Favorite Women Authors?

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Favorite Women Authors?

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1sturlington
Editado: Maio 7, 2014, 8:37 am

I bet this topic has been covered before, but I didn't see the discussion, and I am very interested who you would consider to be your top five favorite women authors and why.

For me, they would be Shirley Jackson, Margaret Atwood, Octavia Butler, and Ursula Le Guin. Each one of these authors has a book in my top 10 books of all time list. I love their characters, I love their big ideas, I love how they portray women as realistic people with all their flaws, and I love how they all play with the tropes of genre. Also, they're all just great writers, and even their "bad" books are pretty good.

As for number 5, it is a toss-up between Jane Austen and Harper Lee. Cheating, I know, but Austen wrote several books I love, while Lee wrote what is probably one of my all-time favorite books. I so wish she had written more, but I have to believe she knew what she was doing when she quit at one.

2LyzzyBee
Maio 7, 2014, 9:32 am

Iris Murdoch, George Eliot, Jane Austen, Anne Tyler, Barbara Pym.

4Nickelini
Maio 7, 2014, 12:12 pm

Margaret Atwood, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, and . . . . I feel I should add someone less classic and English major-ish. Kate Atkinson? Margaret Drabble? Penelope Fitzgerald? Carol Shields? Can't just pick five.

5LolaWalser
Editado: Maio 7, 2014, 1:58 pm

8Removido
Maio 7, 2014, 5:12 pm

I think that top five changes over time. In my old age, I appreciate the pure spleen of Zoe Heller and Muriel Spark. I also value the kindness and humanity of Pearl Buck despite the fact that she sometimes veers into sentimentality. (Maybe she balances out Heller and Spark.) Of course there's Jane Austen, but I look forward to joining the Choir Invisible with George Eliot, who can be a slog, but always seems to make it worthwhile.

9LolaWalser
Maio 7, 2014, 6:14 pm

I feel compelled to at least mention Katherine Mansfield. I like her intensely, and admire her style as much as anyone's. There's just some emotional misalignment between us, a discord of foci, that prevents me from adding her to my "fave faves".

10SChant
Maio 8, 2014, 9:39 am

A lot of people have listed their faves but not really said why. I've read many of the authors mentioned above but my true love is science-fiction so that's where 3 of my favourites come from.

It depends on mood but 5 female authors who's every work I would try to read:

Joanna Russ - for the fury and humour of 1970's & 80's feminist SF;
Pat Cadigan - for showing that females in cyberpunk could be intelligent protagonists, not just kick-ass "cyberbabes";
Aliette de Bodard - for engaging my imagination by bringing a SE Asian cultural perspective to a traditionally white/western science-fiction context, and also for her dark and disturbing Aztec fantasy works;
Sara Paretsy - for blending human and political concerns with detective fiction in the form of tough private investigator V I Warshawski;
Mary Roach - for exploring some of the more squelchy highways and byways of modern science with laugh-out-loud humour.

11Bridget770
Maio 8, 2014, 10:01 am

12japaul22
Maio 8, 2014, 10:25 am

Narrowing down to 5 is practically impossible for me, so here are the first five that pop to mind.

Jane Austen
Margaret Atwood
Hilary Mantel
Barbara Pym
Virginia Wolf

As the majority of my reading is of women authors, there are many, many more I'd like to include!

13manuelabnunes
Maio 8, 2014, 11:09 am

Hi! I'm a new member from Portugal. My first five favourite women authors are: Doris Lessing, Marguerite Yourcenar, Clarice Lispector, Jane Austen, Marguerite Duras.

142wonderY
Maio 8, 2014, 11:48 am

Louisa May Alcott
Edna Ferber
Barbara Hambly
Lois McMaster Bujold
Grace S. Richmond

Jane Austen too, but these are the writers I will always find riches, no matter which page I might be on.

15Vanessa_Kittle
Maio 8, 2014, 1:23 pm

Sarah Waters, Virginia Woolf, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Alice Munro, and Amy Bloom

16Removido
Maio 8, 2014, 5:24 pm

13, Welcome! Are you familiar with the Brazilian author (she writes in Portugese, obviously) Tereza Albues? I enjoyed her Pedra Canga very much, though I read an English translation.

What would you recommend by Duras and Yourcenar?

