Historically, literature has been a men’s club. As Joan Didion once said in an interview with The Paris Review, “There was a kind of social tradition in which male novelists could operate. Hard drinkers, bad livers. Wives, wars, big fish, Africa, Paris, no second acts.” No surprise, most reading lists are dominated by works of men. However, we know many books produced by women are true works of genius. Although we do love F. Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, etc. – we don’t want to discredit great male writers – we think it’s about time female authors get some credit, too. So here’s a guide of books by female authors that everyone should read at least once.
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Available on Amazon, $11
While it may be 900 pages long, and, yes, George Eliot’s views on politics can drag occasionally, reading Middlemarch is a rite of passage. The protagonist, the beautiful 19-year-old orphan Dorothea Brooke, is equal parts charming and infuriating, and the unraveling narrative takes in marriages, infidelities, deaths, and more. There are moments when you’ll hate the novel, moments when it will make you sob, and moments when you’re struck by how relatable it actually feels.
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Available on Amazon, $7
Over 120 years prior to Lisa Taddeo’s exploration of sexuality in Three Women, Kate Chopin laid bare the nature of female desire in The Awakening, questioning whether or not it was at odds with the traditional demands of marriage and procreation. Set in and around New Orleans at the end of the 19th century, it tells the story of the beautiful Edna Pontellier as she struggles to reconcile her duties as a wife and mother with her increasing attraction to a young business man on the Gulf Coast.
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
Available on Barnes and Noble, $22.50
Emma may be Jane Austen’s most mature work, but it’s almost universally acknowledged that Pride and Prejudice is the most popular of the author’s six timeless novels. The verbal arguing and slow-growing romance between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy carries the plot, but the peripheral characters are just as exciting, from the snobby Caroline Bingley to the dangerously alluring George Wickham.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Available on Amazon, $9
Wuthering Heights is a gut-wrenching romance with edge. (Ernest Hemingway also happened to favor this novel.) Read it for the vivid descriptions of the wild Yorkshire highlands as much as the Gothic plot and ill-fated relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Available on Target, $6
Written at the request of her publisher in just a few months, the novel chronicles the lives of the four March girls and their various romantic complications. It’s filled with feminist passion – Alcott campaigned for female suffrage and independence throughout her lifetime – and the sort of life-affirming, feel-good quotes that one always wants to hear at least once.
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Available on Amazon, $7
Edith Wharton became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with this carefully crafted story of love, loss and longing set against the glistening backdrop of 19th-century New York. It centers on a trio of flawed and captivating characters: the disagreeable young lawyer Newland Archer, his sheltered bride-to-be May Welland and Ellen Olenska, a doomed countess who flees her husband in Europe and begins a friendship with Newland that makes him reevaluate his life. As they find themselves torn between desire and familial expectations, prepare to admire Wharton’s observations, weep at the fate of her protagonists and be pleased with the ending.
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Available on Amazon, $15
Mrs Dalloway and To The Lighthouse are commonly thought of as Virginia Woolf’s most popular works, but Orlando deserves some credit, too. Written for her lover Vita Sackville-West, the imaginary “biography” spans nearly 300 years, beginning under the reign of Elizabeth I and ending in Woolf’s London of the 1920s. Its protagonist’s lifespan is far from his only exceptional trait; at the age of 30, he miraculously switches gender and lives as a member of the opposite sex. This is Woolf at her most imaginative, hopeful, and romantic.
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Available on Barnes and Noble, $14
Marianne and Connell’s passionate and distressed relationship – which morphs as they move from their school hallways in County Sligo to the stately quads of Trinity College Dublin – has divided the world over since the TV adaptation of Normal People aired. It’s nearly impossible to fully understand without indulging in Rooney’s delicately simple, utterly devastating story. Through the novel, you enter her protagonists’ minds and follow their struggles with growing up, changing social dynamics, new partners and the deep-rooted feelings which always lead them back to one another. It’s a literary novel that, just a few years after being published, has already become a classic.
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Available on Amazon, $28
Maya Angelou’s close friend James Baldwin asked her to write an autobiography that could hold its own against great novels, and she delivered with I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. The memoir follows her life from the moment her parents abandoned her as a three-year-old and forced her to move in with her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. In spite of the tragic mistreatment and systemic racism that Maya endures, it’s her outstanding resilience and optimism that are so memorable.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Available on Amazon, $14
The face of disappointed young women wrote this semi-autobiographical work towards the end of her short life, but it was inspired by a much earlier episode. The novel follows Bostonian Esther Greenwood, who goes to New York to intern at a magazine, setting off a chain of events that ends with a mental breakdown and stints at various hospitals. Distressing as it is, Plath’s openness and humor carry you through, reminding us of the ridiculous pressures and limits placed on women in the 1950s.
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