and a misandrist. One Flavorwire commenter dismissed the significance of focusing on female authors and announced that he would only be reading books by authors who were tall.
I’m thrilled that a little fun personal project I didn’t think much of at first has turned into a phenomenon that even has its own hashtag. But the point of the reading project was to raise awareness about the way that female writers are still seen as less important, less literary, and less canonical than male writers, and even some of the coverage about my work hasn’t changed that.
Case in point: when The Guardian launched its #readwomen2014 project, they interviewed one writer/critic who had vowed to read only female authors in 2014 – a man, Matthew Jakubowski, who explicitly named my Flavorwire story as his inspiration. [Full disclosure: Matthew is an internet-friend and we’re part of a group reading Middlemarch together.] Even when it comes to promoting books by female authors, it’s evidently still more important to ask men what they think in order to legitimize something that might reek too strongly of feminism. Soon, other publications like Time jumped on the bandwagon, praising The Guardian for their idea.
At first, I didn’t say anything. Deep down, there’s a part of me that still believes that a woman wanting credit for her work is arrogant and vain. But the real driving force behind my 2013 project wasn’t simply to know the gender of an author – it was to support women’s stories, to make sure their narratives were heard. Yet it was still difficult to raise my own voice. The internet can often feel like a giant, elaborate game of Telephone. And it’s not as if I was the first person in history to focus on female writers. But I couldn’t help but feel slighted – and like I was losing control of my own narrative.
I told myself that I should be grateful that people were reading books and championing female authors, no matter where they got the idea. That’s what one of my college English professors used to say when he saw undergraduates toting copies of Twilight around campus – “well, at least they’re reading.” A Pew study released last week found that 23 percent of American adults did not read a single book last year. The largest group, 31 percent, read between one and five. There were no options higher than the number 11.
And, ultimately, it was about the books. Before politics or activism, it was about reading Anzia Yezierska’s Hungry Hearts and catching a sliver of what life was like for my great-grandparents, Jewish immigrants crowding their hopes into the tenements of the Lower East Side. It was about giving Edith Wharton, a writer I’d disliked in college, a second and more sympathetic attempt now that I was old enough to know the pain of femaleness more intimately.
Reading is so much more than looking at words on a page. At least they’re reading, as if a grocery list and a poem could be the same, could each weigh as much as the other. I wanted my reading, a pastime I enjoyed for its quietness and solitude, to also be a declarative statement. Women have always understood that there is more than one path to revolution. Quite simply, I would not be the human I am without having read My Antonia when I was sixteen years old.
There were also discoveries. One book that randomly caught my eye was Watch How We Walk by an author I’d never heard of, Jennifer LoveGrove. The novel is about a young woman growing up in a devout Jehovah’s Witness family and pushing against the tight confines of the faith while also noticing the cracks growing in her home life. I was immediately yanked into the book, a family drama which eventually turns into a psychological mystery. I read it, hungrily, in bits and pieces, grabbing ten pages on a subway ride and fifteen before falling asleep.
As much fun as it is to read popular and best-selling female authors like Margaret Atwood and Hilary Mantel, Watch How We Walk underpinned everything I’d hoped to accomplish by reading female writers. It was like swimming in a dark sea and finding a seashell. So often, we fall into the trap of selecting The One – the lone female writer who will have to represent all of us, the one who will snag the only available ‘token’ spot among the men, at the expense of lesser-known writers who will have to fight ten times as hard to overcome prejudice.
And there are other ways we feed into the trope of male legitimacy. While reading Nancy Kress’ sci fi novel Beggars in Spain, about a future America where wealthy parents can pay to genetically engineer children who never need to sleep, I kept thinking that if Philip K. Dick had written the book it would have been adapted into a big-budget Hollywood movie already.
Every person who chooses to read books by women this year is a victory, no matter to whom go the spoils. Their money chips away at a book advance and helps convince an editor that she made the right call. Their online reviews give a young marketing assistant something to talk about in her next big meeting. Each reader is a small voice saying, what you have to contribute is important, what you have to say matters. For a woman, that can make all the difference. The chorus is just getting louder.
I recently connected with Dr. Anne Boyd Rioux, a University of New Orleans professor who is working on a book about Constance Fenimore Woolson, a largely-unknown writer from the 19th century who was friends with Henry James and may have inspired Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady. After she read my piece, Dr. Boyd Rioux and I met up for tea and a discussion about why Woolson’s works went ignored even though she was quite successful and popular in her lifetime. And the sad fact is that in 2014 women still have to push to get their writing read, as much as they did in 1914 and in 1814. As long as high school teachers don’t assign Jane Austen because they think teenage boys won’t like her books and the average American only reads one book per year, women are still going to have to scream just to be heard as a whisper. But at least we’re screaming together.