17manuelabnunes
Maio 9, 2014, 2:07 pm

Hi! I don't know the brazilian writer Tereza Albues. I will look for her, though, and I will follow your advice and read Pedro Canga. From Marguerite Yourcenar, I would recommend "Memoirs of Hadrian", which is written as if the narrator was the roman emperor Hadrian, or "L'Oeuvre au Noir", which I think was translated to English as "The Abyss". From Marguerite Duras, "Moderato cantabile", a very short novel, which to me is a masterpiece, or "The Lover", to start.
These two Marguerites have very different styles, as you'll see. Yourcenar doesn't have women as a subject - her characters are mostly men. Duras, on the contrary, writes as a woman and is very passionate.

19Removido
Maio 10, 2014, 1:36 pm

rebeccanyc suggests an interesting point: Are we picking favorite authors because we like their overall body of work? Or because that author has given us one favorite book?

I think my list might be different, depending on how I defined a "favorite author."

These authors have written one book I deeply love, but they either didn't write any other books, or I didn't care much for the others they did write:

Louisa May Alcott (Little Women), Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God), Gertrude Stein (Three Lives), Toni Morrison (Beloved), and Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre).

Very different list!

20southernbooklady
Maio 10, 2014, 3:15 pm

>19 nohrt4me2: Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God)

My favorite was Dust Tracks on a Road and my favorite Toni Morrison is Sula. My favorite Willa Cather isn't the usual My Antonia, but instead a book called Song of the Lark.

Some other women writers I love because of a specific book:

Joy Kogawa, Obasan
Betty Smith, Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Pat Barker, Regeneration
Anne Petry, The Street
Tillie Olsen, Tell Me a Riddle
Janisse Ray, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
Doris Betts, Souls Raised from the Dead
Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm

21rebeccanyc
Maio 10, 2014, 4:09 pm

>19 nohrt4me2: In some cases, the authors I cited for one book have written other books, and I bought those other books after I read the one I loved, but haven't read them yet. I just for the most part don't feel comfortable placing someone on a favorite author list based on one book. But since this allows me to create another list of five authors . . .

Anna Seghers for Transit (also have but haven't read The Seventh Cross
Sigrid Undset for Kristen Lavransdatter
Simone Schwartz-Bart for The Bridge of Beyond
Dorothy B. Hughes for The Expendable Man (also liked but didn't love The Blackbirder and In a Lonely Place
Tsitsi Dangarembga for Nervous Conditions but not The Book of Not

But again, I could make other choices . . .

22Nickelini
Maio 10, 2014, 4:22 pm

Good idea. Here are my one book favourites:

Rebecca West Return of the Soldier
Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights
Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre
AS Byatt Children's Book
Laura Esquivel Like Water for Chocolate
Penelope Evans First Fruits
Jenn Farrell The Devil You Know
Mary Horlock Book of Lies
Lisa Moore February
Heather O'Neill Lullabies for Little Criminals
Elizabeth Taylor Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
Sarah Waters Fingersmith

23overlycriticalelisa
Editado: Maio 10, 2014, 7:03 pm

Are we picking favorite authors because we like their overall body of work? Or because that author has given us one favorite book?

this has stopped me from answering the op. although i was coming here to say that the only overall body of work that i'm comfortable calling "favorite" is by toni morrison and i'd probably be alright giving a nod to anne tyler although i don't love her work (but i like it quite a lot). i can only think of one male author as well, so this isn't a gender thing. i just don't usually like all of an author's work and realized when this was posed that i don't really think in terms of favorite authors, just favorite books. i have plenty of books that i love that are written by women but i'm not always bowled over by the rest of their books, or i haven't gotten to them to know if i will like the rest of what they've written.

some books since i can't do authors:
the handmaid's tale by margaret atwood tied for my favorite book since i first read it
the fountainhead by ayn rand tied for my favorite book - don't hate me, i don't ascribe to her philosophy, believe me
song of solomon by toni morrison
by the light of my father's smile by alice walker

for a 5th i might say bel canto by ann patchett or jane eyre but i think they're probably further down on the list...

(edited to fix touchstone)

24lemontwist
Maio 12, 2014, 6:16 pm

My metric for picking favorites is: if a new book came out by the author, I'd go out and get a copy ASAP to read it.

25overlycriticalelisa
Maio 12, 2014, 6:23 pm

also, i wanted to say how disappointed i am in myself that among this list of favorites of yours (all of yours) i can't believe how few of them i've even heard of. i've got work to do and reading to get to apparently!

26Nickelini
Maio 13, 2014, 2:44 am

From the original post "but I didn't see the discussion, and I am very interested who you would consider to be your top five favorite women authors and why" and also a comment back in post 10 "A lot of people have listed their faves but not really said why."

Personally, I didn't go there because it's difficult to put into words why I love these authors. But I think these are excellent questions, and really the meat of what we are exploring, aren't they? In my first post (body of work, #4), I mostly picked classic authors, and I love them for having studied them and what I discovered in my studies. Hardly original thoughts.

Then we get to my one hit wonders . . . of the ones that people probably have never heard of . . . (disclaimer: here I reference the website www.belletrista.com. This now on hiatus site was the brainchild of a fellow LTer, Avaland. No one will profit from you clicking through to the links I give, unless you decide on your own to purchase the suggested book at the retailer of your choice. I am honoured for the opportunity to be able to share my love for these authors and books, and share them with the big wide internet.)

Jenn Farrell - I've read two of her very short short-story collections, and she leaves me with my mouth hanging open. Raw, gritty, but so true to life. If this sounds like something you might like, I reviewed the Devil You Know for Belletrista ( http://www.belletrista.com/2011/Issue11%20/features_3.php)

Another one-book author I really liked (and also reviewed for Belletrista) was Mary Horlock and Book of Lies. Some at LT have labelled this "YA" and I think they are really missing the nuance here. A few people have followed me up on this recommendation and loved it too. ( http://www.belletrista.com/2012/Issue16/features_2.php)

One that seems obscure to me, although it was nominated for the Orange Prize and CanadaReads, is Lullabies for Little Criminals. Most people I've given it to have loved it, although my sister-in-law who reads everything, found it too raw and real (she works with troubled youth--the subject of the book).

The only other one from my one hit wonders that is obscure is First Fruits by Penelope Evans. To me it seemed to have the literary along with the readable, so not sure why this one is unknown. I'll try something else by her for sure.

And now I have to apologize for one of my favourite authors who I missed -- Roma Tearne. She was born in Sri Lanka and moved to the UK when she was a child. She writes stunningly poetic but also empathetic books about Sri Lanka . . . and also about the civil war, and about being an immigrant in England. I've read all of her books: Mosquito is my favourite, but I also loved Bone China, Brixton Beach, the Swimmer (nominated for the Orange Prize) and The Road to Urbino. Although her first book is the one I loved best, it's been interesting to read through her growth as a writer. I had to honour to interview her for Belletrista too ( http://www.belletrista.com/2012/Issue18/features_1.php)

Here's some more information about authors who you might just skim past. I hope others can share details too. Sure, we all know why someone might love a Bronte, Woolf, or Austen. What about the others?

27southernbooklady
Maio 13, 2014, 8:29 am

Mostly the authors I love have written books that either made me understand better what it is to be me, made me want to be something more, or made the world a bigger, more beautiful place.

But they have all done so in beautifully crafted language.

Virginia Woolf is a case in point: She's a hard writer to "get," but when you do, it's a revelation. I'd say Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse were the first books I ever read where I suddenly understood what was meant by the phrase "inward journey." Learning to read Virginia Woolf made me read everything differently, afterwards.

28rebeccanyc
Maio 13, 2014, 9:08 am

Going back to the writers I listed in >18 rebeccanyc: to explain why.

Hilary Mantel -- Because I admire the risks she takes in writing all different kinds of books, and because I think she has a wonderful writing style and deep insight into people and compassion for those who are "different"

Mavis Gallant -- Because I was stunned when I first read her stories by how much she could pack into a short story.

Anne Fadiman -- Because I was amazed by the depth of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down and because I just LOVE LOVE LOVE Ex Libris and give it to people all the time. I would read anything she writes.

Magdalena Tulli -- Because I was so taken by the world she created in the first book I read by her, In Red, that I almost missed my subway stop two days in a row. She has a beautiful writing style and meshes the past and the present, the real and the unreal.

Shirley Jackson -- Because I admire the way she skewers pretension, because she has compassion for the "different," and because she has a wicked sense of humor.

Will come back to the ones in >21 rebeccanyc: later to explain why I liked the books I liked.

29sturlington
Maio 13, 2014, 10:06 am

I love reading about why these women authors are your favorites. These posts are inspiring me to try some authors I may have previously avoided or have never heard of.

