100 Must-Read Books by Female Authors

 100 Must-Read Books by Female Authors

As most ‘best of’ lists tend to be biased towards books written in English by white men, I have attempted to create a list exclusively of females. This list, hopefully, is also more inclusive of authors who didn’t originally write in English and authors NOT from North America and Europe. Also, for a book to be on a ‘must read’ list, it should be tested over time. I decided to have my list be of books published 10+ years ago - so 2012 and earlier.

 

I want to keep this post short and just focused on the list itself, but more info is available:

-How I Came Up with the List of Books by Female Authors

-Fun Statistics for the Female Author List!

-100 Must-Read Books: An Inclusive List (not only female authors)

 

As I read the books, I will link my review to the book title in the list below. As I’m not doing this for work or school, I’m not giving myself a time restraint and I don’t have to go in order. Also, if I decide I really don’t like a book and I don’t want to finish it – then I won’t finish it. I will post a short review and link it to the title and move on to another book.

 

Read: Why didn’t you finish the book?

All books are ranked, though some have the same number. Those with the same rank were put in publication order, oldest to newest. Those with the same rank and publication year were put in order alphabetically by the author’s last name.

 

Now, what you’ve all been waiting for…

 

100 Must-Read Books by Female Authors

 

Rank	Title	Author	Published Language
1	Wuthering Heights	Bronte, Emily (English, 1818-1848)	1847
2	Pride and Prejudice	Austen, Jane (English, 1775-1817)	1813
3	Frankenstein	Shelley, Mary (English, 1797-1851)	1818
4/5	Mrs. Dalloway	Woolf, Virginia (English, 1882-1941)	1925
4/5	To the Lighthouse	Woolf, Virginia (English, 1882-1941)	1927
6	Beloved	Morrison, Toni (American, 1931-2019)	1987
7	The Handmaid's Tale	Atwood, Margaret (Canadian, 1939- )	1985
8	Jane Eyre	Bronte, Charlotte (English, 1816-1855)	1847
9	The House of the Spirits	Allende, Isabel (Chilean, 1942- ) translation Magda Bogin	1982 Spanish
10	The Color Purple	Walker, Alice (American, 1944- )	1982
11	To Kill a Mockingbird	Lee, Harper (American, 1926-2016)	1960
12	Middlemarch	Eliot, George (English, 1819-1880)	1971
13/14	The Age of Innocence	Wharton, Edith (American, 1862-1937)	1920
13/14	Song of Solomon	Morrison, Toni (American, 1931-2019)	1977
15-17	The Tale of Genji	Shikibu, Murasaki (Japanese, ~973-1031)	~1008 Japanese
15-17	Their Eyes Were Watching God	Hurston, Zora Neale (American, 1891-1960)	1937
15-17	The Joy Luck Club	Tan, Amy (American, 1952- )	1989
18-20	Little Women	Alcott, Louisa M. (American, 1932-1888)	1868
18-20	The Heart is a Lonely Hunter	McCullers, Carson (American, 1917-1967)	1940
18-20	Wide Sargasso Sea	Rhys, Jean (Dominican-British, 1890-1979)	1966
21	Orlando	Woolf, Virginia (English, 1882-1941)	1928
22-28	Rebecca	Maurier, Daphne Du (English, 1907-1989)	1938
22-28	The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie	Spark, Muriel (Scottish, 1918-2006)	1961
22-28	The Sea, The Sea	Murdoch, Iris (Irish-British, 1919-1999)	1978
22-28	Like Water for Chocolate	Esquivel, Laura (Mexican, 1950- ) translation Carol and Thomas Christensen	1989 Spanish
22-28	The Secret History	Tartt, Donna (American, 1963- )	1992
22-28	The God of Small Things	Roy, Arundhati (Indian, 1961- )	1997
22-28	White Teeth	Smith, Zadie (English, 1975- )	2000
29-36	Dante's Divine Comedy	Tr by Sayers, Dorothy L (English, 1893-1957)	1472 / 1957 Italian
29-36	The Death of the Heart	Bowen, Elizabeth (Irish-British, 1899-1973)	1938
29-36	I Capture the Castle	Smith, Dodie (English, 1896-1990)	1948
29-36	A Wrinkle in Time	L'engle, Madeleine (American, 1918-2007)	1962
29-36	The Golden Notebook	Lessing, Doris (British-Zimbabwean, 1919-2013)	1962
29-36	So Long a Letter	Ba, Mariama (Senegalese, 1929-1981) Translation Modupe Bode-Thomas	1979 French
29-36	Kindred	Butler, Octavia E. (American, 1947-2006)	1979
29-36	The Poisonwood Bible	Kingsolver, Barbara (American, 1955- )	1998
37/38	Purple Hibiscus	Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi (Nigerian-American, 1977-)	2003
37/38	Half of a Yellow Sun	Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi (Nigerian-American, 1977-)	2007
39/40	The Hour of the Star	Lispectpr, Clarice (Ukrainian-Brazilian, 1920-1977) trans. Giovanni Pontiero	1977 Portuguese
39/40	In the Time of the Butterflies	Alvares, Julia (American, 1950- )	1994
41-43	Emma	Austen, Jane (English, 1775-1817)	1815
41-43	My Antonia	Cather, Willa (American, 1873-1947)	1918
