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#readwomen is a movement started by Joanna Walsh in 2014.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged, and confirmed by VIDA, that, though women read more books than men, and female authors are published in comparable numbers, they are more easily overlooked: a smaller presence in literary journals both as reviewers, and the reviewed, they also account for fewer literary translations.

It’s not whether women are published (because they are) but how they are published. Are men more likely to write what’s considered ‘important� literary fiction, or could it be that more are regarded that way? I’ve heard female writer friends grouse when their books are given flowery covers though their writing’s not, when reviews, even press-releases, describe their work as “delicate� when it is forthright, “playful� when it is experimental, “delightful� when it is satirical, “carving a niche� when it is staking a claim (none of these examples is made up).

...

You don't have to exclusively read books by women this year (you may be surprised to learn that I won't be doing so), but you might like to do a Vida count on your own bookshelf; if you find an imbalance, consider whether you might have been a victim of inequality, missing out on good writing because of a pink dust jacket. Just for a change, make sure the next book you read is by a woman. While female writers may encounter similar obstacles, their work is diverse as men's: there is a book by a woman for every kind of reader.

Joanna Walsh in The Guardian



Personally I find the idea of reading only women a bit too much of a challenge - I have my favourite male authors and I'm not going to miss out on their new releases! But mad props to anyone doing it! What readwomen is for though it to make you think about your reading choices and actively seek out more women authors.


How it works:
Decide how many women-authored books you want to read this year (backdating it from Jan 1 is totally fine), post your intention in this thread. Then go forth and read! You can keep a tally in this thread or create your own, but once you've achieved your goal do post here, let us know, and tell us who your favourite authors were.

Remember: each author only counts once (so reading the entire HP series would only count for one of your goal). And if you want to make it more challenging; only count authors you've never read before.

Well I've just gone for 8 at the moment but you have 30! I will up it if I'm near 8 half way through the year.
I'm not going for the extra challenging option though...


My Challenge
1/8

1. *V.E. Schwab - A Darker Shade of Magic
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.


* Marks authors that are new to me this year

Overall proportion of books by women read this year: 1/1
Overall proportion of women authors this year 1/1

Just checked and my current read A Darker Shade of Magic is by a woman :)

#1. Coltrain's Proposal

# 2. The Cinderella Act

# 3. Dark Sapphire

# 4. Mastered By Love

# 5. Ever After

Nicolle wrote: "Well I've just gone for 8 at the moment but you have 30! I will up it if I'm near 8 half way through the year.
I'm not going for the extra challenging option though..."

I'm aiming for 30 books by women authors (half of my 60 books this year total). But for this challenge, reading different female authors, I'm aiming for 20. Counting on some writers being good enough to read two or more books by.

My Challenge:
34/20

1. Margaret Atwood - The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam, The Penelopiad
2. *George Sand - Mauprat
3. Catherynne M. Valente - The Boy Who Lost Fairyland
4. *Anita Anand - Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary (NF)
5. George Eliot - Daniel Deronda
6. *Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah
7. *Emily St. John Mandel - Station Eleven
8. *Banana Yoshimoto - Kitchen
9. *Ã…sne Seierstad - The Bookseller of Kabul (NF)
10. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter: The Complete Series (Reread)
11. *Becky Chambers - The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
12. *Leslie Parry - Church of Marvels
13. Naomi Novik - Crucible of Gold
14. *Laura Barnett - The Versions of Us
15. *Isabel Allende - Eva Luna
16. *Laline Paull - The Bees
17. *Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea
18. *Rebecca West - The Return of the Soldier
19. Angela Carter - The Magic Toyshop
20. *Marie Arana - Bolivar: The Epic Life of the Man Who Liberated South America (NF)
21. *Lisa McInerney - The Glorious Heresies
22. *Jennifer Bell - The Crooked Sixpence
23. *Rene Denfeld - The EnchantedShame
24. *Zen Cho - Sorcerer to the Crown
25. *Amy Stewart - Girl Waits With Gun
26. *Melanie Finn - Shame
27. *Genevieve Cogman - The Invisible Library
28. *Idra Novey - Ways to Disappear
29. *Kirsty Logan - The Gracekeepers
30. *Natasha Pulley - The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
31. *Katherine Rundell - The Wolf Wilder
32. *Kit de Waal - My Name is Leon
33. *Rebecca Skloot - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (NF)
34. *Rachel Cusk - Outline

* Marks authors that are new to me this year

Overall books by women read this year: 45/83 (54%)
Overall women authors read this year: 34/67 (51%)

I'll play. I read 75 books last year and expect this year to be in the same neighborhood. There will be fewer authors than that, and a lot of them will be by men. (Last year 21 by different women, 23 by women total.) So, I'll see if I can make this year's total at least 25 different women. (Not making a challenge of it, but I'll mark (*)the new-to-me and see how many I end up reading.)

