I recently put together a list of my favourite 100 novels (which wasn't too far off just a list of novels I've read to be fair) and I realised how little I've read of female authors. My list was 92% male which is quite shocking.
So, I think I need to make an effort to read more books written by women.
To help you figure out my taste, some of the books by female writers that did enter my top 100 were The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang, and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. I am thinking about reading something by Sally Rooney if that helps.
Including male authors my taste leans towards moody existentialist works (Crime and Punishment, The Trial, The Stranger), magical realism (quite a lot of Murakami, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Italo Calvino), historical epics (Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo), political/satirical/dystopian literature like Brave New World, 1984, Catch 22, Unbearable Lightness of Being, some science fiction (Philip K Dick, Asimov) and some, I guess, kind of punky social realism if that makes sense (Blindboy Boatclub and Irvine Welsh).
Would much appreciate any suggestions!
by Zealousideal-Ask8878
30 Comments
I really enjoyed Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Go into it without reading any spoilers, it makes the way the story is revealed to you all the better
Woman on the Edge of Time
Here are some books I’ve enjoyed:
The Good Earth by Pearl Buck
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
The Poisonwood Bible and Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
The Lion Women of Teheran by Marjan Kamali
Songs for the Brokenhearted by Ayelet Tsabari
You should absolutely read Toni Morrison if you like magical realism. I also really loved Elif Shafak’s The Architect’s Apprentice, which has some magical realism elements and also, if not a historical epic per se, is a historical fiction novel that spans decades. Also for historical, try Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and its sequels.
This is pretty commonly recommended on here, but I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman hits the moody existentialism marker. I also would recommend Women Talking by Miriam Toews, especially since you liked Handmaid’s Tale.
The Warmth of Other Suns (Wilkerson)
Love this request and your interests align with mine a bit. Some recs:
Circe and Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Kindred by Octavia Butler
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
A Darker Shade of Magic by VE Schwab
Light From Other Stars by Erica Swyler
Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
Piranesi by Susanna Clark
(Damn these are all so good, jealous of you getting to experience them for the first time OP)
Some authors for you to try:
Erin Morgenstern
Ruth Ozeki
Elif Shafak
Natasha Pulley
Emily St John Mandel
Toni Morrison
Octavia Butler
Catherine Lacey
Julianne Harpman
Maxine Hong Kingston, Gish Jen, Susan Choi, Monique Truong, Gina Apostol, Sabina Murray
good on you for realizing there’s a need to diversify the authors of books you read, and then asking for recs!
I personally don’t care for Sally Rooney because it drives me nuts when authors don’t use quotation marks.
Some of my favorite authors are Octavia Butler (check out Parable of the Sower/Talents or Kindred), Martha Wells (the Murderbot Diaries are such good books!), Isabel Allende (Violeta is my favorite of her books), and Suzanne Collins (the hunger games series is an incredible piece of fiction).
Other one-off books by women that I absolutely recommend:
* I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (talk about existentialism!)
* Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
* Ruby Fruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
* The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson isn’t super “punky social realism,” but it’s got some really interesting isolationist themes in there. Shirley Jackson’s short stories are probably larger on social commentary, considering she wrote The Lottery, so I’d look into those.
Octavia Butler, you can start with [Parable of the Sower], or [Kindred]
Comfort Me with Apples
The Fox Wife
The Vaster Wilds
Isabel Allende: The House of the Spirits
Ursula K LeGuin has a bunch of fantastic books. Try the Left Hand of Darkness or the Lathe of Heaven for sci-fi. If your looking for classic fantasy from the 60s, try Wizard of Earthsea. Her translation of the Tao te Ching is also pretty good.
Maybe you can try the novels by Marguerite Yourcenar
Anything by Barbara Kingsolver
The Lathe of Heaven, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Anything from Louise Erdrich. She’s fabulous.
Here’s a few
*The hearing trumpet*. Leonora Carrington
*Novel on yellow paper*. Stevie Smith
*Real world*. Natsuo Kirino
*Rebecca*. Daphne DuMaurier
*Sphinx*. Anne Garréta
*The wall*. Marlen Haushofer
*The good son*. You-jeong Jeong
*The tale of Genji*. Murasaki Shikibu
*Half of a yellow sun*. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
*In a lonely place*. Dorothy B Hughes
Shocked that nobody’s said Harper Lee yet. *To Kill a Mockingbird*, obviously, but her recent post-humous short story collection was very interesting! I can’t speak on *Go Set a Watchman,* though, it’s on my TBR list.
This is so interesting to me! I’ve read 13 books so far this year and only one was by a man. So. Ideas! 🙂
The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy
They by Kay Dick
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
The Heads of Cerberus by Gertrude Barrows Bennett (edit- had the wrong last name. Also, it was originally published under Francis Stevens, so you may still find it under that name.)
Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Manja by Anna Gmeyner
The Notebook trilogy by Agota Kristoff
Nk jemesin has been a delightful find for me
The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
My favourite book of all time is The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Leguin, the earthsea series is also great.
The Women’s Prize for fiction shortlist was just announced, the longlist was published last month so if you’re looking for a new book you could look there for inspiration. I believe there’s a lot of indie publishers and debut novels on the list this year.
Kate Atkinson
As a fan of thriller genre, Agatha Christie.
Alice Hoffman and Naomi Novik are two of my favorite authors.
If you like magical realism you HAVE to read House of Spirits by Isabelle Allende She mixes a lot of folk tale motifs with political unrest in South America
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt