Female Authors

okay, i already take half of that back. j.k rowling has written some books that have been super entertaining - and i guess unique to a whole bunch of people. i'm just not one of them.

but i stand by jane austen sucking me off. if i even have to look at another austen book i'll probably use the corners of the cover to cardboard cut my eyes. my teacher in high school was some what obsessed with using her books as texts.

I haven't read much of Austen, so I can't really criticize her, but from the third of Pride and Prejudice that I did read, I got the impression she was quite a talented writer who wrote about things that didn't particularly interest me. Sound fair?

Oh, yes....Jane Eyre is my favorite! That's one you can read every few years and find something new. I like to shuffle The Brontes with some Frances Hodgson Burnett every once in a while (speaking of female authors).

I got the impression she was quite a talented writer who wrote about things that didn't particularly interest me. Sound fair?

that's about the size of it. and maybe talent was a stretch. it really depends on what you see as talented i guess. really fucking boring though and to me.

I went to a reading/Q&A for Alice Sebold's The Almost Moon. I didn't like it as much as Lucky or The Lovely Bones (which I will agree, was rather corny in places) but she's still really good at setting a scene. When she signed my copy of the book I think I said something fairly gibberishly because I was in so much awe.

I did like reading Donna Tart's books too, but I thought The Little Friend was far superior. The Secret History reminded me of one of Bret Easton Ellis' weaker novels.

Other female authors I like (aside from Sylvia Plath):

Daphne Du Maurier - Possibly my favourite author. She wrote a lot of novels, usually set retrospectively of her own era. She is most famous for writing Rebecca, but my personal favourites are The Parasites, My Cousin Rachel and Jamaica Inn. She also wrote biographies, one about Bramwell Bronte and some about her family.

Nancy Mitford - she had a great family dynasty. Her sister married Oswald Mosely. My favourite books by her are Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love.

Oh and I loved Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan.

Beatrix Potter? Alice Walker? Oh, and that whiny bitch, Anne Frank ;D!

It was dedicated to BEE wasn't it? Donna Tartt & Bret Easton Ellis are supposedly good friends.

Anyways, it reminds me of The Rules of Attraction.

I love you and I love these. Have you read "Hons and Rebels", Jessica Mitford's autobiography? It's not quite as kicky as Nancy's work, but it's a good read.

I love you too - because you're great (and also have great book recommendations).

Jessie Mitford also wrote a book (which I haven't read) called "The American Way of Death," about the exploitation of the dead and the grieving in the American funeral home industry. It's apparently the last word on the subject.

I can't believe everyone hates Virginia Woolf. I'll fight you all with my love of her!

I just completed Pride and Prejudice for a literature class I'm taking and I have to admit I was pretty impressed despite being rather biased against female authors. I expected it to be about frivolous relationships and pointless but it actually had a coherent theme and some intriguing social insights which are still relevant today. It's about how we allow pride and prejudice to influence our impressions of others and the impressions we leave on them. It really exceeded all my expectations (going by the novel, I allowed my masculine pride and prejudice steer me away from the book until I was forced to read it).

My favorite female author is Mary Shelly. Frankenstein is a great blend of horror, philosophy, and creativity. Wonderful novel. Anne Rice is pretty good but she's guilty of feminizing male characters, which a lot of female authors seem to do. I own several Pearl S. Buck novels because I picked them up for a dollar a piece at Goodwill, but I have yet to read any of them.

Other female authors on my shelf: Barbara Kingsover, Ayn Rand (devil woman!), Maya Angelo (poetry), J.K. Rowling, and Simone de Beauvoir (philosophy). Yeah, not much.

What Barbara Kingsover book do you have?

Poisonwood Bible, but I haven't read it.

Also, somebody needs to confirm this girl, I swear she writes like Hempel:

my favorite book of all time... loved it

I really liked it. You take a southern family and transplant them into the Congo and I'm sold. There are 4 daughters and the fact that she wrote chapters alternating their perspectives was pretty impressive. The father's a religious fanatic and the mother just slowly unravels... good stuff.

Which one? Secret History or Little Friend?

I bought Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway for £2 from Borders. All books in the Popular Penguin Classics line are this price, it's great. I was getting so pissed off having to pay £7.99 for a paperback.

Yeah, especially when it's books that are copyright expired, there's really no reason for them to be that much.

I've got a shelf that consists of Penguin Popular Classics. Most of them, I've read, but some I just bought because they were so fucking cheap that I felt like an idiot not to.

Thereby becoming an even bigger idiot!

How does that make you an idiot? They're potential books to be read. Or you could give them to someone as a gift if a title or one of the authors comes up, thereby saving you time and money for looking for a gift down the line.
It's a win-win.

Women? Writing books? Please.

sorry... The Secret History. I'm reluctant to read Little Friend since I liked Secret so much.

So Refreshing!!! I love this thread! I feel like I've discovered a whole new side of the cult! Not to mention that I now feel an urge to run to the book store. As for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, this is one of my favorite books. I'm particularly intrigued with female social dynamics during that era. I find it fascinating. I suppose it makes me grateful for having been born in the 20th century.

I did. Elizabeth rejects Darcy's proposal by roundhouse kicking him into the mantelpiece.

If you liked the original, and also like detached ironic hipster humor, then this is the book for you!

I'm reading a Sarah Waters book right now, "The Little Stranger", that was highly recommended by my whole family and I'm really enjoying it. It's not the kind of thing I would normally go for but it's quite spooky and her characters are amazing, she sets a scene so well you can picture it perfectly, and everybody in it seems very real. She's up for the Booker prize, I think, and she's really worth a read.

Seriously?????
The way you guys are talking about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies sounds like something I would really enjoy. Elizabeth kicks Darcy into the mantle piece?!?! NO WAY!!!I think this just might be an occasion for me to put my own prejudice aside. I'm so curious now. *bites nails*

Lydia Davis.

She may be best known as a translator (Swann's Way) and story writer (very short story writer), but the first thing I read by her was her novel The End Of The Story, which is about an older woman's affair with a younger man, and how she goes about remembering it and writing the novel. It has almost no dialogue, describes the events unemotionally and the main characters are unnamed.

Worth a look.

I really like Ayn Rands stuff, though Atlas Shrugged does get a little, um, well lets say she's not shy about overstating her point... at great length. Still though, I would argue that even if you disagree with what she says, it's important to respect her thought process that got her there. Her essay/ philosophical collections (notably Return of the Primitive, my personal favorite) are really worth a glance at.

The biggest flaw with her was herself and how bumfuck crazy self-destructive she got.

Other female authors I enjoyed: Katherine Dunn (Geek Love), Audrey Niffenberger (Time Travler's Wife). Those are book specific, so not really good as author references...