1. Edith Wharton - The Reef
2. *Maj Sjöwall - Roseanna
3. George Eliot - Felix Holt: The Radical
4. Elizabeth Strout - My Name Is Lucy Barton
5. Susan Vreeland - The Forest Lover
6. Muriel Spark - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
7. Alice Munro - Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You: 13 Stories
8. Rose Tremain - Music & Silence
9. *Isak Dinesen - Out of Africa
10. *Kamila Shamsie - Burnt Shadows
11. Anita Brookner - Strangers
12. Elizabeth Berg - Open House
13.* Isabel Colegate - The Shooting Party
14. Anne Tyler - Searching for Caleb
15. * Shirley Hazzard - The Bay of Noon
16. Isabel Allende - The Japanese Lover
17. *Margaret Atwood - Surfacing
18. *Julie Otsuka - The Buddha in the Attic
19. * Anouk Markovits - I am Forbidden
20. *Candice Millard - The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey
21. *Anne Michaels - Fugitive Pieces
22. *Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - Sister of My Heart
23. Anna Katharine Green - The Leavenworth Case
24. *Dorothy L. Sayers - Whose Body?
25. *Janet Lewis - The Trial of Sören Qvist
26. *Ethel Lina White - The Lady Vanishes
27. Patricia Highsmith - Strangers on a Train
28. Elizabeth Bowen - The Little Girls
29. *Nella Larsen - Passing

I was thinking of doing a female author... I don't know how to say it, like further read. I want to go through and read another (different) book by female authors I have read. I need to go through my read list and pick a number to shoot for though.

That sounds great! Am all for people putting their own spins on challenges or creating new ones. Feel free to post it up as a separate challenge thread if you want, I'd def get involved. Reading lots of new authors is great, but actually revisiting ones you've enjoyed is something I know I should be doing more of.

I was going to go for 75, until I saw the same author caveat. For this Winter (Summer for me!) season of reading, I have around 5 Janet Frame books I intend to read, and a similar number of Margaret Atwood books, so I think I had best downgrade my total to 40 different women authors, whilst intending to read at least 75 books overall.

Question, I am trying to catch up on short stories from The New Yorker. Are there page limits to texts for any of the challenges ?

Nope, if you think it should count, count it.

As a note: for the 'group challenge' on the front page, do feel free to count every book by a female author if that's easier (I know for me I find it easier (and neater) to just use my 'female-authors' shelf, rather than create a special challenge one). It's only on this thread that I'm breaking down the challenge down into number of individual authors.

Also; yay for somebody else planning to do some serious Margaret Atwood reading this year. She's an author I've decided I really need to read more of ASAP. Which books of hers are you planning on reading?

Louise wrote: "Nope, if you think it should count, count it.

As a note: for the 'group challenge' on the front page, do feel free to count every book by a female author if that's easier (I know for me I find it ..."

Cool, I will adjust it back up to 75 then.

I have caught up with Atwood in recent times. I recently read and enjoyed Stone Mattress: Nine Tales, and am hoping to find time for Cat's Eye, Life Before Man, Lady Oracle, The Robber Bride and Alias Grace, depending on how my other reading goes.

I'm confused. I've put in 5 books toward my women's author challenge and don't see my percentage completed changing at all. I don't understand where to post these books so that they're properly applied toward the challenge. Really confused.

Ann wrote: "I'm confused. I've put in 5 books toward my women's author challenge and don't see my percentage completed changing at all. I don't understand where to post these books so that they're properly app..."

You need to create a shelf on your own My Books (or designate a shelf already created) and then enter that shelf name in your challenge here. Then, as you read the books, you have to be sure to put them on that shelf with a read date. The challenge will then automatically update.

I had trouble with this because I entered my shelf name with the dash, and it didn't want that (or the other way around - be persistent).

Pretty much echoing Elizabeth: to take part in the challenge it should ask you to select a shelf when you select your goal. Make sure all the books you want to be counted to the challenge are on that shelf. They will only appear on your challenge once they have a 'finished reading' date on them.


Edit: Have tweaked the name of this thread slightly to better reflect the challenge.

