should I read? Women authors?

[Bekah]

I know it about Lessing and Woolf.   I tried to keep my list to more 
or less contemporary authors  or Bronte and Austen would certainly be 
there along with George Eliot and George Sand and Kate Chopin and a 
whole hostess of others.    It's like we know these women,  but when 
it comes to making a list we forget.  I'm guilty, too.

I'm making a page for my site with links to 20-21st century women 
literary authors.  (I've never been interested in doing anything like 
this before.   hmmmmmmmm.)

Gertrude Stein!    Zora Neal Hurston!

Thanks,

Bek

At 3:09 PM -0400 8/8/05, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>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