For 2+ years I have only read books written by women. Here’s my full checklist with a request for recs!

Hey! 💗

In 2022, after 30 years reading primarily men-authored non-fiction (I am a philosophy MA working in corporate UK), I decided I would only read books written by women. Why? Because I love reading and I am a woman. 🤷

[Please note this is a repost from a deleted topic on r/books from 2 months ago, updated]

Today ("In this essay…"), I will list all the books I've read since I embarked in this journey (in bold the ones I rated 4-5/5), attempt a scrambled, amateurial theory of what I've learned and, in the end, ask you once again to help me out in finding my next reads.

The list:

• The House Of The Spirits, Isabel Allende
• Kitchen, Banana Yoshimoto
• The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
• The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
• The People In The Trees, Hanya Yanagihara
• A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara
• To Kill A Mokingbird, Harper Lee
• The Piesces, Melissa Broder
• Tender Is The Flesh, Agustina Bazterrica
• We Have Always Lived In The Castle, Shirley Jackson
• My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante
• Beloved, Toni Morrison
• The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
• The Lovely Bones, Alice Seabold
• Bear, Marian Engel
• The Color Purple, Alice Walker
• The White Book, Han Kang
• Conversations With Friends, Sally Rooney
• The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
• The Vegetarian, Han Kang
• Piranesi, Susanna Clarke
• Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
• The Hunting Of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk
• I Who Have Never Known Men, Jaqueline Harpman
• How To Kill Your Family, Bella Mackie
• The Hollow Places, T. Kingfisher
• Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno Garcia
• The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
• Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
• Dark Places, Gillian Flynn
• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke
• We Need To Talk About Kevin, Lionel Shriver
• The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern
• The Time Traveller's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
• The Court Of Miracles, Kester Grant
• The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
• The Hunger Games – Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins
• The Left Hand Of Darnkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
• Six Of Crows, Leigh Bardugo
• The Hunger Games – Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins
• The Lathe Of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin
• White Teeth, Zadie Smith
• Fever Dream, Samatha Schweblin
• Cassandra Speaks, Elizabeth Lesser
• The Secret History, Donna Tartt
• Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
• And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie
• Morder On The Orient Express, Agatha Christie
• The Grace Year, Kim Ligget
• Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
• To Paradise, Hanya Yanagihara
• Earthlings, Sakura Murata
• Yallowface, Rebecca F. Kuang
• My Year Of Rest And Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh
• Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin
• Yeonnam-dong's Smiley Laundromat, Kim Jiyun
• Lapvona, Ottessa Moshfegh
• Tell Me I'm Worthless, Alison Rumfitt
• Inkheart, Cornelia Funke
• Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh
• The Round House, Louise Erdich
• The Skeleton Key, Erin Kelly
• The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Small Pleasures, Clare Chambers
• My Dark Vanessa, Elizabeth Russell
• Bunny, Mona Awad
• Rouge, Mona Awad
• Ghosts, Dolly Alderton
• Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
• Geek Love, Katherine Dunn
• White Oleander, Janet Fitch
• Night Film, Marisha Pessl
• The Sun Down Motel, Simone St James
• Middlemarch, George Eliot
• NW, Zadie Smith
• The Marriage Portrait, Maggie O'Farrel
• Cleopatra And Frankenstein, Coco Mellors
• If We Were Villains, M L Rio
• The Housemaid, Freida McFadden
• The Rabbit Hutch, Tess Gunty
• Local Woman Missing, Mary Kubica
• Babel, R. F. Kuang
• Our Share Of Night, Mariana Enriquez
• Things We Lost In The Fire, Mariana Enriquez
• The Dangers Of Smoking In Bed, Mariana Enriquez
• A Certain Hunger, Chelsea G. Summers
• Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
• The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls
• Severance, Ling Ma
• The Eyes Are The Best Part, Monika Kim
• The Poppy War, R. F. Kuang
• Paradise Rot, Jenny Hval
• All Fours, Miranda July
• Our Wives Under The Sea, Julia Armfield
• Fragile Animals, Genevieve Jagger
• The Doloriad, Missouri Williams
• The Last House On Needless Street, Catriona Ward
• The Years, Annie Ernaux
• The Dark Between The Trees, Fiona Barnett
• Dark Matter, Michelle Paver
• The Girl On The Train, Paula Hawkins
• Chlorine, Jade Song

I am currently reading The Year Of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.

Here are my top-of-head observations and theories you have asked for in the thread from 2022, which I share in hope you bear in mind that I work full-time, I will most definitely never have time to formalize them better (until retirement) and, also, I don't read books or express opinions about books for a living. I read books because I love books.

What you are about to read are… conjectures. Small talk prompts. Opinions. Thank you for your understanding.

1. The main difference between finction written by men and fiction written by women is: women don't need love as a literary device. Love can and will be a plot point, but usually love interests are not functional in any way to charachter development or events, unless love is the main plot point.
2. The latter, I think, is due to a sociological concept I believe I have borrowed from Weber? Maybe Foucault? It could be Bathes, I could have entirely made it up, who knows at this point – anyway I believe while male-authors tend to justify sexuality and discourse around sexuality with love, religion or ideology (for their partner, for the nation, for their last name…), women don't. For women, love is either burning passion, loss and grief, or a curse.
3. And yes, as a corollary, for women sex is a separate element, and I hate Hollywood and my Catholic backgorund for having me fooled all these years.
4. Horror is, usually, both a mean, a vessel and a central theme in women-authored fiction.
5. I believe all novels written by women are, in one way or another, horrors.
6. Aside from a couple of notable and extremely interesting exceptions, women talk about women.
7. The greatest literary achievement authored by a woman is The Handmaid's Tale, which is not in this list because I read it much earlier, but honestly in literary and gender theory there should be a pre-Handmaid and a post-Handmaid critique (…is there?).

That's all folks! Let me know what you think!

Thank you everyone, and please let me know if you have any questions or observations! 📚