Thanks for the advice, Elizabeth and Louise. I followed your directions and finally the books appear toward my 2016 Read Women Challenge. Thanks so much for your help!
Ann B. Keller

I set my "shelf" challenge for 80, but those will not be all different authors, so here I will be conservative and go for 50.
Read: 50 ! finished on 30th June. Exactly 6 months.

Shelf challenge, 80 books but not all different authors, finished on 4th November.

Helen Ashton - Bricks and Mortar, Feb 6th
Kate Atkinson - A God in Ruins, Jan 31st
Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake, May 6th
Aphra Behn - Oroonoko, March 22nd
Joanna Cannan - Princes in the Land, May 6th
Joanna Cannon - The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, May 13th
Ann Cleeves - Blue Lightning, March 21st
Ethel M. Dell - The Tidal Wave and Other Stories, April 25th
Daphne du Maurier - Letters from Menabilly: Portrait of a Friendship, May 28th
Helen Dunmore - The Lie, March 3rd
Carola Dunn - The Winter Garden Mystery, Feb 15th
Catherine Dunne - In the Beginning, Feb 14th
Nawal El-Saadawi - Woman at Point Zero, March 19th
Nina George - The Little Paris Bookshop, April 5th
Linn B. Halton - Falling: Angels Among Us - The Complete Series, Jan 16th
H.Y. Hanna - A Scone To Die For, Apr 17th
Deborah Harkness - A Discovery Of Witches, June 13th
Charlaine Harris - Living Dead in Dallas, Feb 12th
Jane Hervey - Vain Shadow, March 20th
Helen R. Hull - Heat Lightning, Jan 5th
Dorothy Koomson - My Best Friend's Girl, March 2nd
Nicole Krauss - The History of Love, March 24th
Doris Lessing - The Grass is Singing, May 25th
Laura Lippman - The Sugar House, March 17th
Anne McCaffrey - Dragonflight, June 8th
Carson McCullers - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, April 22nd
Susan Miles - Lettice Delmer, Jan 2nd
L.M. Montgomery - Anne of the Island, April 8th
Iris Murdoch - The Sea, the Sea, June 30th
Rosalind Murray - The Happy Tree, Feb 7th
Tiffany Murray - Happy Accidents, Feb 11th
Linda Newbery - Sisterland, June 17th
Liz Nugent - Unravelling Oliver, Feb 25th
Susan Beth Pfeffer - Life As We Knew It, Jan 1st
Ruth Rendell - Tigerlily's Orchids, May 8th
Françoise Sagan - Bonjour tristesse, March 13th
Sharon Sant - The Memory Game, March 9th
Deborah Scroggins - Emma's War: Love, Betrayal and Death in the Sudan, June 7th
Lynn Shepherd - Murder at Mansfield Park, March 15th
Karin Slaughter - Cop Town, March 23rd
Muriel Spark - Memento Mori, March 4th
Dana Stabenow - A Cold-Blooded Business, April 27th
Rebecca Stead - Liar & Spy, March 22nd
Nancy E. Turner - These is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, April 13th
Salley Vickers - Miss Garnet's Angel, Feb 13th
Barbara Vine - The Child's Child, Apr 7th
Elizabeth von Arnim - Elizabeth and Her German Garden, Apr 5th
Patricia Wentworth - Grey Mask, May 30th
Connie Willis - To Say Nothing of the Dog, Jan 22nd
Banana Yoshimoto - Kitchen, March 1st

I'm going to read 40 books by women, although some of favorite authors are men - and I'll continue to read them as well. My Shelf is Reading Women

Reading Women Authors in 2016

Goal: 40

Progress: 14/40

January:

1. A Novel Way to Die by Ali Brandon 4.5 Stars, Read: 1/9/2016
2. The Three by Sarah Lotz 4 Stars, Read: 1/12/2016
3. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 3 Stars, Read: 12/15/2016
4. Like This, For Ever by Sharon Bolton 3.5 Stars, Read: 1/25/2016
5. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, 5 Stars, Read: 1/26/2016
6. The Good Girl by Mary Kubica 1 Star, Read: 1/28/2016
7. A Girl's Guide to Moving On by Debbie Macomber, 4.5 Stars, Read: 1/29/2016



February:

8. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara 3 Stars, Read: 2/6/2016
9. Threads of Evidence by Lea Wait 4 Stars, Read: 2/6/2016
10. Baggage by S.G. Redling 3 Stars, Read: 2/7/2016
11. Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin, 5 Stars, Read: 2/10/2016
12. The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy E. Reichert 2 Stars, Read: 2/10/2016
13. The Third Son by Julie Wu 3.5 Stars, Read: 2/20/2016
14. Dead In The Water by Dana Stabenow 4 Stars, Read: 2/21/2016

I'm going to try for 10 books by 10 different female authors of color. I'll post as I go, but for now the first two are pretty much decided.
1.I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
2.Girl in Translation
3.
4.
4.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Gaijinmama wrote: "I'm going to try for 10 books by 10 different female authors of color. I'll post as I go, but for now the first two are pretty much decided.


