Via Alison’s book blog, I’ve found The Lists – Books for the Obsessive Reader. If you’re always on the lookout for reading ideas, this is a blog worth checking out.
Alison’s attention was caught by this list of 100 Most Influential Novels by Women Writers. I’ve marked the ones I’ve read at some point in my life with a *.
- Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind*
- Anne Rice, Interview With the Vampire
- Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
- Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (I read The Hours, but I guess that’s not a substitute, is it?)
- Virginia Woolf, The Waves
- Virginia Woolf, Orlando
- Djuna Barnes, Nightwood
- Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (saw the movie, never read the book)
- Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence*
- Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome
- Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness
- Nadine Gordimer, Burger’s Daughter
- Harriette Simpson Arnow, The Dollmaker
- Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale*
- Willa Cather, My Ántonia
- Erica Jong, Fear of Flying*
- Erica Jong, Fanny
- Joy Kogawa, Obasan
- Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
- Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child
- Doris Lessing, The Grass Is Singing
- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird* (but I’ve never seen the movie)
- Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time
- Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres*
- Lore Segal, Her First American
- Alice Walker, The Color Purple*
- Alice Walker, The Third Life of Grange Copeland
- Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon*
- Muriel Spark, Memento Mori
- Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
- Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina*
- Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
- Susan Fromberg Shaeffer, Anya
- Cynthia Ozick, Trust
- Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club*
- Amy Tan, The Kitchen God’s Wife*
- Ann Beattie, Chilly Scenes of Winter
- Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God*
- Joan Didion, A Book of Common Prayer
- Joan Didion, Play It as It Lays
- Mary McCarthy, The Group
- Mary McCarthy, The Company She Keeps
- Grace Paley, The Little Disturbances of Man
- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
- Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter*
- Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart
- Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood
- Mona Simpson, Anywhere But Here*
- Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon*
- Toni Morrison, Beloved*
- Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm
- Sylvia Townsend Warner, Mr. Fortune’s Maggot
- Katherine Anne Porter, Ship of Fools
- Laura Riding, Progress of Stories
- Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust
- Penelope Fitzgerald, The Blue Flower
- Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits
- A.S. Byatt, Possession (tried to read it; I think I got through about 50 pages)
- Pat Barker, The Ghost Road
- Rita Mae Brown, Rubyfruit Jungle
- Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac
- Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus
- Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca
- Katherine Dunn, Geek Love
- Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle
- Barbara Pym, Excellent Women
- Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
- Anne Tyler, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant*
- Anne Tyler, The Accidental Tourist*
- Nancy Willard, Things Invisible to See
- Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the Cherry
- Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Disturbances in the Field
- Rosellen Brown, Civil Wars*
- Harriet Doerr, Stones for Ibarra
- Harriet Doerr, The Mountain Lion
- Stevie Smith. Novel on Yellow Paper
- E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News*
- Rebecca Goldstein, The Mind-Body Problem
- P.D. James, The Children of Men
- Ursula Hegi, Stones From the River*
- Fay Weldon, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil*
- Katherine Mansfield, Collected Stories
- Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron Mills
- Louise Erdrich, The Beet Queen
- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
- Edna O’Brien, The Country Girls Trilogy
- Margaret Drabble, Realms of Gold
- Margaret Drabble, The Waterfall
- Dawn Powell, The Locusts Have No King
- Marilyn French, The Women’s Room
- Eudora Welty, The Optimist’s Daughter
- Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries*
- Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John
- Tillie Olsen, Tell Me a Riddle
- Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
- Iris Murdoch, A Severed Head
- Anita Desai, Clear Light of Day
- Alice Hoffman, The Drowning Season*
- Sue Townsend, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
- Penelope Mortimer, The Pumpkin Eater
This isn’t officially a book meme, but if you’re intrigued by the list too, mark off the ones you’ve read and take note of the ones you’d like to. I see I’ve got a lot of room to work with here.
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I’ve read 23 or so; I started one but didn’t finish; and I may have read another, but I’m not sure. There are a few where I know I’ve read several by that author — but was it this or another? Not sure. But 23 or thereabouts!
Um, Jane Austen? Hello?
I’ve only read 9 of the books listed. Sad, isn’t it?
Since some of you tallied ’em up, I thought I’d count up my asterisks; it looks like I’ve read 19. That puts both MaryP and me at around 20% (she’s over, I’m under), and Literary Feline just shy of 10%. Hey, I’m a reader, but I’m also an accountant – crunching numbers is what I do.
Bub and Pie – As I understand it, this is just one person’s list, and perhaps she should have called it “100 Most Influential Novels by 20th-Century Women Writers,” although I think Wharton may be cutting it close on that timeframe. Or perhaps this person’s just not an Austen fan? In any case, these things are almost always good debate fodder.