Last week, the Guardian published 1000 novels everyone must read, and after I’d worked out how few of them I’d read, I started to work out how many of their choices were written by women.
I count 216 novels (I’m hoping I didn’t miss any pseudonyms – I started googling all the names I couldn’t recognise…). Depressingly, I was almost expecting fewer – the equivalent list of 1000 films to see before you die has absurdly few films by women. But that’s mostly due to the film industry itself – there just aren’t that many women directors. Is it true that little more than 20% of authors are women?
Of course, I have to admit I’ve read hardly any of them, and while I’ve heard of most, there are a few names that are new to me. Some of the books are already in our GWL Recommends section on the main website, but we’d love to know if you’ve read any of these and recommend them.
And are there any novels by women that should be on the list? Maybe we can get to 500 books by women that everyone should read…
Those novels by women (Taken from the Guardian website, so the slightly random order comes from their seven sections – Comedy, Crime; Family and Self; Love; Science fiction and fantasy; State of the nation and War & Travel):
- The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge
- According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge
- No Bed for Bacon by Caryl Brahms and SJ Simon
- The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
- Mister Johnson by Joyce Cary
- The Horse’s Mouth by Joyce Cary
- The Provincial Lady by EM Delafield
- Ennui by Maria Edgeworth
- Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
- Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
- The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay
- Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
- A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
- Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
- Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym
- Moo by Jane Smiley
- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
- The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
- The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark
- Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
- A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark
- Before Lunch by Angela Thirkell
- The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon
- Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary E Braddon
- And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
- The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
- The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
- The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
- Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell
- Poetic Justice by Amanda Cross
- My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
- Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
- The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
- Cover Her Face by PD James
- A Taste for Death by PD James
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- Toxic Shock by Sara Paretsky
- Blacklist by Sara Paretsky
- Judgment in Stone by Ruth Rendell
- Live Flesh by Ruth Rendell
- Whose Body? by Dorothy L Sayers
- Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Le Sayers
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
- A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine
- A Fatal inversion by Barbara Vine
- King Solomon’s Carpet by Barbara Vine
- Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
- Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
- The L Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks
- Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
- A Legacy by Sybille Bedford
- Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles
- Evelina by Fanny Burney
- Wise Children by Angela Carter
- The Professor’s House by Willa Cather
- The Awakening by Kate Chopin
- The Vagabond by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
- Manservant and Maidservant by Ivy Compton-Burnett
- The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir
- My New York Diary by Julie Doucet
- The Millstone by Margaret Drabble
- The Gathering by Anne Enright
- Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud
- Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
- The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins
- Good Behaviour by Molly Keane
- Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann
- The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
- The Rector’s Daughter by FM Mayor
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
- Who Do You Think You Are? by Alice Munro
- The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
- The Shipping News by E Annie Proulx
- Pointed Roofs by Dorothy Richardson
- Alberta and Jacob by Cora Sandel
- Unless by Carol Shields
- We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
- The Three Sisters by May Sinclair
- A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
- On Beauty by Zadie Smith
- The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead
- Angel by Elizabeth Taylor
- Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson
- The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
- Frost in May by Antonia White
- Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
- To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
- Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
- Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
- Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
- Emma by Jane Austen
- Persuasion by Jane Austen
- Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
- The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
- The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
- Vilette by Charlotte Bronte
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
- Look At Me by Anita Brookner
- Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
- Possession by AS Byatt
- My Antonia by Willa Cather
- A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
- Claudine a l’ecole by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
- Cheri by Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette
- The Princess of Cleves by Madame de Lafayette
- The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier
- Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
- The Lover by Marguerite Duras
- Adam Bede by George Eliot
- Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
- The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
- The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
- Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell
- The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
- The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
- The Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer
- Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer
- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
- The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
- The Far Pavillions by Mary Margaret Kaye
- Moon over Africa by Pamela Kent
- The Echoing Grove by Rosamond Lehmann
- The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann
- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
- Zami by Audre Lorde
- Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
- The Silent Duchess by Dacia Maraini
- Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller
- Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
- The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
- Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
- Arturo’s Island by Elsa Morante
- Delta of Venus by Anais Nin
- Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
- Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
- Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan
- The Reluctant Orphan by Sara Seale
- At Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart
- I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
- The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif
- Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
- Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
- Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
- The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
- The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
- The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
- The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
- East Lynne by Ellen Wood
- The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- Darkmans by Nicola Barker
- Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite
- Kindred by Octavia Butler
- Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
- The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter
- Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
- Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq
- Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
- The Children of Men by PD James
- Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones
- The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski
- The Earthsea Series by Ursula Le Guin
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
- Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing
- Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
- The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling
- The Female Man by Joanna Russ
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
- Affinity by Sarah Waters
- Orlando by Virginia Woolf
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave by Aphra Behn
- The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
- Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
- The Virgin in the Garden by AS Byatt
- Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
- Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
- Middlemarch by George Eliot
- Silas Marner by George Eliot
- Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
- North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
- July’s People by Nadine Gordimer
- South Riding by Winifred Holtby
- Passing by Nella Larsen
- The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
- The Group by Mary McCarthy
- Novel on Yellow Paper by Stevie Smith
- White Teeth by Zadie Smith
- The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
- The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
- Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge
- Regeneration by Pat Barker
- Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden
- One of Ours by Willa Cather
- Day by AL Kennedy
- Fortunes of War by Olivia Manning
- History by Elsa Morante
- Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
- The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
- Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
Better start reading :)
