A list of the 100 most influential books written by women from Wendy via Alison. Of course we could debate about whether these books really are the 100 most influential (as in where the hell are Austen and the Brontes and Lady Murasaki? or in other words are influential books only those written in English in the 20th century?)
But this is a fun exercise anyways. Which ones have you read? Mine are in bold...
1. Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind
2. Anne Rice, Interview With the Vampire
3. Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
4. Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
5. Virginia Woolf, The Waves
6. Virginia Woolf, Orlando
7. Djuna Barnes, Nightwood
8. Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth
9. Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
10. Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome
11. Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness
12. Nadine Gordimer, Burger's Daughter
13. Harriette Simpson Arnow, The Dollmaker
14. Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
15. Willa Cather, My Ántonia
16. Erica Jong, Fear of Flying
17. Erica Jong, Fanny
18. Joy Kogawa, Obasan
19. Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
20. Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child
21. Doris Lessing, The Grass Is Singing
22. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
23. Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time
24. Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres
25. Lore Segal, Her First American
26. Alice Walker, The Color Purple
27. Alice Walker, The Third Life of Grange Copeland
28. Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon
29. Muriel Spark, Memento Mori
30. Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
31. Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina
32. Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
33. Susan Fromberg Shaeffer, Anya
34. Cynthia Ozick, Trust
35. Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club
36. Amy Tan, The Kitchen God's Wife
37. Ann Beattie, Chilly Scenes of Winter
38. Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
39. Joan Didion, A Book of Common Prayer
40. Joan Didion, Play It as It Lays
41. Mary McCarthy, The Group
42. Mary McCarthy, The Company She Keeps
43. Grace Paley, The Little Disturbances of Man
44. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
45. Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
46. Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart
47. Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood
48. Mona Simpson, Anywhere But Here
49. Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
50. Toni Morrison, Beloved
51. Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm
52. Sylvia Townsend Warner, Mr. Fortune's Maggot
53. Katherine Anne Porter, Ship of Fools
54. Laura Riding, Progress of Stories
55. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust
56. Penelope Fitzgerald, The Blue Flower
57. Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits
58. A.S. Byatt, Possession
59. Pat Barker, The Ghost Road
60. Rita Mae Brown, Rubyfruit Jungle (tried this one, never finished it)
61. Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac
62. Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus
63. Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca
64. Katherine Dunn, Geek Love
65. Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle
66. Barbara Pym, Excellent Women
67. Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
68. Anne Tyler, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
69. Anne Tyler, The Accidental Tourist
70. Nancy Willard, Things Invisible to See
71. Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the Cherry
72. Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Disturbances in the Field
73. Rosellen Brown, Civil Wars
74. Harriet Doerr, Stones for Ibarra
75. Harriet Doerr, The Mountain Lion
76. Stevie Smith, Novel on Yellow Paper
77. E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News
78. Rebecca Goldstein, The Mind-Body Problem
79. P.D. James, The Children of Men
80. Ursula Hegi, Stones From the River
81. Fay Weldon, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil
82. Katherine Mansfield, Collected Stories
83. Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron Mills
84. Louise Erdrich, The Beet Queen
85. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
86. Edna O'Brien, The Country Girls Trilogy
87. Margaret Drabble, Realms of Gold
88. Margaret Drabble, The Waterfall
89. Dawn Powell, The Locusts Have No King
90. Marilyn French, The Women's Room
91. Eudora Welty, The Optimist's Daughter
92. Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries
93. Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John
94. Tillie Olsen, Tell Me a Riddle
95. Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
96. Iris Murdoch, A Severed Head
97. Anita Desai, Clear Light of Day
98. Alice Hoffman, The Drowning Season
99. Sue Townsend, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
100. Penelope Mortimer, The Pumpkin Eater
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C'est moi
I was raised Mormon, but now I'm a hippie Quaker living in the OC with my two teenage kids: CatGirl & GameBoy.
Twenty-six years ago I lost my right leg to bone cancer. Awhile ago I had an antibiotic-resistant infection in my lower left leg, and now I'm healing from surgery and feeling better every day.
I like gardening, making history, outrigger canoeing, trying new things, and my afternoon cup of tea.
"You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."