Tags: books, feminism, lilit marcus, reading
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In college I became antiquated with a group of women heavily into feminism, my exposure to their offhand comments and ideas really shaped me. One in particular was a book club with a special note to reject the classics of great white men who supposedly represented all of human existence. This pushed me to really think about my book purchases and have read almost exclusively woman authors for the past three years. (although my only male author consumed many months of reading time as I worked through ASOIAF, so perhaps I make too strong a claim). It has been wonderful. And now I just need to finish the Goldfinch so I can search on for something else!
YEAH. Yeah!!!
I am trying to only read books by and about women this year, though I’m also trying to work my way through my massive pile of books I bought and haven’t read yet. I’m just at an extra-misandrist point right now where I’m not
I’m reading The Richer Sex after finishing The End of Men by Hanna Rosin last night. Misandrist library in the making?
This is institutionalized misandry! How will the men pass their free time with all these books being written by women for women they will be forced to read it and become less masculine just like that Guardian article said =(. Someone please think of the men!!!!!
A pox or a Stephanie Meyer upon you! (Especially if you are a phony king of England)
(while I want to post an insightful comment about what an interesting project this was, and how unsurprising some of the reactions were, all I can think is, “What parent in their right mind would want a child who DOESN’T SLEEP?!?!?”)
Right, my exact thought.
When my children were young I wanted them to sleep MORE
It says wealthy parents, so maybe they just hire multiple nannies, to work in shifts.
They do; that is precisely what the main character’s parents do. And one child dies from being shaken by his exhausted parents. And parental abuse of these children is common enough that they have self-created rescue and support structures in effect – this tendency to rely on each other instead of sleeping people is a significant driver of the plot once they are adults.
In fact, now that I think on it, the main character probably still likes Sleepers because she had two nannies, and never had to deal with cranky people as a child.
Off topic: Why would you genetically engineer a child that does not sleep, oh my god, this is the most horrifying dystopia ever conceived.
On topic: So seriously, the Guardian did two stories on your idea and they didn’t interview you at all?? I guess that goes to show how important projects to raise up women’s voices still are …
OT jinx.
Spoiler: It ends badly.
Not… really? There are two more books, and they go off in some awesome crazy directions, and I think end on a hopeful note. Also, everything ends badly if you stop at a terrible spot.
Oh wow, thanks for this followup! I’ve been a longtime Deliberate Reader of Woman-Authored Works, so I really enjoyed your Flavorwire piece and have been pretty astonished at how #readwomen2014 has blown up lately.
I’ll be hanging on to this post for my next link round-up. I’m fascinated by how defensive people–men and women both, really–get in response to the suggestion that we culturally privilege books by men. Last time I had an online dating profile, I stipulated that I’d be more interested in my potential (male) mates if some of their favorite books were by women. The responses were pretty varied. Some of them were happy to discuss the books they loved that were written by women, but many trotted out the usual chestnuts: men can’t relate to stories about women; they don’t see gender; they like what they like; they don’t know of any good ones.
I posted these responses here. Sorry about the caps–it’s a feature/bug of my current blog template, unfortunately.
Oooh, thanks for sharing that! I’m almost impressed that so few of them are as defensive as I would have guessed (though they’re not necessarily not defensive. Not sure what to make of the Margaret Atwood comment?
Right? I started trying to make something out of the Margaret Atwood comment but it’s so not worth the mental energy.
Also, the last comment:
“GO WRITE A BOOK I’D LIKE :D”
I guess maybe he thought he was being flirty by saying that but that statement had me seeing more flames than any other statement. There is just so much wrong packed into that one tiny little statement. But I really appreciated reading this blog post overall, thanks for sharing!
SO much wrong. Including the whiny “can’t think of aaaaaaaany comedy ones!”
You could have just stopped after “can’t think,” bro.
At least you found a quick way to screen out all the dudebros — they out themselves when they complain!
*adds “dudebros” to list of awesome words learned on the internet*
Exactly. I had the same sort of idea when I identified myself as feminist in an earlier profile, but I got very tired of deleting and blocking the hate mailers, so. . . . we compromise.
What an excellent (if entirely depressing) screening process.
This was a great piece and I appreciated all of your points, Lilit. But this line stood out to me: “As long as high school teachers don’t assign Jane Austen because they think teenage boys won’t like her books…”
My last high school English teacher assigned The Awakening by Kate Chopin to all but my section because the boys in that class argued for an hour about how they “knew how to treat women,” so they shouldn’t have to read it. : (
they “knew how to treat women,” so they shouldn’t have to read it.
[SPOILER ALERT for a 115-year-old work] Heads-up, fellas: “not driving her to drown herself” is not sufficient information on “how to treat women.”
UGHHHHHHHHHH
That reminds me of a guy in one of my college lit classes whose sole contribution to the discussion of one of the books we read was that he didn’t like books about women because female characters weren’t like him and therefore he couldn’t relate to them. THANKS FOR SHARING, BRO.
Oh hey and that reminds me of the guy in my women’s lit class who complained that we didn’t discuss the books from a man’s point of view and that made him uncomfortable.
Most of us were there to begin with because it was a Women’s Studies class.
Came down to say that I would not be the human I am if I hadn’t had The Awakening assigned to me in high school.
