In a recent post, I discussed trying to read books written by women. This led me to consider which women authors I would recommend, and I came up with a list of books by women that I think are entertaining and enlightening reads. Of course, I am not the only person to have come up with such a list, and if you are so inclined, you can find 50, 100, or even 500 more books by women to fill up your “to read” shelf.
Here is my list (my absolute favorite books are starred and my favorite women authors are bolded):
- Kate Atkinson: Life After Life: A Novel
- Margaret Atwood: Cat’s Eye
; The Handmaid’s Tale
*; Oryx and Crake
*
- Jane Austen: Emma
; Persuasion
; Pride and Prejudice
*
- Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre
*
- Octavia Butler: Lilith’s Brood
*; Parable of the Sower
*; Parable of the Talents
- Kate Chopin: The Awakening
- Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca
*
- Jean Hegland: Into the Forest: A Novel
- Patricia Highsmith: The Talented Mr. Ripley
- Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House (Penguin Classics)
*; The Sundial
*; We Have Always Lived in the Castle
*
- P.D. James: The Children of Men
*
- Nancy Kress: Beggars in Spain: The Original Hugo & Nebula Winning Novella
- Madeleine L’Engle: A Wrinkle in Time (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet)
- Anne Lamott: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
- Ursula K. Le Guin: Always Coming Home
*; The Dispossessed
; The Lathe Of Heaven: A Novel
; The Left Hand of Darkness
*; The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories
; The Word for World is Forest
- Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird
*
- Erin Morgenstern: The Night Circus
*
- Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler’s Wife
- Flannery O’Connor: A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories
*
- Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar
- E. Annie Proulx: The Shipping News
- Mary Doria Russell: Children of God (Ballantine Reader’s Circle)
; The Sparrow: A Novel (Ballantine Reader’s Circle)
*
- Dorothy L. Sayers: Gaudy Night: A Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery with Harriet Vane
*
- Sheri S. Tepper: Grass
- Jo Walton: Among Others
- Kate Wilhelm: Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang: A Novel
- Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog
*
- M.K. Wren: A Gift Upon the Shore
*
Shannon Turlington 
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