No Pride in my Prejudice

March 10, 2008 4:13 AM

Help balance my male dominated library. Looking for authors that happen to be female and great reads (either literature or very good genre). Specifics inside.

I am a voracious reader and have noticed that my bookshelf has at present one female author (a thriller by Tess Gernstein, that was given to me by a colleague, was OK but nothing special). I don't conciously screen against female authors when scanning the shelves at book shops but seems fairly obvious that my prejudices are causing me to overlook them, otherwise I'd have more.

So what books that happen to be written by females are great reads? I must confess that I have read Woolf, Jean Rhys, Brontes and all left me cold. Austen I can appreciate as technically very good but doesn't grab me.

The female equivalents or similair to my following (personal) male cannon especially appreciated; Nabokov, Pelevin, Neal Stephenson, Jim Dodge, David Mitchell. Literature or rip roaring reads please. (Critiques of my shocking chauvinism welcome as long as kept short and followed by good recommendations.)

posted by Gratishades to society & culture (60 comments total)

Ursula LeGuin
posted by Thorzdad at 4:21 AM on March 10

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale.
posted by Pigpen at 4:26 AM on March 10

Margaret Atwood, so very much. The Blind Assassin is one of the best books I've ever read.
posted by mattoxic at 4:29 AM on March 10

If like David Mitchell, I'd give A.L. Kennedy and the earlier Nicola Barker a gander.
posted by meerkatty at 4:30 AM on March 10

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko.
posted by milarepa at 4:37 AM on March 10

Alice Munro
George Eliot
posted by trip and a half at 4:41 AM on March 10

Jeanette Winterson, Isabel Allende, maybe Duras' The Lover (I didn't really take to that one but it came highly recommended).
posted by dreamphone at 4:51 AM on March 10

The House of Mirth
Summer
Ethan Frome
The Age of Innocence
-All by Edith Wharton
posted by quentiniii at 4:55 AM on March 10

Start here:
Flannery O'Connor
N^thing Margaret Atwood
Amy Tan
Zora Neale Hurston

Also, if you're interested in short stories: Like Life, Birds of America, and Self Help by Lorrie Moore. Pick them up immediately. I cannot recommend her writing emphatically enough.
posted by numinous at 4:57 AM on March 10

Memoirs of Hadrian or The Abyss by Marguerite Yourcenar.
posted by lucia__is__dada at 4:59 AM on March 10

Zadie Smith
posted by quentiniii at 5:01 AM on March 10

Barbara Kingsolver
posted by that girl at 5:24 AM on March 10

Angela Carter, Connie Willis, maybe Susanna Clarke, maybe Patricia Highsmith
posted by Bigfoot Mandala at 5:26 AM on March 10

My bookshelves betray a similar unconscious chauvinism, so I will be watching this thread with interest. I do have one recommendation: Isak Dinesen’s (i.e. Karen Blixen’s) stories: especially Seven Gothic Tales, Winter’s Tales and Anecdotes of Destiny.
posted by misteraitch at 5:27 AM on March 10

Yeah, Ursula Le Guin gets a huge 'seconded' from me. The Earthsea chronicles are a must read.
posted by slimepuppy at 5:29 AM on March 10

Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen
Kitchen By Banana Yoshimoto
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (among many others...
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Orlando by Sally Potter and Virginia Woolf
...anything involving Dorothy Parker
posted by Alison at 5:29 AM on March 10

Margret Atwood = Super Yes
And for rollicking good reads: "Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis, "The Eight" by Katherine Neville, and "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 5:38 AM on March 10

20th century classics:
Stella Gibbons - Cold Comfort Farm!
Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird
Arundhati Roy - God of Small Things
Muriel Spark - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Reliably very very good:
Jane Smiley, e.g. The Greenlanders,
Kate Atkinson e.g. Behind the Scenes at the Museum,
Willa Cather e.g. My Antonia

Definitely at least try:
Iris Murdoch, Mary Renault, Mary Stewart, Francoise Sagan; Zadie Smith

Children's authors but a masterclass in prose:
Rosemary Sutcliffe, Jan Mark
posted by runincircles at 5:55 AM on March 10

The Secret History by Donna Tartt, definitely.
posted by bent back tulips at 5:58 AM on March 10

The Ten Thousand Things, by Maria Dermout.