The Awakening changed my life when I read it right after my first semester of college. Now that Middlemarch Book Club has concluded, maybe we can do The Awakening Book Club?
I would love that!
Yasssssss!
Oh let’s do it! I haven’t read it in years but I remember really loving it.
I read mostly books by women, just out of preference (not for women writers but for… the sort of books they are more likely to write? I don’t know, maybe just for women writers), and I would also say that most of my favorite books are by women. Sometimes I wonder if I should feel bad about this, because I would think it was bullshit if someone’s reading was as heavily male as mine is female. I honestly haven’t thought through it much, except maybe to consider it something like going to a women’s college–that it creates a sort of safe space where, paradoxically, I don’t really have to think about my gender as much. It can be so tiring and demoralizing to deal with the way women characters are dealt with in a lot of prominent literature by men, for example. Maybe I don’t fucking want to put myself in the shoes of a debauched old professor and understand the authenticity of his misogyny, and so on.
My fiction reading skews towards women (if not almost exclusively?) because of exactly what you describe – I’m not rolling my eyes at reading the same story, different misogynist time and again. My non-fiction reading is more of a mixed bag, because I like a lot of history/political science and adventure (that’s a bad word…feats of extraordinary skill?) and how can I turn down Andrew Bacevich, you know? But I try to make an effort to seek out women’s writing in those fields (like Unbroken) as well.
“Maybe I don’t fucking want to put myself in the shoes of a debauched old professor and understand the authenticity of his misogyny, and so on. ” Can I borrow this line? It’s such a perfect summary of why I tend to read far far more female than male authors, and the “and so on” delightfully encapsulates the seeming endlessness stream of male-authored characters with whom I have no interest in understanding or being encouraged to empathize or identify.
UGH I just read Robertson Davies’ The Rebel Angels and the entire book is debauched old male professors and their misogyny. I, too, am uninterested in fucking putting myself in their shoes.
Recommendation time! I’ve been reading a lot of comics recently, but a lot of the things I hear recommended elsewhere are by either men or Kelly Sue DeConnick, and I love her but I know there have to be more out there. What should I be reading, comrades in Toast?
I love Rebecca Solnit. What are you interested in reading?
@polka_stripes & @lilotchka: right this minute I’m reading Saga, Pretty Deadly, Atomic Robo, & Hawkeye, & I’m going to start Ms. Marvel any day now. Basically anything that’s not stereotypical macho superhero stuff, which I know is the minority anyway, these days.
I’d love to recommend something – what kind of books are you looking for? Ditto the comment below about Rebecca Solnit. Her book Wanderlust is seminal for me.
If you’re into trying something strange/beautiful – read some Kathy Acker.
I’ve enjoyed Zadie Smith in the past as well…
(These two recommendations are pretty far apart)
Strange/beautiful is perfect, thanks!
The most “strange-beautiful” book I’ve read recently is Ava by Carole Maso, but you can’t miss with her. She’s kind of perfect. Cynthia Ozick is also a freak…
Anne Marie MacDonald.
since you asked about comics, here’s a grab bag of a dozen: Alison Bechdel, Meredith Gran, Jess Fink, Liz Prince, Hope Larson, Kate Beaton, Faith Erin Hicks, Noelle Stevenson, Lynda Barry, Lisa Hanawalt, Margaux Motin, Wendy Pini
Have you read Persepolis by Marjane Sartrapi? Also, nerdsofcolor.com has an ongoing thing with Natalie Kim and Robin Ha. I haven’t read their work yet but check them out!
Ooh, that sounds excellent – thanks!
Just seconding Persepolis!
Black Widow – Name of the Rose (older Black Widow trade, probably the best one) was written by Marjorie Liu; Journey Into Mystery #646-655/Stronger Than Monsters trade was written by Kathryn Immonen and follows Sif beating things up and trying to save Gaia; I also love Gail Simone’s Red Sonja. The new Ms. Marvel run is written by a female Muslim writer – G. Willow Wilson – and follows a Muslim teenage girl taking up the mantle left behind when Carol got her promotion to Captain Marvel (This might be the Ms. Marvel series you mentioned above, but as a note to others looking I guess, this is the one!!).
Not written by women, but I love the supernatural/thriller deal in Revival and Mind The Gap; both have strong female protagonists.
And now I’m going to sit in my little comics bubble and look for more female writers, because this rec list was actually harder to put together from my collection than I thought :/
All of this. Gail Simone’s Birds of Prey run is great too – Vol. 1 #56-108, per Wikipedia. I wasn’t a fan of the post-reboot Birds, and it’s mostly had male authors anyway. Also Secret Six, if you enjoy near-indestructible lesbians with amazing weaponry.
OK so yes, Saga’s (excellent) script is written by a man (Brian K Vaughn) but the jaw-dropping, staggering, Best-in-Show art is by Fiona Staples and is one of my favorite comic book creations of all time. I’m an old jaded sci-fi/fantasy salt, and things regularly spring from Staples’ imagination that I have genuinely never seen before. Since the best comics anyway are IMO a 50/50 split between the art and script, I still think this counts (esp. since female artists are just as rare as female writers in comics, it seems. Lots of female colorists though. Always struck me as an odd imbalance.)