~Christopher Robin, Pooh's Grand Adventure
Contact: remyjATucidotedu
Twenty-six years ago I lost my right leg to bone cancer. Awhile ago I had an antibiotic-resistant infection in my lower left leg, and now I'm healing from surgery and feeling better every day.
I like gardening, making history, outrigger canoeing, trying new things, and my afternoon cup of tea.
"You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."
~Christopher Robin, Pooh's Grand Adventure
Contact: remyjATucidotedu
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12 comments:
how bizarre that they're all 20th century. but an interesting list. i think i've only read about 20 of them.
you should check out pat barker's the ghost road (and the rest of that trilogy) if you have any interest in fictional treatments of war (this particular series is about WWI). it's a fascinating look at the consequences of warfare on the individual, national, and global psyches.
maybe this is supposed to be a list of the most influential books written by women in the 20th century?
Alison:
I would say it's this:
The 100 most influential books written by American women in the 20th century. That fits. But then you have to define influential: copies sold? survey resposes? most checked out of libraries? or ??
I'm always amazed that Gone With the Wind tops influential book lists. I think it's only because it's often the *longest* book that survey respondents have read, so it's what pops into mind. Honestly, how could it be _influential_ other than in reifying racial and gender stereotypes?
I'm glad they have at least one novel by P.D. James, but The Children of Men is hardly her best work. P.D. James is primarily a mystery writer, but maybe genre novels are not considered serious enough for this list. Though it is mystery, the James's prose is positively literate.
Speaking of mystery writers, the list should include at least one novel by Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. How can Christie not be considered one of the "most influential" female writers?
What about newer writers, like Zadie Smith?
Shouldn't Joyce Carol Oates also be represented?
Or Jhumpa Lahiri?
One of my favorite books is "Restoration" by Rose Tremain.
She's won the Whitbread Award and I think was shortlisted for the Booker.
Isn't Ayn Rand considered pretty influential? I haven't read her, but if Anne Rice made the list, the bar has got to be pretty low.
Are these books ranked in order? Can't be, else how is Anne Rice number 2? And why are multiple novels by the same author generally grouped together? Where is the original article that supports this list?
Ok, so they're all American (Virginia Woolf, not American, right? What about Isabel Allende--does she write in English or is her work in translation?).
Matt: I wish I knew where the list came from originally. I found it on Alison's blog who found it on Wendy's blog.
I'll bet it has to do with sales, but like you, I'm sure that Ayn Rand and others should have more prominence. I'm thinking, what about Pearl Buck, too? Huge in the 20th century! Certainly much bigger than many of these folks that I've never heard of...and I would think that more of Carson McCullers and Flannery O'Connor would be there, too.
We need to make a better list than this one...
i want to see your list of the 100 most influential novels by female writers, jana! :)
Thought I should jump in here since my blog was what seems to have started this conversation! I found the list on this site by browsing through the gazillion lists. I have no idea where that person found it. No matter where lists come from or how they are developed, there will always be those who don't agree with them. For me, it is just fun to find them and check off the books I've read, or use them as a source to develop my reading lists. It does look like the originator chose 20th century writers - or maybe he/she just felt that they have more influence than writers writing in the 19th or 18th centuries! *laughs* For the most part, I like the list...and no, I don't think they are ordered from best to worst or vice versa. Thanks for all the interest - good, bad or otherwise. I love talking books!
Alison:
I would love to create such a list! Right now, though, there is no time (ack).
Wendy:
Thanks for joining in the discussion!
:)
They aren't all Americans. P.D. James and Daphne Du Maurier are British.
Pearl S. Buck ABSOLUTELY should be on the list. She won the freaking Nobel Prize (and the Pulitzer Prize).
I've read a half dozen of her novels.
This list sucks!
Matt:
Note: because I'm a dork, when I said that they were all Americans, what I really meant to say was that they were NOT all Americans, thus amending my earlier comment that they were. Instead what I wrote made no sense at all.
I wouldn't necessarily say that the list sucks, just that I can't understand what the criteria was and that I don't see any overwhelming evidence of 'influence' in these books....
Someone out there: help me/us find a better list! :)
Seriously, Alice Hoffman? Really?
I have to ask, influential to whom? Perhaps these works most influenced the writer of the list.
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