41-43	The Bluest Eyes	Morrison, Toni (American, 1931-2019)	1970
44-50	Passing	Larsen, Nella (American, 1891-1964)	1929
44-50	The Man Who Loved Children	Stead, Christina (Australian, 1902-1983)	1940
44-50	Nectar in a Sieve	Markandaya, Kamala (British-Indian, 1924-2004)	1954
44-50	The Bell Jar	Plath, Sylvia (American, 1932-1963)	1963
44-50	The Complete Stories	O'Connor, Flannery (American, 1925-1964)	1971
44-50	Nights at the Circus	Carter, Angela (English, 1940-1992)	1984
44-50	Breathing Lessons	Tyler, Anne (American, 1941- )	1988
51-59	North and South	Gaskell, Elizabeth (English, 1810-1865)	1854
51-59	Poems of Emily Dickenson	Dickinson, Emily (American, 1830-1886)	1890
51-59	And Then There Were None	Christie, Agatha (English, 1890-1976)	1939
51-59	The Pursuit of Love	Mitford, Nancy (English, 1904-1973)	1945
51-59	The Talented Mr. Ripley	Highsmith, Patricia (American, 1921-1995)	1955
51-59	I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings	Angelou, Maya (American, 1928-2014)	1969
51-59	Picnic at Hanging Rock	Lindsay, Joan (Australian, 1896-1984)	1975
51-59	Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit	Winterson, Jeanette (English, 1959- )	1985
51-59	The Secret River	Grenville, Kate (Australian, 1950- )	2005
60-62	The Mill of the Floss	Eliot, George (English, 1819-1880)	1860
60-62	Near to the Wild Heart	Lispector, Clarice (Ukrainian-Brazilian, 1920-1977) translation Alison Entrekin	1943 Portuguese
60-62	Thursday Night Widows	Pineiro, Claudia (Argentine, 1960- ) translation Miranda France	2005 Spanish
63-65	The Haunting of Hill House	Jackson, Shirley (American, 1916-1965)	1959
63-65	Play It as It Lays	Didion, Joan (American, 1934-2021)	1970
63-65	Interpreter of Maladies	Lahiri, Jhumpa (American, 1967- )	1999
66-74	Suite Francaise	Nemirovsky, Irene (Ukranian, 1903-1942)	1942 / 2004 French
66-74	The Grand Sophy	Heyer, Georgette (English, 1902-1974)	1950
66-74	Memoirs of a Woman Doctor	Saadawi, Nawal El (Egyptian, 1931-2021)	1958 Arabic
66-74	A Backward Place	Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer (German-British, 1927-2013)	1965
66-74	A Wizard of Earthsea	Guin, Ursula K. Le (American, 1929-2018)	1968
66-74	Thus Were Their Faces: Selected Stories	Ocampo, Silvina (Argentine, 1903-1993) trans. Daniel Balderston	1988 Spanish
66-74	We Were the Mulvaneys	Oates, Joyce Carol (American, 1938- )	1996
66-74	Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone	Rowling, J.K. (British, 1965- )	1997
66-74	Persepolis	Satrapi, Marjane (Iranian-French, 1969- )	2007 French
75-88	The Pillow Book	Shonagon, Sei (Japanese, 1017-1025)	1002 Japanese
75-88	Our Nig	Wilson, Harriet E. (American, 1825-1900)	1859
75-88	Cheri	Colette (French, 1873-1954)	1920 French
75-88	American Indian Stories	Zitkala-Sa (Yankton Dakota-American, 1876-1938)	1921
75-88	A Diary of a Young Girl	Frank, Anne (German-Dutch, 1929-1945)	1944 Dutch
75-88	The Harp in the South	Park, Ruth (New Zealander-Australian, 1925-2004)	1948
75-88	Memoirs of Hadrian	Yourcenar, Marguerite (French-American, 1903-1987)	1951 French
75-88	One Fine Day	Panter-Downes, Mollie (Armenian-American, 1932- )	1971 Armenian
75-88	Ceremony	Silko, Leslie Marmon (Laguna Pueblo-Anglo/ Mexican-American, 1948- )	1977
75-88	The Joys of Motherhood	Emechta, Buchi (Nigerian, 1944-2017)	1979
75-88	Nervous Conditions	Dangarembga, Tsitsi (Zimbabwean, 1959- )	1988
75-88	Please Look After Mother	Kyung-Sook, Shin (South Korean, 1963- )	2008 Korean
75-88	My Brilliant Friend	Ferrante, Elena (Italian, 1943- )	2011 Italian
75-88	Home	Chudori, Leila S. (Indonesian, 1962- )	2012 Indonesian
89	The Thing Around Your Neck	Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi (Nigerian-American, 1977-)	2009
90	Daughter of Fortune	Allende, Isabel (Chilean, 1942- ) translation Margaret Sayers Peden	1998 Spanish
91-94	How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents	Alvares, Julia (American, 1950- )	1991
91-94	The First Stone	Garner, Helen (Australian, 1942- )	1995
91-94	The Spare Room	Garner, Helen (Australian, 1942- )	2008
91-94	A Crack in the Wall	Pineiro, Claudia (Argentine, 1960- ) translation Miranda France	2009 Spanish
95-98	The Fountain Overflows	West, Rebecca (British, 1892-1983)	1957
95-98	Love Medicine	Erdrich, Louise (Ojibwa-American, 1954- )	1984
95-98	People of the Book	Brooks, Geraldine (Australian-American, 1955- )	2008
95-98	Akata Witch	Okorafor, Nnedi (Nigerian-American, 1974-)	2011
99	Half a Lifelong Romance	Chang, Eileen (Chinese-American, 1920-1995)	1948 Chinese
100	The Tenant of Wildfell Hall	Bronte, Anne (English. 1820-1849)	1848

 

I might have to compile a list for sci-fi and/or fantasy. I love lists and statistics and research and… READING!

 

I hope there are some familiar titles and some not-so-familiar titles in my list above. 

Happy reading!

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Title: The Night Circus

Author: Erin Morgenstern (American, 1978- )
Originally published: 2011

Page count: 488

Dates read: 3/22/23-4/3/23

2023 book goal progress: 8 out of 23

From my TBR shelf

Read my other book reviews for my 2023 goals HERE.




Description of book:

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.

First sentences:
"The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not."

Favorite quotes:

"The finest of pleasures are always the unexpected ones."

"Are we going to discuss whatever it is you are here to discuss instead of dancing around it? I was never a particularly good dancer."

"It is difficult to see a situation for what it is when you are in the midst of it. It is too familiar. Too comfortable."

CAWPILE Rating: Overall - 4.1/10 - ⭐⭐/5
Characters      - 6
Atmosphere   - 7
Writing Style - 2
Plot                - 3
Intrigue          - 4
Logic             - 3
Enjoyment     - 4
What is a CAWPILE Rating?

Review:

I did not like this book. At its best (and there were some good parts), it had wonderful, magical circus tents/acts (translation: flashy gimmicks to distract the reader from the fact that the story itself is quite mediocre). At its worst, I didn't feel for the characters (or circus) enough to care about their outcomes no matter how dire the circumstances were. Most of it was just confusing and frustrating due to the ambiguity regarding the rules of the 'game' and that it's not written in chronological order. Let's break it down a bit more...

