100 Best Books Written by Women

100 Best Books Written by Women

I often see interesting lists on other blogs and if I like them, I try to share them, as well. This one, I found on Brona's Books @ This Reading Life who had seen it on Paula's blog @ Book Jotter. The list was made by Good Housekeeping and there are a lot of interesting books there. While I don't agree that they all should be on that list (*), there are still quite a few I haven't read yet. 41 so far, plus 17 where I read at least one other book by that author (which I have added in brackets).

1.    Yanagihara, Hanya "A Little Life"
2.    Austen, Jane "Pride & Prejudice" - 1813 (The Motherhood and Jane Austen)
3.    Rooney, Sally "Normal People"
4.    Brontë, Emily "Wuthering Heights" - 1887
5.    Evaristo, Bernadine "Girl, Woman, Other" - 2019
6.    Honeyman, Gail "Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine"
7.    Carty-Williams, Candice "Queenie"
8.    Alcott, Louisa May "Little Women Series" - 1868-86
9.    Ferrante, Elena "My Brilliant Friend"
10.   Winterson, Jeannette "Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit"
11.   Walker, Alice "The Color Purple" - 1982
12.   Smith, Zadie "White Teeth" - 1999
13.   Lee, Harper "To Kill a Mockingbird" - 1960
14.   Blackman, Malorie "Noughts + Crosses"
15.   Ephron, Nora "Heartburn" - 1983
16.   Levy, Deborah "Swimming Home"
17.   Mantel, Hilary "Wolf Hall" - 2009
18.   Patchett, Ann "Bel Canto" (The Patron Saint of Liars - 1992)
19.   Atwood, Margaret "The Handmaid’s Tale" (Re-Read) - 1985
20.   Munro, Alice "Selected Stories 1 and 2" (Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" - 2001)
21.   Alderman, Naomi "The Power"
22.   Smith, Dodie "I Capture the Castle" - 1948
23.   Gilbert, Elizabeth "City of Girls"
24.   Rubenhold, Hallie "The Five"
25.   Tartt, Donna "The Secret History" (The Goldfinch - 2013)
26.   Jacques, Juliet "Trans"
27.   Brontë, Charlotte"Jane Eyre" - 1847
28.   Petty, Ann "The Street"
29.   Woolf, Virginia "Mrs. Dalloway" - 1925
30.   Lahiri, Jhumpa "The Lowland" - 2013
31.   Catton, Eleanor "The Luminaries"
32.   Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi "Half of a Yellow Sun" - 2006
33.   Dove, Ella "Five Steps to Happy"
34.   Eliot, George "Middlemarch" - 1871-72
35.   Hurston, Zora Neale "Their Eyes Were Watching God"
36.   Mitchell, Margaret "Gone With the Wind" - 1936
37.   Satrapi, Marjane "Persepolis. The Story of a Childhood" (F: Persepolis) - 2000
38.   Christie, Agatha "And then there were none" - 1939 
39.   Ali, Monica "Brick Lane" - 2003
40.   Smith, Ali "How To Be Both" (The Accidental - 2004)
41.   Waters, Sara "Fintersmith" (The Night Watch - 2006)
42.   Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft "Frankenstein" - 1888
43.   Tyler, Anne "A Spool of Blue Thread" - 2015  
44.   Morrison, Toni "Beloved" - 1987
45.   Wharton, Edith "The Age Of Innocence" (The House of Mirth - 1905)
46.   Burnett, Frances Hodgson "The Secret Garden" - 1911
47.   Mansfield, Katherine "The Garden Party And Other Stories"
48.   Du Maurier, Daphne "Rebecca" - 1938
49.   Roy, Arundhati "The God of Small Things" - 1997
50.   Shriver, Lionel "We Need to Talk About Kevin" - 2003
51.   Didion, Joan "Play It As It Lays"
52.   Gaskell, Elizabeth "Mary Barton" (North and South - 1854/55)