That's a nice twist on the challenge. I've been trying to broaden my reading to include more authors of colour recently but I'm not managing so well with that as I am with reading women.

Without looking up the ethnicity of everyone I read last year that I'm not sure about I think I managed 9 different authors (male and female) who I'm fairly certain, off the top of my head, are PoC. Will definitely try to up that this year. I already have about 4-5 WoC on my bookshelf I intend to read this year.

Realized I have not been recording, so best put on record. Reading 75

1 The North China Lover by Marguerite Duras
2 Captive Queen: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir
3 Villette by Charlotte Brontë
4 The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
5 Faces in the Water by Janet Frame
6 The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
7 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
8 A Withered Branch by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
9 Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie
10 Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
11 Milk and Honey byElizabeth Jolley
12 A Mercy by Toni Morrison
13 The Freezer Chest by Dorthe Nors
14 My Life Is a Joke by Sheila Heti
15 The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
16 Runaway by Alice Munro
17 Drama by Raina Telgemeier
18 Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El-Saadawi
19 Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
20The Lost Order by Rivka Galchen
21 The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers
22 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
23 The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark
24 A Resolute Man by Annie Proulx
25 A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
26 The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
27 Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
28 The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
29 Don't Look Now and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier
30 Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
31 Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys
32 The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
33 Regeneration by Pat Barker
34 Blood and Circuses by Kerry Greenwood
35 The Man in the Picture by Susan Hill
36 Letter from Peking by Pearl S. Buck
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Happy with how things are progressing. 7 books read by women authors, all of them a different one, so feel I am meeting the challenge really well for the first month of the year.

Jumping in here and going for 50 in 2016. Will list the ones I've read so far and add to it as they're finished.

1. Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx
2. Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
3. A Good Man Is Hard To Find, Flannery O'Connor
4. Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present, Charlotte Zolotow
5. Letter to My Daughter, Maya Angelou
6. The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank
7. Good Dog. Stay., Anna Quindlen
8. How Reading Changed My Life, Anna Quindlen Completed 2/20/16 ***
9. Kitchen, Banana Yoshimoto Completed 2/21/16 ***
10.Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi Completed 2/28/16****
11.Middlemarch, George Eliot completed 3/9/16
12.Agnes Grey, Anne Brontë completed 3/11/16 ***
13.Gilead, Marilynne Robinson completed 3/12/16 ****
14.On Writing, Eudora Welty completed 4/2/16
15.Undersong: Chosen Poems Old and New, Audre Lorde completed 4/3/16 ****
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I`m also aiming for 50 books by different female authors this year.

1. Lost Girls by Angela Marsons
2. Little Tales of Misogyny by Patricia Highsmith
3. The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
4. Les Heures souterraines by Delphine de Vigan
5. Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein
6. Der Zauber der ersten Seite by Laurence Cossé
7. Who the Fuck Is Kafka by Lizzie Doron
8. Yes Please by Amy Poehler
9. The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
10. Still Life by Louise Penny
11. Grüner Schnee by Sara Blaedel
12. Aya by Marguerite Abouet
13. Books Can Be Deceiving by Jenn McKinlay
14. The Outrun by Amy Liptrot
15. Ship Fever: Stories by Andrea Barrett
16. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
17. Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck
18. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
19. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body by Susan Bordo
20. Almost No Memory by Lydia Davis
21. The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
22. The Family Tree by Sheri S. Tepper
23. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
24. Killing Orders by Sara Paretsky
25. Mein Leben, Meine Freiheit by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
26. The Professor by Charlotte Brontë
27. Corvus: A Life with Birds by Esther Woolfson
28. The Scold's Bridle by Minette Walters
29. Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson
30. Meridian by Alice Walker
31. The Memory Painter by Gwendolyn Womack
32. Nothing Tastes As Good by Claire Hennessy
33. Inherit the Truth: A Memoir of Survival and the Holocaust by Anita Lasker-Wallfisch
34. Shame by Karin Alvtegen
35. Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West
36. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
37. The New Mrs Clifton by Elizabeth Buchan
38. PIL by Mari Yamazaki
39. The J.M. Barrie Ladies' Swimming Society by Barbara J. Zitwer
40. Singularity by Charlotte Grimshaw
41. Macht by Karen Duve
42. Traumphysik by Monica Byrne
43. In the Woods by Tana French
44. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
45. Zen Im Alltag by Charlotte Joko Beck
46. Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
47. Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan
48. Briefe aus Teheran by Parsua Bashi
49. Selbstzuwendung, Selbstakzeptanz, Selbstvertrauen: Psychotherapeutische Interventionen zum Aufbau von Selbstwertgefühl (Leben lernen) by Gitta Jacob and Friederike Potreck-Rose
50. Falling by Emma Kavanagh