So lovely and thoughtful, thank you. The more I read articles like this, the more I thank god my grade 10 English teacher made us read Obasan by Joy Kogawa. At the time I didn’t understand why, and the themes were somewhat lost on me, but the more I think about it now, the more I appreciate it. Also love my Canadian lit professor for assigning Margaret Laurence and Susanna Moodie and Alice Munro and poetry by Kogawa and Atwood. (Suck on that, David Gilmour.)
The David Gilmour thing pissed me off so much that I immediately went out and picked up “Lives of Girls and Women” (which is, of course, terrifyingly amazing), so, thanks David Gilmour!
Yes! Best possible outcome from that nightmare. My wonderful Canlit prof came immediately to mind when I read about David Gilmour and I gave many thanks to my apparently incredible luck in professors.
I had never heard of it, but now I’m really excited to read “Watch How We Walk.”
Same here! Just loaded it onto my kindle. So excited.
Ahh, it’s so good!
I don’t think I could ever do this; too many of my favorite authors are men (And COME ON the next Discworld book IS ABOUT TRAINS I love trains). But I love that you did, and I would love to hear more recommendations for great genre fiction by women! I’ve read Beggars in Spain and loved it, I’m rereading Dorothy Sayers’ novels, and I think the next thing I’m going to do is reread Sunshine by Robin McKinley. What other great women’s writing in fantasy/scifi/mystery would the Toasties recommend?
Everything by NK Jemisin!
Oh also Robin Hobb!!
of course Robin Hobb 4ever
Anne Leckie’s Ancillary Justice! It’s an amazing sci-fi novel about colonialism, moral responsibility, individual action, friendship, rebellion and revenge, narrated by a former starship AI in a culture that doesn’t mark gender– with the result that Breq (main character) refers to everyone she encounters as “she”– which is incredibly interesting, a is the fact that we never learn the sex of many of the main characters because Breq just doesn’t bother to tell us.
Also, for mystery, how about Kerry Greenwood’s a Phryne Fisher mysteries, starring a fabulous, brilliant, self-assured socialite-detective in 1920’s Australia. Phryne is as ridiculously skilled and competent as your average heroic Lord Peter vel sim., and the books are also generally very alive to social issues, too. Plus everyone is wearing wonderfully described outfits on every page!
I read the first two and enjoyed them, but found the mysteries a little dull. Do they get more complex later in the series?
Hmmm. I’d say that they develop into a pretty formulaic two-stranded plot, where the “A” mystery is the dramatic murder or something upfront, and the “B” mystery is a more subtly social one. And as the series goes on, the “B” plots definitely seem to upstage the “A” ones, but I think that’s ultimately to the good. As you say, they *are* pretty slight.
Ditto, ditto, ditto the suggestion for Ancillary Justice, which is brilliant.
Kay Kenyon is another fabulous SF writer who has been overlooked. Start with The Braided World. Other names: Elizabeth Bear, Lauren Beukes, Octavia Butler, Kelley Eskridge, Nicola Griffith, Nalo Hopkinson, Jean Johnson, Lilith Saintcrow, Nisi Shawl, Joan Slonczewski, Connie Willis. That’s leaving out fantasy, which is equally rich.
For overtly feminist SF: Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin; The Terrorists of Irustan by Louise Marley, Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy, The Female Man by Joanna Russ.
Are you worried about re-reading your favorite male authors in the next year or about reading books in the series you haven’t read yet? I switched to an only female author diet last summer with the goal to just finish out 2013 and I’m trying to decide if I want to keep it going for a full year or not. Because I have so many women on my to-read list that I’m excited about – so it makes it pretty easy if you think about the fact that you can read the male authors after you’re done with the challenge. The part that is making me hesitate is that I just read The Eyre Affair before switching and I want to keep reading the series. So I’m considering doing 2014 as all female authors with exceptions for series written by men I’ve already started and I know they have interesting female characters.
I also buy way too many used books that sit unread and luckily most of them happen to be by women, I may make the other exception that I can only read male authors this year if I already own their book.
Also, I’m only starting to dip my toes into fantasy/scifi so I can only speak to mysteries. Kate Atkinson and P.D. James, who I came to by way of Nicole’s book recs, are quite good. Kate Atkinson’s newest book, Life After Life, is actually a historical fantasy and has become my favorite book to recommend to people.
Mostly I don’t feel the inclination to switch to reading only books by women. It is just not my deal! But I would like lots more recommendations of good books by women. I will look up Life After Life when I get home!
Oh yeah, I definitely don’t think this should be required of everyone so hopefully I didn’t sound too pushy! Just thought I’d share some alternatives I’ve been considering for myself if you were interested in trying the challenge.
