Women Authors -- BOOK THOUGHTS

BOOK THOUGHTS

Women Authors

March is Women's History Month, so I thought I'd highlight some of the women authors sitting on my TBR shelves. My reading is split pretty evenly between male and female authors and this is reflected in the books on my TBR shelves. 

Who are some of your favorite women writers? Or those you want to try?

Here’s are two stacks of books by women. In the stack on the left are ten books by women writers whose books I’ve already tried. Some of these, like Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark, are favorites and I've read most of their books. Others, like Margaret Atwood and Elizabeth Strout, are those I've only dipped into but want to read more of their work. In the right stack are ten book by women writers whose work is new to me. There are many other women authors I love, but I limited myself to ten of each. 

FAVORITE AUTHORS

Kate Atkinson, Transcription. I love everything by Atkinson. I really like her Jackson Brodie mystery series, but I also like her historical fiction. 

Margaret Atwood, Hag-Seed. This is Atwood's retelling of William Shakespeare's last play, The Tempest. I've read and enjoyed a few other books from the Hogarth Shakespeare series so am really looking forward to this one. 

Joanne Harris, Five Quarters of the Orange. I've only read one Joanne Harris book and can't remember which one, other than it wasn't Chocolat. I need to remedy this situation. 

Patricia Highsmith, Ripley Under Ground and Ripley’s Game. My book club read her first Ripley book a few years ago and I intended to read the others straight through, but I got off track.

Iris Murdoch, Nuns and Soldiers. I love Murdoch's books but she was so prolific! I feel like I must have read them all but I'm only halfway through. 

Ann Patchett, State of Wonder. I read Bel Canto right when it came out and didn't like it so never read any more books by Anne Patchett. Then my book club read The Dutch House and I loved it, so I read Tom Lake when it came out. Now I want to go back and read her earlier books. 

Annie Proulx, Bad Dirt. The Shipping News is one of my very favorite books. I think I've read almost everything Proulx has written. I don't gravitate to short stories, so what is left on my TBR shelf are a coup of sort story collections, like this one.

Barbara Pym, An Academic Question. Pym is another author I love but have not read as many of her books as I think I have. Time to catch up!

Muriel Spark, The Comforters. I love Spark's snarky, dark humor but have never read this, her first novel. 

Elizabeth Strout, Oh William! I'm not wild about the two other Strout books I've read, but I found this one in a little free library so want to give her another chance. 

NEW-TO-ME 

Ann Beattie, Chilly Scenes of Winter. This one is on Erica Jong's list of Top 20th Century Novels by Women, one of my favorite sources of women authors. 

Suzanne Berne, A Crime in the Neighborhood. This one won the 1999 Women's Prize for Fiction (then the Orange Prize), my other favorite source for finding women writers.

Gina Berriault, Women in Their Beds. Again, I am not drawn to short stories. But this one won both the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and I am working my way through both those lists. 

Harriet Doerr, Stones for Ibarra. Another Erica Jong listed book.

Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus. This has been on my TBR shelf for years, even though it sounds like a wonderful ovel about two sisters. 

Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of Pointed Firs. It isn't easy to find classic books by women so I don't know why I haven't read this before now. 

Hiromi Kawakami, The Nakano Thrift Shop. I don't know anything about this, but bought it on a whim because I liked the cover and title. 

Molly Keane, Good Behaviour. This one gets a lot of love on Instagram so I am excited to read it. 

Olivia Manning, The Balkan Trilogy. Anthony Burgess included this trilogy on his list of the Best 99 Novels in English Since 1939 (to 1984), another list I'm working on.

Jody Picoult, Keeping Faith. Despite Picoult's enormous popularity, I have yet to read any of her books. 

Do any of these look good to you? Where would you start?

October Wrap Up -- My October Books

OCTOBER WRAP UP

Better late than never! Here’s my October wrap up. October is a particularly fun reading month ever since I discovered Victober on Instagram a few years back. Victober is when people read Victorian literature in October. Victorian novels seem well-suited to chilly, blustery October days.

I read a couple of other chunksters in addition to the two Victorian doorstops I read for Victober, so only got through eight books last month. They are listed below in the order I read them, not as they are stacked up in the picture.