Yay, I made it!

We're at the beginning of March, so essentially 2 months into the year, and I've just hit 21 different women authors so far. Feeling very pleased with myself!

I still have a few more up my sleeve for the month, so feeling very confident that I can meet my target :D

2016: 40/40

1. The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman Read: 28 Feb 2016
2. The Registrar's Manual for Detecting Forced Marriages by Sophie Hardach Read: 14 Mar 2016
3. The Ice House by Minette Walters Read: 25 Mar 2016
4. The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald Read: 9 April 2016
5. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte Read: 29 April 2016
6. Mend The Living by Maylis de Kerangal Read: 1 May 2016
7. The View on the Way Down by Rebecca Wait Read: 1 May 2016
8. The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney Read: 3 May 2016
9. The Risk of Darkness by Susan Hill Read: 7 May 2016
10. The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez Read: 11 May 2016
11. Buddha Da by Anne Donovan Read: 15 May 2016
12. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Read: 21 May 16
13. The Vegetarian by Han Kang Read: 22 May 2016
14. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys Read: 07 June 2016
15. The Green Road by Anne Enright Read: 12 June 2016
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling Read: 26 June 2016
17. Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood Read: 02 July 2016
18. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers Read: 31 July 2016
19. Arcadia by Lauren Groff Read: 05 August 2016
20. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi Read: 10 August 2016
21. Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue Read: 13 August 2016
22. The Age of Reinvention by Karine Tuil Read: 28 August 2016
23. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie Read: 3 September 2016
24. Foxlowe by Eleanor Wasserberg Read: 4 September 2016
25. The Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll Read: 11 September 2016
26. In a dark dark wood by Ruth Ware Read: 20 September 2016
27. Anya's ghost by Vera Brosgol Read: 25 September 2016
28. The woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware Read: 2 October 2016
29. The wonder by Emma Donoghue Read: 16 October 2016
30. All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders Read: 22 October 2016
31. The Lumberjanes 1 by Noelle Stevenson Read: 22 October 2016
32. And then there were none by Agatha Christie Read: 29 Oct 2016.
33. Tell The Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt Read: 10 Nov 2016
34. Aya by Marguerite Abouet Read: 3 Dec 2016
35. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson Read: 4 Dec 2016
36. The heart goes last by Margaret Atwood Read: 11 Dec 2016
37. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery Read: 17 Dec 2016
38. Broadchurch by Erin Kelly Read: 28 Dec 2016
39. I Am China by Xiaolu Guo Read: 30 Dec 2016
40. Fearless girls, wise women & beloved sisters by Kathleen Ragan Read: 31 Dec 2016

Out of 72 books I read this year I want at least 64 to be female. Some male authors I really like so I have allowed up to 8 males (more so long as I am still on track to read 64 women). 12 of these can be children's novels but I want to read at least 52 female adult novels. I am doing ok as it is April and i have been mainly reading women (not the first year I have consciously tried this)

i mostly read female authors so i'm basing my challenge in this to be female authors i've not read before or have long not "visited". aiming for 50. backdating to what i've read this year thus far. books will be posted on the shelf i created for the challenge, but i will update my progress periodically in this thread .

/review/list...

26 authors/ 50 goal authors to date.

this one was wonderful: Beth Hoffman : Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

looking forward to reading more of these series:
The Corpse with the Silver Tongue : Cathy Ace
An Untamed Land : Lauraine Snelling

5 star read: All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook : Leslie Connor

Just updated and have a long way to go. I've read more books by women than listed, but they have been repeat authors. Two of the short stories I have read are no longer on GR, so my list differs from my challenge bar.

