Feminista!’s List of 100 Best Works by Women Writers

I did so much better with the BBC top 100 list that included all those children’s books and titles by dead white men we were required to read in school. I’d only read 18 of the 100 best works by women. So, I’ve challenged myself to read all 100, including rereading the ones I’d read before. It’s a rare book that I can remember in any kind of detail, no matter how much I liked it. I can recall how I felt as I read something but as far as the story goes, even if it’s one of my favorite books of all time, I am likely to only be able to summarize the plot and will probably not even remember character’s names. If I liked the books originally, I will get to enjoy them again, almost as if for the first time. If I didn’t like them and still don’t, I’ll put them down. So I’ve marked the ones I’d read before and I’ll review them on Goodreads as I go. Take the book challenge with me. Let me know what you’re reading and how you like it.

Also, I’m in the process of making up my own top 100 list because just from what I’ve read so far, I can tell you I do not agree with Feminista. I’m keeping a list of suggestions. Tell me what you want included and why you think it deserves to be on a must read list of books by women authors.

  1. Allison, Dorothy. Bastard Out of Carolina, 1992
  2. Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969
  3. Atwood, Margaret. Cat’s Eye, 1988
  4. Bainbridge, Beryl. The Bottle Factory Outing, 1974
  5. Bambara, Toni Cade. Gorilla, My Love, 1992
  6. Barnes, Djuna. Nightwood, 1937
  7. Barker, Pat. Regeneration, 1992
  8. Brookner, Anita. Hotel du Lac, 1984
  9. Brown, Rita Mae. Rubyfruit Jungle, 1973
  10. Buck, Pearl S. The Good Earth, 1931
  11. Byatt, A.S. Possession: A Romance , 1990
  12. Carter, Angela. Nights at the Circus, 1984
  13. Castillo, Ana. So Far From God, 1993
  14. Cather, Willa. My Antonia, 1918
  15. Chopin, Kate. The Awakening, 1900
  16. Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street, 1984
  17. Compton-Burnett, Ivy. Elders and Betters, 1944
  18. Desai, Anita. Clear Light of Day, 1980
  19. Dinesen, Isak. Out of Africa, 1938
  20. Doerr, Harriet. Stones for Ibarra, 1984
  21. Drabble, Margaret. The Radiant Way, 1987
  22. DuMaurier, Daphne. Rebecca, 1938
  23. Emecheta, Buchi. Second Class Citizen, 1974
  24. Erdrich, Louise. Tracks: A Novel, 1988
  25. Fitzgerald, Penelope. At Freddie’s, 1985
  26. Flagg, Fannie. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, 1987
  27. Frame, Janet. Yellow Flowers in the Antipodean Room, 1969
  28. French, Marilyn. The Women’s Room, 1977
  29. Goldstein, Rebecca. The Mind-Body Problem: A Novel, 1983
  30. Gordimer, Nadine. July’s People, 1981
  31. Gordon, Mary. The Rest of Life, 1993
  32. Hall, Radclyffe. The Well of Loneliness, 1928
  33. Head, Bessie. When Rain Clouds Gather, 1968
  34. Highsmith, Patricia. The Talented Mr. Ripley, 1955
  35. Hobhouse, Janet. The Furies, 1993
  36. Hulme, Keri. The Bone People, 1983
  37. Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937
  38. Jackson, Shirley. The Haunting of Hill House, 1959
  39. Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer. Heat and Dust, 1975
  40. Jong, Erica. Fear of Flying, 1973
  41. Kincaid, Jamaica. Lucy, 1990
  42. Kingsolver, Barbara. The Bean Trees, 1988
  43. Kingston, Maxine Hong. Tripmaster Monkey, 1989
  44. Kogawa, Joy. Obasan, 1981
  45. Laurence, Margaret. The Fire-Dwellers, 1969
  46. Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960
  47. Lessing, Doris. The Golden Notebook, 1962
  48. Lively, Penelope. Moon Tiger, 1987
  49. Loos, Anita. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1925
  50. McCarthy, Mary. The Group, 1963
  51. McCullers, Carson. Ballad of the Sad Cafe, 1951
  52. McMillan, Terry. Mama, 1987
  53. Manning, Olivia. The Balkan Trilogy, 1981
  54. Miller, Isabel. Patience and Sarah, 1969
  55. Mitchell, Margaret. Gone with the Wind, 1936
  56. Moore, Lorrie. Anagrams: A Novel, 1986
  57. Morrison, Toni. Beloved: A Novel, 1987
  58. Mukherjee, Bharati. Wife, 1975
  59. Munro, Alice. Lives of Girls and Women, 1971
  60. Murdoch, Iris. A Severed Head, 1961
  61. Oates, Joyce Carol. You Must Remember This, 1987
  62. O’Brien, Edna. House of Splendid Isolation, 1994
  63. O’Connor, Flannery. A Good Man is Hard to Find, 1955
  64. Olsen, Tillie. Tell Me a Riddle, 1979
  65. Paley, Grace. Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, 1974
  66. Parker, Dorothy. The Collected Dorothy Parker, 1973
  67. Phillips, Jayne Anne. Black Tickets, 1979
  68. Piercy, Marge. Braided Lives, 1982
  69. Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar, 1963
  70. Porter, Katharine Anne. Ship of Fools, 1962
  71. Powell, Dawn. The Golden Spur, 1962
  72. Proulx, E. Annie. The Shipping News, 1993
  73. Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead, 1943
  74. Renault, Mary. The King Must Die, 1958
  75. Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea, 1966
  76. Robinson, Marilynne. Housekeeping, 1980
  77. Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things, 1997
  78. Sarton, May. Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, 1965
  79. Shields, Carol. The Stone Diaries, 1994
  80. Shreve, Anita. The Weight of Water, 1997
  81. Silko, Leslie Marmon. Almanac of the Dead, 1991
  82. Simpson, Mona. Anywhere But Here, 1986
  83. Smart, Elizabeth. By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, 1966
  84. Smiley, Jane. The Age of Grief, 1987
  85. Sontag, Susan. The Volcano Lover, 1992
  86. Spark, Muriel. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, 1961
  87. Stead, Christina. The Man Who Loved Children, 1965
  88. Stein, Gertrude. Three Lives, 1909
  89. Taylor, Elizabeth. Angel, 1957
  90. Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club, 1989
  91. Tyler, Anne. If Morning Ever Comes, 1964
  92. Urquhart, Jane. Away, 1993
  93. Walker, Alice. The Color Purple, 1982
  94. Weldon, Fay. The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, 1983
  95. Welty, Eudora. Selected Stories, 1943
  96. West, Rebecca. The Return of the Soldier, 1918
  97. Wharton, Edith. Ethan Frome, 1911
  98. White, Antonia. Frost in May, 1933
  99. Winterson, Jeannette. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, 1985
  100. Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway, 1925
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