30rockinrhombus
Editado: Maio 13, 2014, 10:55 am

Mary Doria Russell because she is a beautiful writer and makes an era or world come alive like few writers have for me. Jane Austen because she makes me giggle. Louisa May Alcott because she did what she had to do and did it well. Mary Stewart because her stories are compelling and comfortable. Charlotte Bronte because she created a character with character, but who remained joyful. Maya Angelou because she is true.

31LolaWalser
Maio 13, 2014, 11:04 am

>27 southernbooklady:

It's interesting that we both love Woolf, but in what I feel are different ways, or for different reasons.

That's a good intro to the little I have to say about "why" my biggest favourites are my biggest favourites--to borrow from Montaigne, because they were they and I was I. It would take essays to explain what I like about each, but the reason I'm, ultimately, in love with Woolf, but not with Katherine Mansfield, is not wholly explicable. One fits me better than the other and I'm not sure I can fully know why.

I do like my biggest favourites comprehensively. I have read everything or almost everything by them and, typically, I like it all. Colette's spirit is in everything she wrote; I love Colette's spirit, therefore I like everything she wrote. I don't necessarily like it all equally, or in the same way, for the same reasons--but that basic sympathy that makes me a fan is a given before I start reading. It also changes the way I read and understand even their minor, or less good, or even failed works.

I also know more about my biggest favourites than about most writers. I tend to dislike biographies and avoid knowing more about the author than I would about any random human being.

The favourites are an exception, precisely because of that personal connection. I want to know them as intimately as possible, and I'll take it all: bios, diaries, gossip.

32southernbooklady
Maio 13, 2014, 11:16 am

>31 LolaWalser: Colette's spirit is in everything she wrote

Oh, this is so true.

33Removido
Maio 14, 2014, 11:01 am

If nothing else, this list has made me feel I should give Virginia another try, though I get so impatient with her ultra-fine shadings of feeling that I sometimes that I feel I'm just wasting my time.

Now why don't I feel that way about Henry James, who is one of my favorite authors?

34nancyewhite
Maio 15, 2014, 1:45 pm

In every instance, single-book and body-of-work, these writers resonate with me in the deepest places of my spirit. They speak to me in ways that I can't quite articulate. Looking at the list in a single place, I see that what matters most to me is a willingness to look directly into the darkness while still having a beating heart of compassion. More specifically, each seems to largely be writing about what it means to be a woman. As someone who was brought up poor, is largely self-taught and sometimes feels intimidated or as though I don't speak the same language as people with more traditional education, I'm particularly drawn to explorations of class. Many of these changed or saved me.

Single Book
Leslie Feinberg - Stone Butch Blues: Devastating look at being poor and outside of the gender binary.
Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights: Captured something that spoke to my wild teenage spirit. I read this one over and over.
Marilyn French - The Women's Room: As a young feminist, this honed my rage and grief. In particular, its unrelenting look at rape tempered by the notion that women could build community and family with one another.
Mary Gaitskill - Bad Behavior: Dark, dark, dark collection of short stories that made me feel less alone in my weirdness.
Bonnie Jo Campbell - American Salvage: I would never have known about this if it wasn't for Library Thing. A wallop of a book. I didn't really think a book could knock the breath out of me anymore. This one did.

Body of Work
Jeanette Winterson - She writes beautifully about things that matter.
Dorothy Allison - Brutally honest look at being poor and what that feels like while writing characters that are never less than real.
Margaret Atwood - What is there to say that you don't know? She's on nearly everyone's list.
Anne Tyler - She taught me that a book doesn't have to make you suicidal to be emotionally resonant. I adore her characters all of whom are somehow unreal without being fake.
May Sarton - The fiction and the journals. Not the poetry so much. Curmudgeonly. Smart. Gruff. Spiritual. Isolated. Connected. It moved me deeply to be so intimately involved in her life as she aged. It also made me realize how little literature I've read about being a woman getting old. (also see Loretta Lynn's 'Miss Being a Mrs.' for the same in popular music).

35overlycriticalelisa
Maio 17, 2014, 3:29 pm

>34 nancyewhite:

what you said about anne tyler - yes, yes, yes! so well put. i'm so going to steal that when i try to push her books into people's hands (which i do all the time already).

and i guess i'll have to check out bad behavior and american salvage and so many more from this thread that i'll be starring and referring back to often...

also, >33 nohrt4me2: i thought the same thing about virginia woolf reading through this.

36lemontwist
Maio 17, 2014, 9:15 pm

37rebeccanyc
Maio 18, 2014, 10:34 am

>34 nancyewhite:, >35 overlycriticalelisa:, >36 lemontwist: I learned about American Salvage here on LT and it made me a Bonnie Jo Campbell fan.

