More Books to Read

In honor of the task to read books on a list entitled 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, I want to share two other lists. These lists are from the provost of my college, Diane Calhoun-French. She does a talk about them in which she includes her reasoning for the texts on the list, and I wish you could hear it.

With her permission to share, here are Diane’s Five Books Every Woman Must Read and Stranded-on-a-Desert-Island Books.

Five Books Every Woman Must Read

Fiction

• “The Little Mermaid” (Hans Christian Anderson, 1837)
• Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte, 1844)*
• “The Yellow Wallpaper” or Herland (Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1892, 1915)*
• The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood, 1985)*
• Possessing the Secret of Joy (Alice Walker, 1992)*

Non-fiction

• Silences (Tillie Olsen, 1965)
• In a Different Voice (Carol Gilligan, 1982)
• Idols of Perversity (Bram Dijkstra, 1986)
• Eve: The History of an Idea (J.A. Phillips, 1987)
• The Age of Sex Crime (Jane Caputi, 1987)
• Misogynies (Joan Smith, 1989)
• The Alphabet vs. the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image (Schlain, 1998)

 Diane’s Stranded-on-a-Desert-Island Books

• Bleak House (Charles Dickens, 1853)*
• The French Lieutenant’s Woman (John Fowles, 1969)*
• Lady Oracle (Margaret Atwood, 1976)
• Presumed Innocent (Scott Turow, 1987)
• Well-Schooled in Murder (Elizabeth George, 1990)
• Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell, 1937)*
• Exodus (Leon Uris, 1957)
• Final Payments (Mary Gordon, 1978)
• The Children of the Earth Series (Jean Auel, 1980-1990)
• The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett, 1989)
• “The Turn of the Screw” (Henry James, 1898)*
• The Sparrow (Maria Doria Russell, 1997)
• The Collected Poetry of John Keats (~1820-1830)
• Here on Earth (Alice Hoffman, 1998)
• A Judgment in Stone (Ruth Rendell, 1983)
• A Thousand Acres (Jane Smiley, 1992)
• Snow Falling on Cedars (David Guterson, 1994)
• The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter (Sharon McCrumb, 1992)
• The Children of Men (P.D. James, 1993)
• Great Expectations (Charles Dickens, 1850)*
• The Color Purple (Alice Walker, 1992)*
• A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy O’Toole, 1980)
• The Awakening (Kate Chopin, 1900)*
• Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte, 1847)*

 * means also on 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list!

 Happy Reading!