should I read? Women authors?

[kelber at mindspring.com]

The Golden Notebook should be among the top 10 of this (or any) list.  Why it's not there is a mystery.  Lessing is one of the few (if not only) great women writers, although there are many good women writers.  Much has been written about why this is (A Room of One's Own, for starters).  Surely Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre deserve a mention somewhere?

-----Original Message-----
From: Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Aug 8, 2005 1:10 PM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: should I read?  Women authors?

The top 169 novels include these women and their books:

  56.. The Age of Innocence : Edith Wharton : 9
59.. Two Girls, Fat and Thin : Mary Gaitskill : 8
63.. A Book of Common Prayer : Joan Didion : 8
76.. To Kill a Mockingbird : Harper Lee : 7
89.. The Story of the Treasure Seekers : Edith Nesbit : 5
90.. Always Coming Home : Ursula LeGuin : 5
124.. Beloved : Toni Morrison : 3
139.. Geek Love : Katherine Dunn : 2
149.. Cat's Eye : Margaret Atwood : 2
151.. Messiah of Stockholm : Cynthia Ozick : 1
161.. The Secret History : Donna Tartt : 1


There are certainly more women authors of quality fiction than that, 
and the ones listed have certainly written more books!   (I'm 
thinking of  Atwood and LeGuin and Ozick,  whose last novel was a 
marvel!).

So I made a brief list of the best of the unincluded:  (authors only, 
some have written dozens of books)

Ali Smith      Hotel
Angela Carter  Nights at the Circus
AS Byatt       Possession
Keri Hulme     The Bone People
Pat Barker     Regeneration
Helen DeWitt   The Last Samurai
Rilla Askew    The Mercy Seat
Kathy Acker    Don Quixote
Doris Lessing    The Golden Notebook
Virginia Woolf   A Room of One's Own
Iris Murdoch     The Bell

Some other,  or not necessarily contemporary, women  authors (staying 
in the 20th-21st century),  in no particular order are:

Willa Cather
Annie Proulx
Monica Ali
Zadie Smith
Carson McCullers
Anais Nin
Andrea Levy
Penelope Fitzgerald
Arundhati Roy
Ann Patchett
Carol Shields
Joyce Carol Oates
Jhumpa Lahiri
J.K.  Rowling?  (g)

There are undoubtedly a bunch I'm neglecting.  I think that there are 
a couple of good up and coming women authors from Africa  and India. 
The current Nobel for Literature is a woman from Poland but I don't 
know her name right now and haven't read anything by her.

And a few I want to read:

Nadine Gordimer
Jeanette Winterson
Joyce Johnson
Elfriede Jelinek
Buchi Emecheta
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie


Bekah