I think that somewhere on the internet is a tragically short list of male authors who write fully realized, interesting, realistic female characters. Jasper Fforde is definitely on my list.
Maureen McHugh and Susan Palwick! And Kit Whitfield if you want something a little grimmer (though McHugh can be pretty grim) (actually so can Palwick).
Feed by Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire); the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold; the Valor books by Tanya Huff (or the Blood books, if you’d prefer supernatural crime-solving to space marines); the Velveteen stories by Seanan McGuire.
I think I recc’d this on the Open Thread, but Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson is a great super-feminist fantasy (because who says being a single mom, or coming to terms with your relationship to your mom, or trying to move on from That Guy aren’t acceptable topics for a fantasy novel?).
Also, Robin Hobb’s Farseer and Liveship Traders series, and Ironskin (a fantasy steampunk Jane Eyre) by Tina Connolly for fantasy.
I don’t read mysteries much, but I liked Julia Spencer-Fleming’s.
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned her a thousand times on here, but Joan Vinge is great, particularly the Snow Queen cycle and the Cat series.
I like Sherri S. Tepper, although I wouldn’t read her books back to back since they get awfully message-y. Lois McMaster Bujold is more cheery and highly enjoyable. Kage Baker wrote some neat time travel/ historical/ cyborg novels that have a bit of a Beggars in Spain sense to them to me. Ursula K. LeGuin is a classic for a reason.
On the more fantasy side, Patricia A. McKillip is always an interesting read for me- I love her cover art, which means I always pick up her books, and I usually wind up getting drawn deep into her stories. They run on the depressing side of things, though.
Oh, and if you never got to them as a child, Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series was awesome.
I was thinking of doing a modified version of this for very similar reasons you cited (although for me it’s not the trains, it’s Moist Von Lipwig. I ADORE the Moist books). I was thinking that for every 1 book by a male author I read, I’d have to read 2 books by women.
Robin McKinley is fantastic!
I’m a bit late to this party, but for fantasy, I just discovered Kate Elliott and she is absolutely amazing. I started reading her Crossroads trilogy and was so blown away that I promptly went to my local library and took out everything else by her that I could find. I recommend her books to everyone I meet. Off the top of my head, other good female sci-fi/fantasy authors include Sarah Douglass, CJ Cherryh, Anne McCaffery, Mercedes Lackey (most of them have been around for a while and are quite well known, which also means they have a lot of books written to choose from). I also second Tanya Huff!
Aww man, I really wanted to get into #ReadingWomenIn2014, but this reminded me that a month of 2014 is already gone and I haven’t read a single book (by anyone) yet! It’s not too late to get back on track, right? 🙁
never too late!
the real solution is to stop teaching white men how to read
*holds comment to bosom laughs maniacally*
their medicinal practices shall crumble shortly thereafter.
I snorted most attractively just now.
or we could blindfold them all
It’s especially disconcerting how so many authors who are women end up with with most absolutely ridiculous book covers. Maybe it’s the publishers trying to “figure out what women want,” but I pretty quickly recoil if i see a bunch of fields, lace, chiseled men, or something that looks like a Georgia O’Keefe painting.
A lot of women seem to be subverting the “literary fiction” world by more clearly writing genre or YA books
Related: a few years ago I changed my music consumption habits and attempted to have the majority of my listening be female artists. I had noticed that female artists got little to no play on alternative and rock music stations, and I figured that wasn’t because they weren’t making music. (It is very telling that Lorde is the first woman in 17 years to reach #1 on alternative radio. She is most certainly not the only female artist out there making alternative music!)
I don’t think this makes me reverse sexist or anything, but if you went by pure radio airtime you would think the only female artists out there are pop singers. This is why I always cringe when I hear people say “I just don’t like to listen to female artists” because if your only real exposure to female singers is hearing Katy Perry on pop radio (nothing against Katy Perry, but she isn’t everyone’s cup of tea) then you might not realize how many women are doing very interesting things in music.
I liked this: “Each reader is a small voice saying, what you have to contribute is important, what you have to say matters. For a woman, that can make all the difference. The chorus is just getting louder.” Replace “reader” with “listener” and I think that is just as important.
Me too! I have entire playlists of women artists, and I hear my friends talking about them a lot, but they are just not represented in the mainstream radio airwaves. What are you listening to?
Same! I hadn’t started doing it consciously, either, until at one point I automatically said, “Ugh, MEN.” out loud when some came on and I immediately switched the playlist.
And fans of punk/alternative should check out Potty Mouth – they’re an all-women band that went to my college, and they’re great!
After reading two male mystery writers back to back last August and just feeling so frustrated by each author’s treatment of women characters, I decided to finish out the year by only reading books by women (with one exception, David Sedaris’s Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls came up from the library after I had it on hold for awhile so I read/listened to the audiobook.)
For those contemplating this challenge but are unsure if they can do it, I think it would be a great baby step to just start with a certain genre. Out of habit/what’s available at the used bookstore/what books were hyped, I kept picking up contemporary mysteries by men and the switch over prompted me to finally read Sayers, Christie, P.D. James, and more Kate Atkinson.
Also, I read The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes which oddly, I came by after reading A Moveable Feast. Never thought Hemingway would be the one to point me to a woman author I should read.
Tell me what is good about P.D. James and Katie Atkinson. Should I read them? Where should I start?
Eek, I am so bad at articulating what I like and didn’t like about a book which is why I never write reviews in Goodreads and only do the star ratings. Hopefully someone can come to my rescue and say what they like about the authors since I started reading each of them based on either Nicole’s recommendations on The Hairpin or other commenters raving about them.
For her mysteries, Kate Atkinson has the Jackson Brodie series. Case Histories is the first one and what I liked about it is that there were 3 different mysteries going on in the book. I think what I like best about Kate Atkinson is that her plots and narrative don’t really follow a straight line (well, in Life After Life and Case Histories) but it doesn’t get too complex to follow. Just sort of mixes it up from the norm.
For PD James, I just finished Death Comes to Pemberley. It was written as a sequel to Pride and Prejudice but with a murder mystery. I actually think calling it a “murder mystery” is a bit misleading because the majority of the book revolved around the murder trial than the unraveling of a mystery. Basically, I was picturing Elizabeth Darcy acting as Nancy Drew but the book was more Mr. Darcy experiencing an episode of Law and Order. So I would only recommend that one if you would like to read well written P&P fanfic.
I *hated* Death Comes to Pemberley. It felt like half the book was just a recap of P&P, and almost nothing actually happened live, it was just recounted by other characters. I wish it were Elizabeth Darcy as Nancy Drew! I’ve never read any other PD James books, and I’m probably not likely to now, unless someone can convince me they’re more interesting.
On the other hand, I love Kate Atkinson. I don’t even really like mysteries, but I read hers because I liked her other novels. I think her mysteries are more literary than most I’ve tried, with more interesting narrative structures, as you said, and characters that are well drawn and develop believably from book to book.
I feel compelled to step in here and note that Death Comes to Pemberley is *nothing* like the rest of P.D. James’ mysteries. I didn’t hate it–I read it at the beach, in fact–but it wasn’t well done, I don’t think, and most of her writing is very careful.
I’ve enjoyed pretty much every book I’ve picked up of her Adam Dagliesh series–pretty much standard whodunit with a cool detective, but the writing quality is good and the lush English countrysides and London cityscapes don’t hurt. She also write Children of Men, if you in a dystopia mood.
I also hated Death Comes to Pemberley. It was so much less creative than I thought it would be (was also hoping for Elizabeth Darcy as Nancy Drew… or *something* more alive than what we got). Plus shlocky writing style. The danger of doing a mock sequel being that you bring the first writer’s writing style up as an implicit comparison. Also, few people can to the “take-off” book as well as Jean Rhys, Jane Eyre + Wide Sargasso Sea.
but your comment makes me very interested in trying out Kate Atkinson, thanks!
If you like mysteries, check out Tana French’s books. She has a series of four books about Irish homicide detectives and even though I don’t read many mysteries, these are AMAZING.
Val McDermid. Seriously. She wrote the books that the “Wire in the Blood” TV series is based off. Very, very dark but the women are written perfectly. She also wrote the Kate Brannigan and Lindsay Gordon series’s earlier, which were more about private detectives sleuthing than psychology.
Scanning my bookshelf, I read a decently 50/50 ratio of male to female authors, but I think I have some trouble delving into new authors, or authors that I haven’t heard of, at least. I do tend to go toward the ones I’ve heard lots of people lauding, or ones I already know and love. Maybe I’ll start a project of trying out authors-I’ve-never-heard-of.
Ehhh I’ve tried that before and it’s ended badly (for me). I read authors that are new to me a lot, but only after they’ve gotten critical praise from Toasties/goodreads/friends – it’s rare I truly “stumble upon” an author I end up liking.
(Unless that’s what you mean! I just meant I read stuff that’s been well received by a generally high proportion of the people who’s taste in books I trust, not necessarily of mainstream book review outlets.)
I read Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker on the recommendation of that Emily Books project, and it was truly fierce and wonderful. They are usually great at picking out relatively unknown authors. That or just looking for things published by the New York Review of Books…
If you have an e-reader, this is a snap. I pretty much pick up new authors and books by downloading free samples of new releases, bestsellers, or peer recommendations. If you haven’t hooked me in the length of a free sample, on to the next thing.
I mean, if we’re doing female-author book recs… I really, really love the Devoncroix saga by Donna Boyd (The Passion and The Promise specifically; there’s a third but I haven’t gotten to it yet). Supernatural/werewolves but actually suspenseful and interesting. Big fan. Have read both of them 5+ times each, which is borderline HP/LOTR-level obsession for me.
CONSTANCE. FENIMORE. WOOLSON. I got an account just to endorse her awesomeness. In one of her very few surviving letters to Henry James (he wangled his way in charge of her correspondence after her death, and burned nearly all their letters to each other) she pulls a burn by saying something like, “‘The Portrait of a Lady’? We’d be hearing from every fellow in America if some lady dared to write ‘The Portrait of a Gentleman’!”
