[tweetmeme source=”sarahockler” only_single=false]We’re taking a break from YA today to bring you The Jezebel Challenge, my 2010 reading project inspired by Jezebel.com’s 75 Books Every Woman Should Read. I stumbled upon the 2008 compilation during one of my late night / early morning non-parentally-supervised Web wanderings after finding a copy of Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying in a local thrift store and adding it to my Goodreads list.
I’m glad I discovered Jezebel’s list, because while I have tons of resources for great YA recommendations, I’ve been on the lookout for some good adult fiction and classic literature for an occasional switch-up. I also like that this particular list focuses mostly on women authors. Three of my favorite adult authors are men — Jack Kerouac, Tom Robbins, and Douglas Adams — so my non-YA bookshelves are disproportionately stacked with dudes.
There are lots of “best books” and “top classic books” and “you should totally read these books or you’re lame” lists out there, and each of them is more humbling to me than the last. Jezebel’s lady list is no exception. I don’t know how I’ve lived this long as a woman, a reader, and a writer without reading some of these works.
To remedy this gross oversight in my reading education, I’m officially adopting Jezebel’s list as my reading project for 2010 (and possibly into 2011, if we’re being honest). As you can see from all that green, I’ve got quite a bit of catching up to do, but I’m looking forward to it. Of the listed books I’ve already read, I’ve seriously loved them all — some are even in my top ten — so I trust that this will be a rewarding experience.
I’ll be tracking my progress all year on my Jezebel Challenge shelf at Goodreads. If you want to take the challenge with me, let me know! I’d love to have a friend to chat with along the way.
My personal key for the list below:
*Read it!*
Own it, but haven’t read it yet.
Need to get it and add it to the TBR list!
++ I’ve read other works by the author.
Here goes…
75 Books Every Woman Should Read, by Jezebel.com
- The Lottery (and Other Stories), Shirley Jackson
- To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf ++
- The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
- White Teeth, Zadie Smith
- The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende
- Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion ++
- Excellent Women, Barbara Pym
- *The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath* ++
- Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
- The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
- Beloved, Toni Morrison
- Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
- Like Life, Lorrie Moore ++
- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
- *Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë*
- The Delta of Venus, Anais Nin ++
- A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
- A Good Man Is Hard To Find (and Other Stories), Flannery O’Connor
- The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx ++
- You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down, Alice Walker
- Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
- *To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee*
- Fear of Flying, Erica Jong
- Earthly Paradise, Colette
- Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt
- Property, Valerie Martin
- Middlemarch, George Eliot
- Annie John, Jamaica Kincaid
- The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir
- Runaway, Alice Munro
- The Heart is A Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
- The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston ++
- Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
- You Must Remember This, Joyce Carol Oates ++
- Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
- Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill
- The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr
- *I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou*++
- *A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Betty Smith*
- And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie
- *Bastard out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison*
- The Secret History, Donna Tartt
- The Little Disturbances of Man, Grace Paley
- The Portable Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Parker
- The Group, Mary McCarthy
- Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
- The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
- *The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank*
- Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
- Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag
- *In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez* ++
- The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
- Fun Home, Alison Bechdel
- *Three Junes, Julia Glass*
- A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft
- Sophie’s Choice, William Styron
- Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann
- Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford
- Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
- The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin
- *The Red Tent, Anita Diamant*
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
- The Face of War, Martha Gellhorn
- My Antonia, Willa Cather
- Love In The Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- The Harsh Voice, Rebecca West
- Spending, Mary Gordon
- The Lover, Marguerite Duras
- The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
- Tell Me a Riddle, Tillie Olsen
- Nightwood, Djuna Barnes
- Three Lives, Gertrude Stein
- Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
- I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
- Possession, A.S. Byatt
While it’s impossible to create an all-encompassing list of great books for women, Jezebel’s recommendations look diverse and interesting, and I can’t wait to dive in. Personally, I’d also add these to the list (especially Atwood, Lindbergh, and Blum, who aren’t otherwise represented):
- The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
- Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
- A Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
- The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, Sylvia Plath
- The Diaries of Anais Nin, Anais Nin
- Annapurna: A Woman’s Place, Alrene Blum
[tweetmeme source=”sarahockler”]What about you? Do you agree with Jezebel’s list? Do you have any must-reads for women not covered here? And remember — if you want to read with me or chat about any of these books, let me know!
I am really ashamed to say that I have only read eight of those titles. *Cowers in embarrassment*
You! I’m in the same uncultured boat! lol
I’m shocked they left A Handmaid’s Tale and Anais Nin’s Diaries off their list! Good additions.
What about books you haven’t read in a long time? I’m not sure how I’d categorize books I read 10+ years ago.
Thanks for reminding me about Goodreads. I need to keep up with it. Some of these titles I look at and think “Did I read that? I think I read that…”
Yeah, I wasn’t sure how to categorize the “oldies” either — like To Kill a Mockingbird and Jane Eyre. Basically, all the stuff I probably read in class with you back in the day! 🙂 I decided to keep them as “read” for now, but I may actually re-read them. I remember loving To Kill a Mockingbird.
I was so happy when Goodreads was invented. I’d always wanted to track the books I read and what I thought of them. Much better than a Word doc or spreadsheet!
Good information, good lists; anything Mitford is exceptional in my book (ha)
I should read more….being a mother of an author…I’ve only read four off that list!!
Well I know you read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn since you gave it to me! You can read the others I have if you want. I’m almost done with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.