Mary Gaitskill | ENTERTAINMENT REALM

BOOKS: 25 Suggestions for #ReadWomen2014

Posted by Amy Steele in Books on February 6, 2014

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

#readwomen2014, A.S. Byatt, Alice Walker, Allegra Goldman, Anne Bronte, Barbara Kingsolver, Carson McCullers, Claire Messud, Collette, Edith Wharton, Isabel Allende, Jeanette Winterson, Jhumpa Lahiri, Katie Singer, Lorrie Moore, Mary Gaitskill, Mary McCarthy, May Sarton, Muriel Spark, Sylvia Plath, Taiye Selasi, Willa Cather, Zadie Smith

Book Readings: Do I get my book signed?

Posted by Amy Steele in Books on November 16, 2009

My friend Adam is a huge fan of Jonathan Safran Foer who is reading from Eating Animals tonight for Brookline Booksmith. He told me he wouldn’t wait to get the book signed and that he usually doesn’t. I’m giving him my review copy. He’s helped me a lot with my web site and it’s the least I can do! He’s read Everything is Illuminated four or five times! So I got to thinking about going to reading and getting books signed by authors. Sometimes, what’s the point?

When an author just writes, “Amy, Enjoy the read, xx” I’m not that thrilled. And then years later particularly if it’s a book I will not read again, I feel I should keep it because it’s signed but it is just clutter. I am getting rid of signed copies of Betrayal (about Boston Catholic Church), The Passion of Artemesia, something by Linda Fairstein and I See You Everywhere. I just have so many books to read and new books coming out all the time and there’s the library, I’m not opening these books up again and they don’t “add” to my bookshelf.

But these do– because they have PERSONAL messages:

Don’t Cry by Mary Gaitskill– “To Amy, to whom I want to say I actually AM a feminist.”