Female Writers

Nhead

Can anybody recommend books by female authors? I always mean to pick up more books written by women. I have read the Brontes, Austen etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

IvyTheTerrible

I've recently discovered Kate Atkinson and I'm really enjoying her novels.

diddlybit

I really adore A. M. Homes, especially her short stories.

Also love Ali Smith and Jeanette Winterson.

Try Anne Enright if you are interested in Irish literature, I know a lot of people didn't like The Gathering but I loved it. Or Kate O' Brien, newly reveived author who was writing in the thirties to fifties. Read Emma Donoghue's Room a while back, it was great and haven't met anyone who didn't enjoy it.

Hookah

E Annie Proulx.

Author of 'The Shipping News' and 'Brokeback Mountain', amongst others.

Nhead

Thanks all:)

Asphyxia

Jodi Picolt
Cecelia Ahern
Lauren Weisburger
Anne Rice

Gneez

Currently reading V by A.C Crispin and it's not very good

DublinWriter

Audrey Niffenegger (Time Traveller's Wife) and anything by Diana Athill.

Cat Melodeon

+1 for E Annie Proulx

If you've read Jane Eyre, you should read Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.

I also recommend:
Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things
Elizabeth Bowen (Anglo-Irish novelist writing around the time of the War of Independence)
Nadine Gordimer (South African writer most famous for her anti-apartheid writings)
Agatha Christie
Margaret Atwood (sort of science fiction)
Harper Lee (To kill a Mockingbird is one of my favourite novels)
MM Kaye (big historical novels set in India in colonial times).

The Little House on the Prarie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder are pretty good too - most people think of the tv series but the books are far superior, especially if you wanted to be a cowgirl when you grew up.

chasmcb

Another vote for E Annie Proulx here.

And Flannery O'Connor, strikingly distinctive writer. Lorrie Moore is another I've read and enjoyed.

I enjoy some Amelie Nothomb.
Also a range of female fantasy writers, but I suppose you are looking for general fiction?

Nhead

bluewolf wrote: »

I enjoy some Amelie Nothomb.
Also a range of female fantasy writers, but I suppose you are looking for general fiction?

No, shoot away on the fantasy writers too:)

Nhead

Nhead wrote: »

No, shoot away on the fantasy writers too:)

In that case: kate elliot, katharine kerr, robin hobb

JohnFalstaff

Seeing as you have already read the Brontës and Jane Austen you've possibly also already read Virginia Woolf's work, but if not I would recommend it - I return to her work again and again, and find myself newly amazed every time.

Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy is also well worth checking out and I would second the votes for Annie Proulx (especially her short story collections) and Jeanette Winterson.

sallydan

Id like to add lori lansens to that list! rush home road is a beautiful book

Dibble

I really enjoyed Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin

Dibble

Dibble wrote: »

I really enjoyed Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin

Oh yes, I forgot to mention Handmaid's Tale

ItsNoAlias

Try The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall. Its a very good dystopic/feminist fiction and I really enjoyed it.

emeraldstar

Cat Melodeon wrote: »

+1 for E Annie Proulx

If you've read Jane Eyre, you should read Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.

I also recommend:
Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things
Elizabeth Bowen (Anglo-Irish novelist writing around the time of the War of Independence)
Nadine Gordimer (South African writer most famous for her anti-apartheid writings)
Agatha Christie
Margaret Atwood (sort of science fiction)
Harper Lee (To kill a Mockingbird is one of my favourite novels)
MM Kaye (big historical novels set in India in colonial times).

The Little House on the Prarie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder are pretty good too - most people think of the tv series but the books are far superior, especially if you wanted to be a cowgirl when you grew up.

LOVE Elizabeth Bowen.

Also, Sarah Waters. Fingersmith is a great book.

Toby Take a Bow

+1 on Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Dystopian sci-fi.

Sarah Hall's The Electric Michelangelo. Haven't read The Carhullian Army but have been meaning to for ages.

Joyce Carol Oates, her short stories are great, and she's supposed to be a fantastic novelist too.

Lorrie Moore. Again, I've only read some of her short stories, but really messed up stuff. Also supposed to be a great novelist.

Daphne Du Maurier, Siri Hustvedt's What I loved, Jhumpa Lahiri.

diddlybit

This thread is great, so many ideas for future reading.