Rosemary wrote: "I set my "shelf" challenge for 80, but those will not be all different authors, so here I will be conservative and go for 50.
Read: 50 ! finished on 30th June. Exactly 6 months.

[author:Helen Ash..."

Impressive and congratulations! I didn't notice the updated edit, so I see you finished a few months ago. Way to go!

Aine wrote: "26/26

1. The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman Read: 28 Feb 2016
2. The Registrar's Manual for Detecting Forced Marriages by Sophie Hardach Read: 14 Mar 2016
3. The Ice House ..."

Yay! Way to go! Are you going to continue reading female authors for the rest of the year or are you going to catch up on some male authors you've been putting off? Either way, congrats on finishing your challenge!

I'm going to make my 25 different authors, but I wasn't sure about making 30 total. So I've been going through my shelves, seeing what I could get and read. I think I'm going to make it after all!

Anita wrote: "Impressive and congratulations! I didn't notice the updated edit, so I see you finished a few months ago. Way to go!"

Thank you! I'm still working on the 80 total, but getting close now. I read more different authors than I expected.

ETA: finished the 80 on 4th November.

I just did a final tally of my 2016 reads, and found that 105/154 of my books were written or co-written by women. That's much better than I thought but also considering that I tend to lean towards female authors (it has become a thing I do now, I dismiss unknown male authors much more easily now when browsing library shelves for an interesting looking read and am most likely to leave with an unknown female author) it just goes to show the general pervasiveness of male authors.

Most of the male authors I've read are among my comic books (even comics centered around female characters are still mainly written by men) and among those books considered common or classic literature. I think I read a pretty wide variety of genres, and while I'm proud of myself, I'm a little shocked at how much overt and conscious effort still awards 1/3 of my reads to male authors. Not that I'm trying to cut out male authors at all, but pretty much if I'm not trying to read a female author, the general offerings tend to be male.

2017: 33/50

1. Blubber by Judy Blume Read: 1 Jan 2017
2. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Read: 8 Jan 2017
3. Case histories by Kate Atkinson Read: 10 Jan 2017
4. The mothers by Brit Bennett Read: 21 Jan 2017
5. The mysterious affair at Styles by Agatha Christie Read: 22 Jan 2017
6. Small island by Andrea Levy Read: 28 Jan 2017
7. The comet seekers by Helen Sedgwick Read: 19 Feb 2017
8. Where the mountain meets the moon by Grace Lin Read: 21 Feb 2017
9. The bookseller by Cynthia Swanson Read: 26 Feb 2017
10. How many miles to Babylon? by Jennifer Johnson Read 27 Feb 2017
11. Murder on the links by Agatha Christie Read: 5 Mar 2017
12. Burial rites by Hannah Kent Read; 12 Mar 2017
13. The property by Rutu Modan Read: 16 Mar 2017
14. A closed and common orbit by Becky Chambers Read: 4 Apr 2017
15. Uprooted by Naomi Novik Read: 10 June 2017
16. Dotter of her father's eyes by Mary M. Talbot Read: 11 June 2017
17. In the shadow of blackbirds by Cat Winters Read: 11 June 2017
18. The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani Read: 25 Jun 2017
19. Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn Read: 30 Jun 2017
20. The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien Read: 1 July 2017
21. The thorn birds by Colleen McCullough Read: 16 Jul 2017
22. Girl at war by Sara Novic Read: 7 Aug 2017
23. In the woods by Tana French Read: 27 Aug 2017
24. Fried green tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe by Fannie Flagg Read: 5 Sep 2017
25. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi Read: 14 Sep 2017
26. Foster by Claire Keegan Read: 14 Sep 2017
27. Mudbound by Hillary Jordan Read: 16 Sep 2017
28. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling Read: 1 Oct 2017
29. Sometimes I lie by Alice Feeney Read: 8 Oct 2017
30. The mystery of the blue train by Agatha Christie Read: 21 Oct 2017
31. Instructions for a heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell Read: 22 Oct 2017
32. Pomegranate soup by Marsha Mehran Read: 11 Nov 2017
33. I see you by Clare Mackintosh Read: 26 Nov 2017
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Hey - we have a 2017 thread here.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Hey - we have a 2017 thread here."

Thanks, Elizabeth. I double-checked it and it's not an open-ended thread of books read; it's specific to books read by different authors. Alas. I'll wait until 2018, I suppose and see if we introduce a straight-up "books read and written by women" thread anew.