Her most-anthologized story is “Miss Grief”, which is so, so good (and relevant to this discussion): http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/48597/
Ursula LeGuin is the queen of soft sci-fi. Start with The Left Hand of Darkness and revel in the way the she so deftly and cavalierly plays with gender.
Why should you even have to defend a year of reading women authors? You’ve probably still read vastly more books by men than women. We are supposed to assume males are the default human, thus the male viewpoint is neutral, which is just not true. I started reading women only a couple decades ago and found it was a refreshing antidote to the overwhelmingly male-dominated perspective in society. I read to illuminate my own human experience, and have found that women’s writing is more likely to resonate and expand my thinking.
Lilit, for the record, I was inspired by your pact to only read women authors and heard it from you first. All the other sad attempts were ash in my ears.
Thank you so much! That really means a lot.
I run a small press that has promised to publish a minimum of 50% woman-authored books. I get called sexist almost weekly for that promise. And it’s not even parity! I get asked all the time how many Great American Novels I reject because they’re by men. (Answer: None.) And every single time I’m interviewed about my work by a man, the very first question is some more polite variant of “Why do you hate men?”
It’s not even parity! It completely blows my damn mind.
If I was more, well, ballsy, I’d respond “How many great American novels were rejected in the past because they were by women?”
But I do not have such (metaphorical) balls. What’s the name of your press??
It’s called Engine Books.
The funny thing is, of course I have plenty of good books by women—they feel welcome to send me their work, and optimistic about it, so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I only publish a few books a year. The idea that I’d have to lower my standards to find four great books a year by women is so silly that I can’t even treat it like a real question.
some of those books look AWESOME, i just added a whole bunch to my list.
Thank you! If you email me at [email protected], I might have an extra copy of one laying around I could send you.
Ohhhh done 🙂 Thank you!
I edit for Crossed Genres Press. We commit to publishing LGBTQ+ writers and writers of color and women writers. That’s all — we don’t EVEN say anything about 50/50. Just, you know, we’re gonna give it our best shot to try and publish someone besides white cis-guys some of the times.
You would not believe (no, I guess you would) the shit we get for this. My favorite is when we got accused of being determined to DESTROY THE GENRE.
Let’s team up! Maybe we can guarantee that NO MAN WILL EVER WRITE AGAIN.
I did the same thing in 2013, and the response I most often got was: “Why would you limit yourself that way? A lot of great books were written by men.”
/headdesk
We read Pride and Prejudice in 12th grade. No one responded as passionately as the boys in my class. There was “Camp Jane” and “Camp Lizzy,” and they held heated debates over whether Charlotte’s view of marriage was reasonable at all. The girls liked the book, but the boys LOVED it.
This warms my heart.
I did this subconsciously, when I look back of my books from the last year they are overwhelmingly by women. I didn’t actively try to read books written by women, but now that I have realised I’ll admit that it’s become more of an influence when I got to read a new book. It really annoys me that in 2014 phrases like your asutely put ‘women are still going to have to scream just to be heard as a whisper’ are relevant!
I had to delurk for this post because I have been reading primarily (say 85%) women for over a decade now. Not only do I not feel I’ve missed anything but I think I’ve gained a lot by having the time to read many female authors who are so good but so underrated — so I can’t resist the chance to share a few of them (in no particular order):
Helen Humphreys (favorite: Afterimage)
Sarah Willis (favorite: Some Things That Stay)
Michelle Hunevan (favorite: Jamesland)
Carol Anshaw (favorite: tie Lucky in the Corner and Carry the One)
Andrea Levy (favorite: Small Island)
Rose Tremain (favorite: Color)
Valerie Martin (favorite: Property)
Scarlett Thomas (favorite: tie End of Mr Y and Going Out)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (okay she’s not really underrated but she’s such a fantastic writer, I want everybody to read her books)
And some sf&f writers:
Eleanor Arnason
Karen Lord
Rosemary Kirstein (warning: her books are great but I don’t think she’s ever going to finish her series)
Candas Jane Dorsey
Laura Mixon
Linda Nagata
Carol Emshwiller
Edited to clean up posting screw-up.
Great list of underrated female writers! Tremain, Martin and Thomas are particular favorites of mine. If you like them, you may also enjoy Sarah Hall, Lydia Millet, Jennifer duBois or Helen Oyeyemi (currently underrated but I hope she is about to get a whole lot of attention for her book coming out in March, Boy, Snow, Bird).
I really liked Oyeyemi’s Mr. Fox and Hall’s Daughters of the North (read Haweswater too but not as fond of it). I’ve only read Millet’s Oh Pure And Radiant Heart which just didn’t work for me. I’ll have to check out duBois — I haven’t run into her before.