Also seconding anything by Flannery O'Conner.
posted by newmoistness at 5:59 AM on March 10

George Eliot (Middlemarch, The Mill on the Floss) and Isobelle Carmody (Obernewtyn Chronicles, The Darksong Trilogy) are two of my favourite authors who also happen to be female.
posted by liquorice at 6:00 AM on March 10

I'd recommend Synners by Pat Cadigan. I'd rate it up there with Stephenson's Snow Crash.
posted by aperture_priority at 6:12 AM on March 10

Lots of good suggestions so far. Let me add Eleanor Arnason (especially her science fiction novel Ring of Swords) to the list of genre books. I liked Heidi Julavits' The Effect of Living Backwards. Dara Horn's The World to Come was also quite good. Neither is a masterpiece but they're both good, interesting young authors.
posted by Kattullus at 6:15 AM on March 10

Ann Patchett -- especially Bel Canto.
posted by Perplexity at 6:21 AM on March 10

Carson McCullers The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
posted by unsigned at 6:31 AM on March 10

Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger
posted by bluefly at 6:37 AM on March 10

oh, and any of Nadine Gordimer's books
posted by bluefly at 6:37 AM on March 10

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
posted by esilenna at 7:10 AM on March 10

Toni Morrison. Start with Song of Solomon.
posted by CiaoMela at 7:21 AM on March 10 [1 favorite]

A similar, previous question.
posted by louigi at 7:22 AM on March 10

Cynthia Ozick's Heir to the Glimmering World
posted by The Straightener at 7:28 AM on March 10

Tatyana Tolstaya.
Pat Barker.
Helen DeWitt (The Last Samurai is one of the best novels of the last decade, and no, it has nothing to do with the Tom Cruise movie).
Olivia Manning (The Balkan Trilogy, The Levant Trilogy).
Hilary Mantel.
Susan Sontag (The Volcano Lover).
Lady Murasaki (Tale of Genji).
posted by languagehat at 8:16 AM on March 10

Two more that should fit your tastes: A. S. Byatt, Octavia Butler.
posted by RogerB at 8:45 AM on March 10

In your opinion, who are the best female science fiction authors?
I would like to make an effort to read more books by women authors.
Also possibly relevant.

I'll second Pat Cadigan for scifi, too. Mindplayers and Synners are the two I always recommend in threads like this.
posted by mediareport at 8:51 AM on March 10

Seconding Barbara Kingsolver (esp. The Poisonwood Bible) and Zadie Smith (esp. On Beauty). I also loved Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison and, if you haven't read it earlier, To Kill a Mockingbird is a must.
posted by peacheater at 8:56 AM on March 10

Oooh, seconding Nadine Gordimer as well, especially A Sport of Nature.
posted by peacheater at 8:57 AM on March 10

Lydia Davis, especially Break It Down.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:13 AM on March 10

P.D. James. Children of Men was a mediocre movie, but a fantastic book, and her mystery/crime novels are also quite good.
posted by decathecting at 9:14 AM on March 10

Seconding Pat Barker, especially her WWI trilogy (Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, Ghost Road). And Willa Cather too, though I could never get through either My Antonia or O Pioneers. I prefer Death Comes for the Archbishop and Old Mrs. Harris (novella).
posted by expialidocious at 9:22 AM on March 10

Kathe Koja. I haven't read her YA stuff, but her (dark, dreamy) short stories are excellent.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:26 AM on March 10

Seconding Jeannette Winterson. Not to everyone's taste, but remarkable and underappreciated. Start with Sexing the Cherry to jump in feet-first.
posted by hippugeek at 9:37 AM on March 10

Pat Barker; The Regeneration Trilogy
posted by theora55 at 9:50 AM on March 10

some suggestions beyond the above:
dorothy sayers.
elizabeth bear, particularly carnival.
earlier sara paretski (i found v.i. got a bit grumpy as the years went on).
posted by rmd1023 at 10:02 AM on March 10

Aimee Bender, either short stories or An Invisible Sign of My Own. She's not sci-fi but definitely playful and thoughtful like the authors you cite.
posted by zepheria at 10:28 AM on March 10

Patricia McKillip. Incredibly skilled author of fiction that, if you were to nail it to a genre, could be called fantasy.
posted by Riemann at 11:15 AM on March 10

I would have to say I generally follow your tastes, and so I'd give a big n to atwood and leguin, but I'd highly recommend you stay away from kingsolver- despite what others have been saying.
posted by Large Marge at 12:36 PM on March 10

If you like SF go for James Tiptree Jr.
posted by JJ86 at 1:12 PM on March 10

Has anyone said Alice Walker yet? Start with the Color Purple.
posted by lunit at 1:37 PM on March 10

Jhumpa Lahiri--The Namesake (about a family whose parents are immigrants to the US from India)
Kathy Page--Alphabet (about an illiterate murderer who learns to read and write in prison and begins writing letters to women. Very non-sensationalistic story about the prison system, redemption, sexuality. Gritty but not gratuitous.)
Miriam Toews--A Complicated Kindness (about a young girl growing up in a very strict religious community, and her desire to escape)
Heather O'Neill--Lullabies for Little Criminals (about a young girl growing up on the streets with a junkie father)
Anne Tyler--Digging To America (a shrewd, engaging social commentary on the nature of interracial adoptions--one Korean baby is adopted by the stereotypical "all-American" family; the other Korean baby is adopted by a family of Iranian-American immigrants)

All these books feature compelling stories combined with excellent writing, IMO.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:09 PM on March 10

Ursula K. LeGuin

Margaret Atwood (Blind Assasin, and The Robber Bride especially)

Kage Baker (If you like Sci-fi, with a historical, literate twist)

Angela Carter (for a more avante-garde literature taste)

Barbara Kingsolver

Flannery O'Connor

Shirley Jackson

Charlotte Perkins Doyle

Jamaica Kincaid
posted by nikksioux at 2:26 PM on March 10

"The Time of the Doves" (aka "La placa del Diamant") by Merce Rodoreda. From the outset its prose seems almost deceptively simple, but it's actually a very layered commentary on the Spanish Civil War.