Magic and the 'game' - Magic is real, but most people don't know it still exists. Yet every time someone is told it's more than just a show and the magic is real, no one seems all that surprised and just accepts it without question. Annoying. Two multiple-centuries old magicians each take on a student to raise them, train them in magic, and then let them duel it out to see who's better and, really, whose school of thought is better. One teaches secrecy and learning from old books, runes, and dead languages. The other teaches flashy performance, and learning from your natural ability and power within. Neither school of magic goes into detail about how it works - it just happens. It leaves much to be desired.

The rules - The rules of the game are very ambiguous, yet from the beginning it is implied that the game won’t end until one of the two students dies. This comes as a huge shock to the main characters when they discover that at the end of the book, but was a letdown to me as a reader since I knew it from the beginning. I was waiting for other rules to become known or clarified that would change my understanding, as a reader, of the game - but that never happened. It was only ambiguous to the characters and not to the reader, which is disappointing.

The chronology - This book spans 1873-1903 and jumps all over the place time-wise (and location-wise, but that doesn’t really matter since, for the most part, the location is the ‘circus’ and the city/country is irrelevant) and it destroyed the story for me. In the beginning, I would flip to earlier chapters to reread them to make sure I understood the timeline. Then, as I got further into the book, that became impractical. I instead started taking notes of dates and key events. That got to be annoying, so I just stopped and ended the book not knowing if so-and-so knows their opponent yet, if so-and-so has expressed their romantic feelings for someone, if so-and-so has died, and so on. I just didn’t care anymore. 

I wish it was written in chronological order with more of the tents and circus acts written in as normal chapters (not identified as separate parts of the story), so I felt like I wasn’t sure what was real or not. Instead, the method of being written in non-chronological order kept me from being immersed in the story. I wanted to get lost in the dream/fantasy of the circus, not focus on mixed-up dates. For most of the book, I was simply trying to keep the story straight in my head, which was incredibly frustrating

The characters - Everyone in the book is eccentric in their own way and has unique abilities - it is a circus, after all. The thing is, there are SO many characters and you jump from one perspective to the next that you don’t really get to know (or get attached to) any of the characters. I wanted someone to root for and I didn’t get that. Once you get past the individual eccentricities, you realize that all the characters are pretty one-dimensional. Yet another disappointment.

The circus - The circus is only open at night and is monochromatic in color. The entire circus is black and white with shades of gray/silver mixed in. It’s a neat concept but I don’t think you ever really get an idea of the scope and how the circus grows. It just starts and all of a sudden there’s so much to it that there’s always more to explore. I would’ve liked to see the small circus in the beginning and be able to compare it to this huge, fantastical circus in the end - but it starts ‘big’ and stays ‘big,’ the growth isn’t really included in the story. Again, I wanted to get lost in the circus, and there were short chapters describing different tents, but I wanted many more and longer descriptions. 

The title - The book is called The Night Circus, which makes sense regarding the time the circus is open… but the circus is actually called Le Cirque des Rêves, which translates to The Circus of Dreams, which I think would’ve been a much better title.

The ending - It seemed very rushed and forced. Most of the ending was due to the actions of minor characters and the major characters had little to do with it, which didn’t make much sense to me. Half the circus is powered by a magical bonfire and the other half is powered by a magician. The bonfire goes out and the magician can no longer power the circus, so a solution needs to be found. The solution is to give instructions to a 16-year-old kid (who just learned magic is real, never mind practicing it himself, who happened to run away to the circus) on how to relight the bonfire and then pass the rest of the magic to him, so he can run/own the circus. He’s told he isn’t this specially chosen person to take over the circus, he’s just there at the right time - even though it was foretold through the reading of tarot cards and the stars. So he was fated to do it, but that’s just written off. 

The contortionist, fortune teller, or either/both of the kitten trainers would have been a better fit to take over the circus due to having practiced magic and having been a part of the circus from the beginning. The main characters tell the boy he has a choice, which he has to make at that moment and, when he agrees, magically binds him for life to it which seemed very out of character and ruined the ending even more for me. Most of the book is just a nice fluffy story and then the very, very end became extremely existential and it did not seem like it belonged with the rest of the book.

