Monday, April 24, 2006

Women Write Books, huh?!


I got this meme from DebR who got it from Deb Roby who got it from Liz who got it from Badger who got it from The Phantom Scribbler who got it from Slow but Steady who got it from Mon . Aha, Mon started it off with inspiration from several other lists plus some bestsellers. That is fun to figure out where a meme came from, try it next time you get one, leads to interesting blogs you'd never find.

This is an interesting take on what "important" books have you read, ie, are you just a trash reader or what?!
With the twist that they are All Women authors.
The e-z directions are:
Bold the ones you've read
Italicize the ones you might like to read
Put question marks - ?? - by any titles and/or authors you've never heard of
Put an asterisk - * - if you've read a different title by the same author.
And I add: Leave normal, books you know about but don't want to read.

Alcott, Louisa May - Little Women
Allende, Isabel - The House of Spirits
Angelou, Maya - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
*Atwood, Margaret - Cat's Eye
*Austen, Jane - Emma
??Bambara, Toni Cade - Salt Eaters??
??Barnes, Djuna - Nightwoodde
??Beauvoir, Simone - The Second Sex
*Blume, Judy - Are You There God? It's Me Margaret
Burnett, Frances - The Secret Garden
Bronte, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily - Wuthering Heights
Buck, Pearl S. - The Good Earth
??Byatt, A.S. - Possession
*Cather, Willa - My Antonia
??Chopin, Kate -The Awakening
*Christie, Agatha - Murder on the Orient Express
*Cisneros, Sandra - The House on Mango Street
Clinton, Hillary Rodham - Living History (I have the book in my borrowed, to be read pile!)
??Cooper, Anna Julia - A Voice From the South
??Danticat, Edwidge - Breath, Eyes, Memory
Davis, Angela - Women, Culture, and Politics
??Desai, Anita - Clear Light of Day
Dickinson, Emily - Collected Poems
??Duncan, Lois - I Know What You Did Last Summer (Is this what that movie was based on?)
DuMaurier, Daphne - Rebecca
Eliot, George - Middlemarch
??Emecheta, Buchi - Second Class Citizen
*Erdrich, Louise - Tracks
Esquivel, Laura - Like Water for Chocolate (Gotten it from library several times, haven't gotten to it)
Flagg, Fannie - Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Friedan, Betty - The Feminine Mystique
Frank, Anne - Diary of a Young Girl
??Gilman, Charlotte Perkins - The Yellow Wallpaper
*Gordimer, Nadine - July's People
Grafton, Sue - S is for Silence (I think I got my fill of mysteries reading all of Agatha Christie!)
Hamilton, Edith - Mythology
Highsmith, Patricia - The Talented Mr. Ripley
??hooks, bell - Bone Black
*Hurston, Zora Neale - Dust Tracks on the Road
??Jacobs, Harriet - Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Jackson, Helen Hunt - Ramona
*Jackson, Shirley - The Haunting of Hill House
Jong, Erica - Fear of Flying
Keene, Carolyn - The Nancy Drew Mysteries (any of them)

Kidd, Sue Monk - The Secret Life of Bees
??Kincaid, Jamaica - Lucy
Kingsolver, Barbara - The Poisonwood Bible
??Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior
??Larsen, Nella - Passing
L'Engle, Madeleine - A Wrinkle in Time
Le Guin, Ursula K .- The Left Hand of Darkness
Lee, Harper-To Kill a Mockingbird

*Lessing, Doris - The Golden Notebook
??Lively, Penelope - Moon Tiger
*Lorde, Audre - The Cancer Journals
Martin, Ann M. - The Babysitters Club Series (any of them) - ok why is this on here???
??McCullers, Carson - The Member of the Wedding
*McMillan, Terry - Disappearing Acts
??Markandaya, Kamala - Nectar in a Sieve
??Marshall, Paule - Brown Girl, Brownstones
Mitchell, Margaret - Gone with the Wind (seen the movie!)
Montgomery, Lucy - Anne of Green Gables (seen the movie)
??Morgan, Joan - When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost (love the title though!)
*Morrison, Toni - Song of Solomon (I have this book in my to be read pile)
Murasaki, Lady Shikibu - The Tale of Genji
??Munro, Alice - Lives of Girls and Women
Murdoch, Iris - Severed Head
Naylor, Gloria - Mama Day
Niffenegger, Audrey - The Time Traveller's Wife (one of my fave books ever!)
Oates, Joyce Carol - We Were the Mulvaneys
O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find
Piercy, Marge - Woman on the Edge of Time(she writes great poetry too)
??Picoult, Jodi - My Sister's Keeper
Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar
Porter, Katharine Anne - Ship of Fools
Proulx, E. Annie - The Shipping News
Rand, Ayn - The Fountainhead
Ray, Rachel - 365: No Repeats (isn't this a cookbook?!)
Rhys, Jean - Wide Sargasso Sea
??Robinson, Marilynne - Housekeeping
??Rocha, Sharon - For Lac
Sebold, Alice - The Lovely Bones
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Smith, Betty - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Smith, Zadie - White Teeth
Spark, Muriel - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (know I've seen the movie)
??Spyri, Johanna - Heidi
??Strout, Elizabeth - Amy and Isabelle
* Steel, Danielle - The House
Tan, Amy - The Joy Luck Club
*Tannen, Deborah - You're Wearing That
??Ulrich, Laurel - A Midwife's Tale
??Urquhart, Jane - Away
*Walker, Alice - The Temple of My Familiar
*Welty, Eudora - One Writer's Beginnings
Wharton, Edith - Age of Innocence
Wilder, Laura Ingalls - Little House in the Big Woods
*Wollstonecraft, Mary - A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Woolf, Virginia - A Room of One's Own

So, I did ok by this list I guess, not great, but I have good intentions. Now, I know this is only 100 books chosen by who?, but it seems to me they've left out a lot of really well known authors, plus most of the scifi writers that I enjoy (there are so few women writers in the scifi arena!)

So I want to know where Sherri Tepper is? And how about Marion Zimmer Bradley, CJ Cherryh, Anne Lammott, Laurell Hamilton, Diana Gabaldon, Andre Norton, Anne Rice, Haven Kimmel, Elizabeth Cunningham, Martha Wells, Alice Hoffman, Nora Roberts/JD Robb, Jan Karon, Patricia McKillip, Alice Borchardt, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ursula Heigi, Sark? And geez if Rachel Ray is on there, why not Julia Child for goodness sakes?!?!

3 comments:

Debra said...

Cool.. and great comments. One correction, though.. I got the list from Liz Henry/badgerbag...

I'm passing your questions about who's missing on to her.

Deb R said...

I love that you tracked down the source and I agree with you about the distinct lack of representation in the sci-fi/fantasy area. Admittedly that's a male-dominated genre, but there are some wonderful female writers doing that sort of story too. (I listed two or three and you listed more!)

I'm glad to hear how much you loved The Time Traveller's Wife. I have that one, but haven't read it yet. It's working its way to the top of my TBR pile.

Jaye said...

The Time Traveller's wife is excellent! I listened to it on Audible and couldn't put it down. Definitely on my read/listen to again.

I liked the Secret Life of Bees as well. I also listened to it on Audible. It has a strange sort of fantasy feeling, but is most defnitely rooted in reality.