53.   Jansson, Tove "The Summer Book" (Moominsummer Madness, FIN: Vaarallinen juhannus/SW: Farlig midsommar) - 1954)
54.   Gibbons, Stella "Cold Comfort Farm" - 1932 *
55.   Egan, Jennifer "A Visit From The Goon Squad"
56.   Stockett, Kathryn "The Help" - 2009
57.   Atkinson, Kate "Life After Life" (Behind the Scenes at the Museum - 1995)
58.   Niffenegger, Audrey "The Time Traveler's Wife" - 2003 *
59.   Heiny, Katherine "Standard Deviation"
60.   Jones, Tayari "An American Marriage"
61.   Levy, Andrea "Small Island"
62.   Howard, Elizabeth Jane "The Cazalet Chronicles"
63.   Daré, Abi "The Girl with the Louding Voice"
64.   Braithwaite, Oyinkan "My Sister, The Serial Killer"
65.   Moore, Lorrie "Who Will Run The Frog Hospital"
66.   Shields, Carol "Happenstance" (The Stone Diaries - 1993)
67.   Tremain, Rose "Restoration" (Music & Silence - 1999)
68.   Robinson, Marilynne "Housekeeping" (Gilead - 2004) *
69.   Jackson, Shirley "We Have Always Lived In The Castle"
70.   Yoshimoto, Banana "Kitchen"
71.   Batuman, Elif "The Idiot"
72.   Rowling, J.K. "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" - 1997
73.   Moyes, Jojo "Me Before You" - 2012 *
74.   O’Farrell, Maggie "Hamnet"
75.   Chevalier, Tracy "Girl with a Pearl Earring" - 1999
76.   Hinton, S.E. "The Outsiders"
77.   Highsmith, Patricia "Carol" (The Talented Mr. Ripley - 1955)
78.   Spark, Muriel "The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie"
79.   Donoghue, Emma "Room"
80.   Cusk, Rachel "Outline"
81.   Proulx, Annie "The Shipping News" - 2003
82.   Murdoch, Iris "The Sea, The Sea" (The Philosopher's Pupil - 1983)
83.   Oates, Joyce Carol "We Were the Mulvaneys" - 1996
84.   O’Brien, Edna "Girl"
85.   Strout, Elizabeth "Olive Kitteridge"
86.   Tan, Amy "The Joy Luck Club" - 1989
87.   Cather, Willa "My Ántonia" - 1918
88.   Barker, Pat "The Regeneration Trilogy"
89.   Rhys, Jean "Wide Sargasso Sea" - 1966
90.   Carter, Angela "The Bloody Chamber"
91.   Fowler, Karen Joy "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves" (The Jane Austen Book Club - 2004)
92.   Allende, Isabel "The House of the Spirits" (E: La casa de los espíritus) - 1982
93.   Smiley, Jane "A Thousand Acres" - 1991
94.   Homes, A.M. "May We Be Forgiven"
95.   McBride, Eimear "A Girl is a Half-formed Thing"
96.   Lessing, Doris "The Golden Notebook" - 1962
97.   Le Guin, Ursula "The Earthsea Cycle" (The Left Hand of Darkness - 1969) *
98.   Byatt, A.S. "The Children’s Book" (Possession - 1990)
99.   Clarke, Susanna "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" - 2004
100.  Kingsolver, Barbara "Flight Behaviour" - 2012

As so often  with these lists, there are very few international books (only three!) and I always feel sorry for my English speaking friends that they don't get such a broad impact as we do. I know that many of them would like to read more books from other countries but don't have the chance.

I also miss some other great authors, Nobel Prize or winners of other prestigious awards, even English speaking authors. South African Nadine Gordimer comes to mind. Or Pearl S. Buck who wrote great literature about China.

Maybe I should put together a list of non-English books that are worth reading. Mind you, you will find a lot of them already on my Reading List.