I run a Facebook group called “What Would Virginia Woolf Do?” (a twisted joke about one of my literary and feminist heroines) of super candid, super smart women over forty, and we’re all huge readers. The group started as a private forum for me and some girlfriends to bitch and moan about perimenopausal woes, but it has grown into so much more: a vibrant community where we “discuss, support, and share things that we may not care to share with the men and children in our lives.”
On March 8, 2017, in commemoration of International Women’s Day, a Woolfer posted a list put out by the New York Public Library of 365 published female authors from all around the globe to keep us inspired all year round. Their list is inspiring, but we were shocked by how many of our truly beloved favorite women writers were left off, so we created our own, and we think it’s so good, and so important, that it’s worth sharing:
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah
Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
Dorothy Allison, Bastard out of Carolina
Isabel Allende, House of Spirits
Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
Jane Austen, Persuasion
Jane Austen, Lady Susan
Djuna Barnes, Nightwood
Lynda Barry, Cruddy
Jane Bowles, Two Serious Ladies
Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë, Villette
Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Frances Burney, Evelina
Octavia Butler, Lilith's Brood
A.S. Byatt, The Children's Book
Ann Carson, The Autobiography of Red
Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus
Willa Cather, My Antonia
Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street
Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time
Lydia Davis, Break It Down
Simone De Beauvoir, The Second Sex
Joan Didion, The White Album
Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
Margaret Drabble, The Waterfall
Margaret Drabble, The Millstone
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
George Eliot, Middlemarch
Nora Ephron, Scribble Scribble
Jennifer Cody Epstein, The Gods of Heavenly Punishment
Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine
Jenny Erpenbeck, The Old Child
Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate
Elena Ferrante, The Neapolitan Novels
Melanie Finn, The Gloaming
Marilyn French, The Women's Room
Mary Gaitskill, Bad Behavior
Cristina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban
Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm
Gail Godwin, The Odd Woman
Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies
Jean Hegland, Into the Forest
Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt
Alice Hoffman, White Horses
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle
P.D. James, Devices and Desires
Erica Jong, Fear of Flying
Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You
Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
Nicole Kraus, The History of Love
Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies
Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth
Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Doris Lessing, The Diary of a Good Neighbour
Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star
Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
Daphne du Maurier, My Cousin Rachel
Grace Metalious, Place
Mary McCarthy, The Group
Elizabeth McCracken, The Giants House
Carson McCullers, The Member of the Wedding
Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces
Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate
Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love
L.M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon
Toni Morrison, Beloved
Alice Munro, Collected Stories
Iris Murdoch, The Sacred and Profane Love Machine
Alissa Nutting, Tampa
Joyce Carol Oates, Blonde
Flannery O'Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge
Jenny Offill, Dept. Of Speculation
Mary Oliver, Upstream
Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing
Tillie Olsen, Tell Me a Riddle
Cynthia Ozick, The Pagan Rabbi
Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl
Grace Paley, Collected Stories
Gail Parent, The Best Laid Plans
Gail Parent, Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in NY
Ann Patchett, Bel Canto
Elena Poniatowska, Tlatelolco
Annie Proulx, The Shipping News
Mary Rakow, The Memory Room
Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter series
Lore Segal, Her First American
Marie Semple, Where'd You Go, Bernadette?
Denzy Senna, Symtomatic
Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries
Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book
Mona Simpson, Anywhere But Here
May Sinclair, A Cure of Souls
Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres
Patti Smith, Just Kids
Zadie Smith, On Beauty
Murial Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club
Barbara Trapido, Brother of the More Famous Jack
Joanna Trollope, Other People's Children
Joanna Trollope, The Rector's Wife
Ann Tyler, The Homesick Restaurant
Alice Walker, The Color Purple
Helene Wecker, The Golem and the Jinni
Vita Sackville-West, All Passion Spent
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth
Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country
Isabel Wilkerson, Warmth of Other Suns
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
E.H. Young, Miss Mole