MY OCTOBER BOOKS

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins was one of my Victober reads. I loved this Victorian adventure story! 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates has been on my TBR shelf for a long time. I loved it all the more for reading while in upstate New York last month. Those granite hills and small towns with their mix of rural Yankee charm and diminished rust belt prosperity could be right from the pages of Oates’s 1996 novel. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

May We be Forgiven by A. M. Holmes knocked it out of the park for me. This was definitely my October standout. I read it because it won the Women's Prize and had no idea what to expect – certainly not the wild, hilarious, audacious gallop it took me on. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

The Theban Mysteries is a “Silver Age” (1960-1989) vintage mystery featuring English literature professor Kate Fansler. I’m a fan of the series. 🌹🌹🌹1/2

Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age by Sherry Turkle was excellent. I highly recommend it. It will make you put down your phone and start talking to everyone, including yourself, especially the children in your life, and even the grocery clerk.  🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot was my other Victober read. I loved it when I wasn’t rolling my eyes. The main plot of Maggie and her love triangle (quadrangle?) was tedious, but the "filler" was thoroughly entertaining. Then the ending all but ruined it for me. It's like Eliot got as got tired as the rest of us with all the hand wringing but had no idea what to do with Maggie so took the Victorian way out. Good grief!  🌹🌹🌹🌹

BUtterfield 8 by John O’Hara, which I read with my ears so isn't in the picture. The U is capitalized because it is an old phone number. BUtterfield 8 was a bestseller when first published in 1935. I can see why! It's all sex, scandal, and day drinking. Again with the melodramatic ending!  🌹🌹🌹🌹

Building Beauty: The Alchemy of Design by Michael S. Smith is a gorgeous coffee table book from Rizzoli Books. I got when I heard Smith talk a couple of years back.  🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Now it’s on to Nonfiction November! Do you plan to read nonfiction books this month? I made it a goal to clear some space on my nonfiction TBR shelves this year, so have been reading more nonfiction than I usually do in 2021. I'll continue to read nonfiction in November, but no more than I have been.

MY FAVORITE COVER OF THE MONTH

 

The Women's Prize for Fiction -- BOOK LIST

THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

The Women's Prize for Fiction is awarded each year for the best eligible, full-length novel in English. The prize started in 1996 as the Orange Prize for Fiction (because it was sponsored by the Orange telecommunications company). In 2014, Bailey's became the sponsor and the name changed to the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. Since 2018, multiple sponsors support the prize, now called simply the Women's Prize for Fiction.

I am not going to keep updating the winners after 2021. My enthusiasm for prize-winners is waning with the 2020s. I may focus my efforts on reading the winners up to 2020 then declare victory and move on to other bookish projects.

So far, I've read 17 of the winners. The list is below with notes about whether I read it, it is on my TBR shelf, or if it is available as an audiobook from my library.

Several of my favorite books are on this list and I only read them because they won this prize. See any favorites of your own?

2021 Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

2020 Maggie O'Farrell, Hamnet FINISHED

2019 Tayari Jones, An American Marriage ON OVERDRIVE

2018 Kamila Shamsie, Home Fire FINISHED

2017 Naomi Alderman, The Power FINISHED

2016 Lisa McInerne, The Glorious Heresies FINISHED

2015 Ali Smith, How to be Both ON OVERDRIVE

2014 Eimear McBride, A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing ON OVERDRIVE

2013 A.M. Homes, May We Be Forgiven FINISHED

2012 Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles FINISHED

2011 Téa Obreht, The Tiger's Wife FINISHED

2010 Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna ON OVERDRIVE

2009 Marilynne Robinson, Home FINISHED

2008 Rose Tremain, The Road Home FINISHED

2007 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun FINISHED

2006 Zadie Smith, On Beauty (reviewed here) FINISHED

2005 Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin FINISHED

2004 Andrea Levy, Small Island (reviewed here) FINISHED

2003 Valerie Martin, Property

2002 Ann Patchett, Bel Canto (reviewed here) FINISHED

2001 Kate Grenville, The Idea of Perfection (reviewed here) FINISHED

2000 Linda Grant, When I Lived in Modern Times TBR SHELF

1999 Suzanne Berne, A Crime in the Neighborhood TBR SHELF

1998 Carol Shields, Larry's Party  FINISHED

1997 Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces TBR SHELF

1996 Helen Dunmore, A Spell of Winter TBR SHELF


NOTES

Updated July 3, 2025. 

OTHERS READING THE WINNERS

If you are reading the winners of the Women's Prize for Fiction and would like your post listed here, please leave comments with links to related posts and I will list them.

Book List: Books Read in 2017

 

Somehow, 2017 was the year in books that almost never was. Every year in January, I make a book list of the book I read the prior year. But I forgot to do that in January 2018. A look at my work calendar tells me I wasn't gearing up for a trial (which is my usual attention-sucker), but my law partner and I were up to our eyeballs in a couple of Boy Scout sex abuse cases in Idaho and Montana. I spent most of January 2018 in regional PNW airports waiting for cancelled flights to get to depositions and court hearings.

I only realized the 2017 list was missing when I went to post the 2020 list. Better late then never. We want to remember all the books of Auld Lang Sine!