Personally, I also like (or remember liking...) stuff by Anais Nin, Marguerite Duras, Angela Carter and Joan Aiken... but their styles may not be to your taste. Angela Carter's "Love" was/is the book I've always wished I could write.
posted by aielen at 4:37 PM on March 10

Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow is also a terrific book. Humans discover aliens, head out into space to meet them, things go pear-shaped from there....
posted by Pigpen at 5:26 PM on March 10

Also, Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child and its sequel, Ben in the World. Couple buy a big Victorian house and plan to fill it a big, happy family, plans go awry when the fifth child turns out to be.... different.
posted by Pigpen at 5:36 PM on March 10

I think nikksioux means Charlotte Perkins Gilman, whose short stories can be good reads, and are fascinating as historical documents, but aren't nearly as interesting from a literary standpoint, imho, as those of, say, Kate Chopin. Chopin's Creole-flavored stories are both beautifully written *and* historically interesting, and her novel The Awakening is one of those classics that you start reading because you're supposed to and enjoy thoroughly in growing surprise. And here's another vote for Willa Cather's My Ántonia; it's filled with stunningly sharp and beautiful passages about land, love and the trials of pioneer life.

Classic, highly readable American fiction, all three.
posted by mediareport at 7:11 PM on March 10

Colette
posted by footnote at 7:58 PM on March 10

Oh my goodness! *blushes* I absolument meant Charlotte Perkins Gilman! Thanks, mediareport!
posted by nikksioux at 8:05 PM on March 10

Evelyn Waugh.

That was a joke.

I don't read great literature, so I'm going to have to give you some entertaining genre material I suppose.

The Harry Potter series really is a decent read if you haven't gotten to it. JK Rowling is good at spinning a tale.

I've read one or two of Faye Kellerman's books (she's the wife of the psychological myster writer Jonathan Kellerman) and they were pretty good. I think she writes mostly historical fiction; the one I rememered was a very interesting slant on the story of William Shakespeare that intertwines his story with a Spanish Jewish woman (a conversa, I guess you'd call her) who escaped to England with her family and is posing as an Anglican. Pretty interesting...looks like it was called The quality of mercy.

Agatha Christie pretty much (re)defined the "dead gentleman in the study" genre. Every time you read a novel where the detective gathers all of the suspects into one room, you can probably thank Christie for that conceit. She also draws a strong contrast to Arthur Conan Doyle's work: Holmes is obsessed with physical clues, while both of her most famous detectives--Poirot and Miss Marple--are more closely focused on the psychological. Actually, I think mystery might be the genre in which you find the strongest writing coming from females.

There is this amazing, amazing book written by a woman. The name of both the book and the author escape me, but basically it was a modern take on the fairy tale and incredibly well written. I believe the title had the word "bird" in it, or the name of a kind of bird...Yes! Found it: The Djinn in the Nightengale's Eye by A. S. Byatt. Worth reading the whole book for "The Story of the Eldest Princess" which deconstructs (but in an entirely entertaining way) the traditional fairy tale. And actually even though these are all fairy tales I suppose they really do fall under "literature". (tiny irony: A.S. Byatt totally panned the Harry Potter series)
posted by Deathalicious at 10:17 PM on March 10

Prose:

Nathalie Sarraute

Andrea Dworkin

Judith Butler

Djuna Barnes

Gertrude Stein

Virginia Woolf

Annie Dillard

Toni Morrison

Maxine Hong Kingston

Poetry:

H.D.

Djuna Barnes

Louise Gluck

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Emily Dickinson
posted by Joseph Gurl at 6:47 AM on March 11

Second Niffenegger, as her novel was a beautiful piece of work, but I think it's also more one of those "love it or hate it" novels. It's completely and totally a romance novel, but it doesn't necessarily read like one (it's not chick lit, doesn't have the typical clichés, is laugh-out-loud funny at times and unbearingly sad at others, etc.)

The one female author I'd recommend without condition or disclaimer is Laurie R. King, in particular her "Beekeeper's Apprentice" series.
posted by Phire at 7:10 PM on March 11

(E.) Annie Proulx - The Shipping News

second Atwood, Winterson, Kingsolver, Toni Morrison, and Zadie Smith

also second Bel Canto by Patchett, Kitchen by Yoshimoto and The Secret History by Tartt
posted by ezabeta at 9:02 PM on May 23