Nhead

Thanks again everyone I have loads to read:D

pog it

Two really talented Irish writers I would recommend are Claire Keegan (short stories) and Moya Cannon (poetry).

spanx

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan is superb.

kickarykee

I've mentioned those books several times here before, but I love The Demon's Lexicon series by Sarah Rees Brennan.
She's not only female, but also Irish

If you're into completely non-cheesy but still very emotional, intelligent young adult (urban) fantasy, you should definitely take a look at it

Denerick

I've always been meaning to read Middlemarch by George Eliot. Sometime this summer, perhaps.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

RichT

Mo Hayder is a female author I have read a lot of. She writes crime novels, but be warned they are very graphic and can be quite disturbing!

http://www.mohayder.net/

Doris Lessing - The Good Terrorist

I find Doris a bit of a tough read, to be honest, but the above is a cracking story.

pog it

Has anyone read anything by Nuala Ní Chonchúir or Anne Haverty? Both feature in the current series of Peregrine Readings from the Irish Writers' Centre and this is the first I'd heard of either of them.

godspal

Well if you like Wuthering Heights Jean Rhys' Wide Sargosso Sea is right up your alley.
Mary Shelley is another 19th Century Author worth reading. Her poetry is amazing, but we all know Frankenstein.

I also have to recommend Ayn Rand, not because I am the greatest fan, its because her books are so influential.

Fragglefur

Second Arundhati Roy and Elizabeth Bowen. Also Nuala O Faolain and Anne Enright

dots03

I will add my name to the list of Margaret Atwood fans. I have read Oryx & Crake, The Year of the Flood and The Handmaid's Tale and I found all 3 books to be original, engaging and very enjoyable.

Hermy

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Dowdy

Has anyone mentioned Marilynne Robinson yet? I have yet to read Housekeeping or any of her non-fiction, but the coupled pair of complementary novels, Gilead and Home, are two of the best novels I've ever read. Her prose is painstakingly crafted so as to look very simple and yet it is devastatingly effective in its economy and emotional force.

She was recently nominated for the Booker International award, but lost out to Philip Roth. She got the Pulitzer for Gilead too, and the Orange Prize for Home. A phenomenally good writer.

Da Shins Kelly

Flannery O' Connor and Margaret Atwood. They are all you need.

oranje

pog it wrote: »

Has anyone read anything by Nuala Ní Chonchúir or Anne Haverty? Both feature in the current series of Peregrine Readings from the Irish Writers' Centre and this is the first I'd heard of either of them.

I have read the short story collection "Nude" by Nuala Ní Chonchúir which had some really good stories.
I also have her bilingual poetry collection "Tattoo/Tatú", that is also very interesting if you like poetry. I was really interested in the fact that she had Irish and English versions of each poem.

oranje

Nhead wrote: »

Can anybody recommend books by female authors? I always mean to pick up more books written by women. I have read the Brontes, Austen etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I wrote a blog post on my favourite authors elsewhere but so I thought I would copy the entries for female writers as they don't seem to have been mentioned here:

Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie – She is one of the most inspiring writers alive, she writes from her heart and about a world she knows intimately. Her second novel “Half of a Yellow Sun” is a beautifully written ode to a lost country and one of the finest books I have ever read. She has had many short stories published including the enthralling collection “The Thing Around Your Neck”. As she is still so young I hope that I will have much more of her work to look forward to in the coming years.

Kerstin Ekman – She has published many works that I have not read but I have selected her because of three novels of hers that I found quite exceptional. “Blackwater” and “Under the Snow” are two thrillers beyond the ordinary because they are also literary works which is unusual for that format. “The Forest of Hours” is a science fiction work à la Tolkien which was a real surprise for me. Kerstin Ekman is a writer who has covered many genres while retaining a powerful writing style.

Anita Shreve – There is something about Anita Shreve’s writing that resonates with me. Every one of the novels I have read has been a pleasure from beginning to end, she is a wonderful narrator, she makes the reader feel as though they are actually in the story. In terms of literary merit I think that she is extremely underrated, perhaps she is a victim of her own popularity. By any measure “Light on Snow” is an especially wonderful novel.

Mary Lawson – Although this Canadian novelist has only published two books, “Crow Lake” and “The Other Side of the Bridge”, I include her because both those books were complete, timeless novels.

Kate Grenville – I have read three of her novels “Lilian’s Story”, “The Idea of Perfection” and “The Secret River”. I include her on my list because each of these books demonstrated her writing talent, exploring very different themes in different historical periods. “The Secret River” is a devastating read, a no holds barred insight into the barbarism of colonization.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

Alice Munro! I just finished a collection of her short stories (The Progress of Love), definitely going to read anything else I can find by her, it was amazing.

Add my votes for Annie Proulx and Margaret Atwood as well.

Toni Morrison. She's black as well so you get extra points.

Nicola Barker (only read one of her books -Darkmans- but it was 800+ pages long and I barely noticed).

Molly Keane, another Anglo-Irish writer, later and darker than Bowen.

Not sure if she's been mentioned but Anne Tyler.

Isabelle Allende.