BOOKS READ IN 2017

• The Panther by Nelson DeMille 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Bech at Bay by John Updike 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• How to Hepburn: Lessons on Living from Kate the Great by Karen Karbo 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 (Women's Prize winner)

• Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Amarcord: Marcella Remembers by Marcella Hazan 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Poetic Justice by Amanda Cross 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Jam Today Too: The Revolution Will Not Be Catered by Tod Davies 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Life and Loves of a She Devil by Fay Weldon 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Whole Fromage: Adventures in the Delectable World of French Cheese by Kathe Lison 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Drowning Pool by Ross Macdonald 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Biographer's Moustache by Kingsley Amis 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• No Way to Treat a First Lady by Christopher Buckley 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living by Meik Wiking 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö 🌹🌹🌹

• Astoria: Astor and Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Tale of Ambition and Survival on the Early American Frontier by Peter Stark 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Fifth Business by Robertson Davies 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Manticore by Robertson Davies 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Original Sin by P. D. James 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Heartburn by Nora Ephron 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• World of Wonders by Robertson Davis 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• When You Lunch With the Emperor by Ludwig Bemelmans 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Make Me by Lee Child 🌹🌹🌹

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Ultimate Prizes by Susan Howatch 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Spotted Dick S'il Vous Plait: An English Restaurant in France by Tom Higgins 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Little Nugget by P. G. Wodehouse 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• But Enough About You by Christopher Buckley 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 (Booker Prize winner)

• Gods and Beasts by Denise Mina 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Architecture Pack : A Unique, Three-Dimensional Tour of Architecture over the Centuries : What Architects Do, How They Do It by Ron Van Der Meer 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books by Michael Dirda 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Let It Bleed by Ian Rankin 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Slay Ride by Dick Francis 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Road to Burgundy: The Unlikely Story of an American Making Wine and a New Life in France by Ray Walker 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• An Oxford Tragedy by J. C. Masterman 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Story of a New Name by Elana Ferrante 🌹🌹

• Black and Blue by Ian Rankin 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton Friedman 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Handmaid's Tail by Margaret Atwood 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Wait for Me!: Memoirs by Deborah Mitford 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Death by Water by Kenzaburo Oe 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Nix by Nathan Hill 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• On Rue Tatin: Living and Cooking in a French Town By Susan Herrmann Loomis 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Blue Angel by Francine Prose 🌹🌹🌹🌹 (my Campus Novels list)

• Bandits by Elmore Leonard 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• About a Boy by Nick Hornby 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Any Human Heart by William Boyd 🌹🌹🌹

• Temperance Creek: A Memoir by Pamela Royes 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Blue Heaven by C. J. Box 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 (Edgar Award winner)

• The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan 🌹🌹🌹1/2 (Booker Prize winner)

• Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste by Bianca Bosker 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York by Adam Gopnik 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Any Woman's Blues by Erica Jong 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Heirs by Susan Rieger 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Question of Max by Amanda Cross 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Rocks by Peter Nichols 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don't Have with People You Don't Like Doing Things You Don't Want to Do by Sarah Knight 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Reptile: The 2009 Manual of the Plaintiff's Revolution by David Ball 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Group by Mary McCarthy 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson 🌹🌹🌹🌹 (Pulitzer Prize winner)

• Psmith, Journalist by P. G. Wodehouse 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• The Glorious Heresies by  Lisa McInerney 🌹🌹🌹🌹1/2 (Women's Prize winner)

• Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks 🌹🌹🌹 (BBC Big Read)

• I Can't Complain: (All Too) Personal Essays by Eleanor Lipman 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Ancient Minstrel by Jim Harrison 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Vipers' Tangle by Mauriac Francois 🌹🌹 (Nobel Laureates)

• The Journalist and the Murder by Janet Malcolm 🌹🌹🌹

• The Princess of Burundi by Kjell Eriksson 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• The Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth 🌹🌹🌹1/2

• A Certain Justice by P. D. James 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet 🌹🌹🌹🌹

• Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade by Patrick Dennis 🌹🌹🌹🌹

MY RATING SYSTEM

I have a loosy goosy and always changing rating system. I used to use stars, but since my four or five stars didn't mean what four or five stars might mean on amazon or goodreads, I switched to roses, keeping with my Rose City Reader theme. I rate a book based on how much I like it, if I would recommend it to others, and what type of reader I would recommend it to.  

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 Books I love, recommend to most readers, or I think of as classics or must reads. 

🌹🌹🌹🌹 Books I really enjoy and/or recommend to readers of that type of book. Lots of Mysteries or food memoirs, for example, might get four roses from me instead of five because I really like them, but would only recommend them to people who read mysteries or food books.

🌹🌹🌹 Books I'm lukewarm about, liked so-so, or maybe was glad I read but wouldn't recommend to other people. 

🌹🌹 Books I didn't like, but understand that other readers do like.

🌹 Books I really don't like and am surprised to find other readers who do. I don't have many one-rose books.

I use half roses for books that fall between categories.

In years past, I used a slightly different star system. Here is a link to it.