>33 nohrt4me2:, 35 But I'm not ready to try Virgina Woolf again!

38vwinsloe
Editado: Jun 3, 2014, 10:07 am

>24 lemontwist:. I agree with that reasoning (about buying a new book by the author the minute it came out) but a few of my past favorites have not kept up the same quality as they had when I fell in love with their books. For example:

Rita Mae Brown
Anne Rice
Annie Proulx
Barbara Kingsolver
Anne Tyler

I raced to buy books by these authors as soon as they came out until I was disappointed more than once. I agree with a lot of the favorite authors listed above in this thread, but not many of them have published more than a handful of books. Margaret Atwood, the obvious exception.

>30 rockinrhombus:. I love Mary Doria Russell, too; the jesuits in space books are two of my favorite all time books. But since then I have found her books, although well researched and written, to be a little dry and nowhere near as thought provoking.

39ligature
Maio 27, 2014, 2:15 pm

So many of my favorite authors have been mentioned; here are two more who I love: Patricia A. McKillip and Catherynne M. Valente. Both write amazing speculative fiction, and I highly recommend them to anyone who wants to get lost in fascinating new worlds.

40fikustree
Editado: Maio 29, 2014, 12:43 pm

Alice Walker Reading The Temple of my Familiar in college gave me a lot to think about in terms of gender and the way women are perceived and how they deal with it. I love her style of writing as well.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I especially loved Half a Yellow Sun but Purple Hibiscus was fantastic too. She writes very clearly and relate-ably but the stories are so different from my personal experience.

Monique Roffey I really loved Archipelago though The White Woman on the Green Bicycle was great too. She is terrific with characters and adding suspense in books that aren't at all mysteries. I couldn't stop reading. Plus since they take place in the Caribbean they are enjoyable beach reads.

Jeanette Winterson I have only read a few titles by her but I want to read more. Very powerful author.

Vanessa Veselka has only one novel Zazen and I'm surprised it's not as well known. It's all about domestic terrorism in the not to distant future (or maybe even right now) but since it's an unreliable narrator and she changes the names of all the places it's hard to know what's real and what isn't. Very interesting.

Lidia Yuknavitch Another very powerful author from a really interesting perspective.

41twogerbils
Editado: Ago 14, 2014, 1:01 pm

Marion Zimmer Bradley for fantasy from a woman's perspective

Rebecca West for the best travel book ever written

Susan Hill for modern classic ghost stories with atmosphere

Sarah Hall for a book that made me cry, the prose was so beautifully written

Edith Wharton for being surprising relevant today

Agatha Christie for being the grande dame of mystery.

42meghanas
Mar 21, 2015, 11:16 pm

I feel weird commenting on this because this topic hasn't been posted in for 6+ months, but I have a lot of feelings about authors!

Some of my favorite female authors:

Megan Whalen Turner for her Queen's Thief series, and her deftly characterized females.

Elizabeth Wein for breaking my heart with Code Name Verity, and her female friendships.

Kristin Cashore for her beautiful ladies in the Seven Kingdoms series, and particularly how she created worlds inspired by non-Western cultures.

43riddleraven
Abr 5, 2015, 12:14 am

Tamora Pierce and Sharon Shinn are my favorite female authors.

44meghanas
Editado: Abr 6, 2015, 9:07 am

>43 riddleraven: I also love Tamora Pierce so much, I can't believe I didn't include her in my post! She's probably had more influence on me than any other author. Do you have a favorite series of hers?

45riddleraven
Abr 10, 2015, 8:59 pm

Meghanas

Yay!

The Circle series! Will of the Empress was the first book of hers I ever read. AND THERE'S A SEQUEL TO IT COMING OUT THIS YEAR APPARENTLY AHHH.
Then Tricksters. Then Terrier.... which I weirdly didn't like the first time I read it. What's wrong with me?! xD

I've followed her avidly and re-read her a lot so she's definitely had a lot of influence on me too. On my tastes at the very least.

46meghanas
Abr 11, 2015, 4:12 pm

>45 riddleraven: YES, I love the Circle series so much!!! Most people I talk to like the Tortall books best, but for me it's Circle all the way. I also really like the Protector of the Small series?

Is there really a sequel coming out?? That's so exciting, I've waited so long for that I'd lost hope!

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