I’m delurking just to post on this topic. I’m an English Lit major and an ex-bookseller so I’ve read a lot of books, both men and women. Over time, I found I enjoyed books by women more because they were so varied. I’ll mention a few I particularly like (some of which I share with Ferguson):
Rosemary Kirstein sf (she’s still working away at the Steerswoman series but in now in treatment for breast cancer so things have slowed down).
Sayers, of course, but not Christie (except for Miss Marple)
Octavia Butler sf (will blow you away)
Kerry Greenwood mystery (just found her about a year ago; she’s got two series with very interesting female leads, both set in Australia, one set in the 1920s and one in the present)
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (if you like historical fiction, her [good] vampire series is the best — each one is set in a different time and place and the underlying theme is intimacy)
Elizabeth Bear sf/f
And lots and lots more.
I’m delurking just to comment on your comment.
I’ve been looking through this thread for book recommendations and as soon as I looked up Rosemary Kirstein I realised I’d read Steerswoman well over a decade ago! It was fantastic and I had no idea it was part of a series. Thank you!
One of Kerry Greenwood’s series, the Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries, has been adapted for TV in Australia. It’s on Netflix in the US now — great stuff! It has made me interested in checking out the books.
Sayers is amazing and so is Octavia Butler, so I’ll have to try out your other picks!
I decided all on my own when I was little that I would only read books with girls as main characters, or if I MUST read a book with a boy as the main character, there would have to be female main supporting characters who were just as fleshed out as the protagonist. This generally meant that I only read books by women, which I was OK with. I still follow this rule for the most part. A friend of mine calls this “voluntary intellectual deprivation,” and she’s a fan too (she added never reading Orientalist or colonialist books uncritically, which I also agree with). I always figured that the world was trying to press male-centered books with cardboard cutout (or absent) female characters on me as Relevant Classics, so the World would not be hurt by my rejection. I have some favorite male authors (I like Charles Dickens except for that whole Tattycoram business, and I like Fazil Iskander so much that the occasional sexism doesn’t throw me off). But probably about 85-90% of what I read is written by women, thanks to my rule.
Shit, I work as a bookseller and noticed that, without even realizing it as I picked them, all but one of my staff picks are by men, and all but one of those men are white men, so once I finish the books I am reading now, I am vowing to Expand My Reading Palate and try to phase out as many white dudes as possible. It’s sad to realize that you subconsciously affirmed The System. Thanks, patriarchy!!!
Almost all the “classical” fiction I like is by men and almost all of the contemporary fiction I like is by women. I wonder why that is?
Great list of underrated female writers! Tremain, Martin and Thomas are particular favorites of mine. If you like them, you may also enjoy Sarah Hall, Lydia Millet, Jennifer duBois or Helen Oyeyemi (currently underrated but I hope she is about to get a whole lot of attention for her book coming out in March, Boy, Snow, Bird).
I've been doing this for years – I started with gender, went to culture, genre, time period. I had noticed a lack of women writers then started seeing gaps in other areas. I love to read and realized school could only be a starting point. It also made me aware of how I should be more conscious of what is or isn't out there and not just going for the obvious. Schools should definitely be looking for a broader more comprehensive range, but now with the testing focus there is probably slim chance of that happening. My understanding is students have to write reports about all the books they read which is making them less enthused about reading. My small step is to give my nieces and nephews the books that I loved, and hope it's a start for them – no testing or report needed.
This was a great piece Lilit, thank you for sharing! I’m also working on expanding my reading selections, paying more attention to the authors. For Black History Month, I’m working on reading more black authors. Next month, I, too, will work on reading more women authors in celebration of Women’s History Month. But not just for February and March respectively, but for my future reading in general, in order to support authors from all walks of life. Kudos to you!
I’m aiming to read more by authors of colour this year too – I’ve read so many pieces about the marginalisation of people of colour in the science fiction and fantasy realm that I decided I needed to be part of the solution. My first author as part of this project is NK Jemisin. I can thoroughly recommend The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. And she’s a woman.
What an excellent (if entirely depressing) screening process.
Thank you! If you email me at [email protected], I might have an extra copy of one laying around I could send you.
Let's team up! Maybe we can guarantee that NO MAN WILL EVER WRITE AGAIN.
Ohhhh done 🙂 Thank you!
I only just found this piece (come to think of it, I have no idea how I got here), but in any case, it has inspired me to focus intensely on reading books (all types) written by women in 2015. I’m off to a good start with Yes Please, Texts From, and Hyperbole and a Half as Christmas money purchases, and Bad Feminist lined up as the next, but I’m eager for more. So far, my search has consisted of Goodreads searches, but if anyone else happens to notice this and would like to make some recommendations, I would appreciate them.
I only just found this piece (come to think of it, I have no idea how I got here), but in any case, it has inspired me to focus intensely on reading books (all types) written by women in 2015. I'm off to a good start with Yes Please, Texts From, and Hyperbole and a Half as Christmas money purchases, and Bad Feminist lined up as the next, but I'm eager for more. So far, my search has consisted of Goodreads searches, but if anyone else happens to notice this and would like to make some recommendations, I would appreciate them.