OK, I think I’ve ranted long enough about this book. I haven’t read many books set in a circus, but surely there are better-written circus stories out there. I KNOW there are better books that involve magic. Don’t waste your time reading this one - you’ve already wasted enough time on the book reading this review.

Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let Erin Morgenstern have the last words:

"People are naive about many things. And they would rather write them off as evil than attempt to understand them. An unfortunate truth, but a truth nonetheless."

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

Title: A  Doll's House (play

Original language: Norwegian, Danish

Author: Henrik Ibsen (Norwegian, 1828-1906)
Originally published: 1879
Page count: 72

Dates read: 3/20/22-3/21/22

2023 book goal progress: 7 out of 23

A play that happens to be around Christmas time.

Read my other book reviews for my 2023 goals HERE.



Note inside the book:
One of the most enduringly popular dramas of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House was in its day a startlingly bold exposition of the hypocrisy and concealed struggle within a seemingly happy marriage. Ibsen's characterization of Nora scandalized 19th-century audiences, for it suggested that the naivete and childlike impulsiveness of a middle-class housewife were in fact part of a willful facade erected to achieve a slight autonomy in a society in which women were virtually powerless. Although social and artistic developments have lessened the shock of the play, it still retains its power in its depiction of material dependency in affairs of the 'heart' and that human relationships can stifle an individual's inner reality.

First line:
NORA: Hide the Christmas tree, Helen. Be sure the children do not see it till this evening, when it is dressed.

Favorite quotes:
MRS. LINDE: I have come to look for work

DR. RANK: Is that a good cure for overwork?

L: One must live, doctor.

R: Yes, the general opinion seems to be that it is necessary.

MRS. LINDE: I have learned to act prudently. Life and hard, bitter necessity have taught me that.

NILS KROGSTAD: And life has taught me not to believe in fine speeches.

L: Then life has taught you something very reasonable. But deeds you must believe in.

TORVALD HELMER (Nora's husband): I would gladly work night and day for you, Nora - bear sorrow and want for your sake. But no man would sacrifice his honor for the one he loves.

NORA: It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.

CAWPILE Rating: Overall - 5.9/10 - ⭐⭐⭐/5
Characters      - 5
Atmosphere   - 5
Writing Style - 7
Plot                - 7
Intrigue          - 7
Logic             - 4
Enjoyment     - 6
What is a CAWPILE Rating?

Review:

I have VERY mixed views about this play. I found both Nora and her husband quite petty. The way she (pretended?) to spend money and be frivolous was annoying. The way he over-the-top doted on her, yet didn't really listen to anything she had to say was also annoying. Taking out a loan should be a decision of both persons in a relationship and committing fraud is just stupid. I didn't like any of the characters, except possibly Mrs. Linde, and the general situation no longer applies to this generation. If that was all the play was, I'd say it wasn't worth the read.

BUT there's the ending, the last 7 pages or so, when Nora sits her husband down and tells him she's leaving. The dialogue is absolutely beautiful. The last bit is truly wonderful. Unfortunately, much of it won't make sense without the background knowledge given in the rest of the play, which is bleh. I recently was divorced myself and, though he asked for the divorce not me, I related to a lot of what Nora said on a very personal level.

Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let Henrik Ibsen have the last words:

TORVALD HELMER: Are not your most sacred duties to your husband and your children?

NORA: I have other duties just as sacred.

T: That you have not. What duties could those be?

N: Duties to myself.

T: Before all else, you are a wife and a mother.

N: I don’t believe that any longer. I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are—or, at all events, that I must try and become one. I know quite well, Torvald, that most people would think you right, and that views of that kind are to be found in books; but I can no longer content myself with what most people say, or with what is found in books. I must think over things for myself and get to understand them.

T: Can you not understand your place in your own home? Have you not a reliable guide in such matters as that?—have you no religion?

N: I am afraid, Torvald, I do not exactly know what religion is. I know nothing but what the clergyman said, when I went to be confirmed. He told us that religion was this, and that, and the other. When I am away from all this, and am alone, I will look into that matter too. I will see if what the clergyman said is true, or at all events if it is true for me.