As an English major at a women’s college (Simmons College in Boston), I didn’t read as many women authors as you’d think. I remember a Victorian Experience class with George Eliot as one of the authors along with Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens, naturally. I took a wonderful summer course at Emerson College that included Edith Wharton on the syllabus and I immediately fell for her. Upon graduating I’ve made up for not reading that many female authors and likely read more female than male authors. As with any business, I know that the literary world’s filled with many more big-name male authors and lesser-known female authors. More literary prizes go to men than to women. Female authors usually get pushed into the “women’s fiction” a.k.a. “chick lit” genre whereas men nearly always write literary fiction, mystery/thriller and nonfiction. There’s little parity. So I’m all for this #ReadWomen2014 movement.

Here are 25 of my favorite books by women, a mix of classic and modern, if you need some reading suggestions:

1. Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton

2. The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

3. A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

4. Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton

5. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

6. Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker

7. The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud

8. Intuition by Allegra Goldman

9. Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi

10. The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

11. Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende

12. The Good Earth by Pearl Buck

13. The Revolution of Every Day by Cari Luna

14. The Group by Mary McCarthy

15. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

16. Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark

17. The Vagabond by Collette

18. The Education of Harriet Hatfield by May Sarton

19. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte

20. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

21. Possession by A.S. Byatt

22. Don’t Cry by Mary Gaitskill

23. Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

24. The Wholeness of a Broken Heart by Katie Singer

25. On Beauty by Zadie Smith