500 Great Books by Women

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This list is a great way to discover a range of women’s writing.

From the book 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader’s Guide by Erica Bauermeister, Jesse Larsen, & Holly Smith.

Note: There are actually more than 500 books listed in the original book (and on this list.)

The list is alphabetical by author.

Pages: 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

  1. 1.
    Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South
    by Shirley Abbott
  2. 2.
    A Natural History of the Senses
    by Diane Ackerman
  3. 3.
    ?
    Bake-Face and Other Guava Stories
    by Opal Palmer Adisa
  5. 5.
    Changes: A Love Story
    by Ama Ata Aidoo
  6. 6.
    Women of Sand and Myrrh
    by Hanan al-Shaykh
  7. 7.
    Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist
    by Kathleen Alcala
  8. 8.
    Little Women
    by Louisa May Alcott
  9. 9.
    Family Album
    by Claribel Alegría
  10. 10.
    Nampally Road
    by Meena Alexander
  11. 11.
    ?
    The Stillborn (Longman African Classics)
    by Zaynab Alkali
  12. 12.
    Grandmothers of The Light: A Medicine Woman's Sourcebook
    by Paula Gunn Allen
  13. 13.
    The House of the Spirits
    by Isabel Allende
  14. 14.
    Bastard out of Carolina: (Plume Essential Edition)
    by Dorothy Allison
  16. 16.
    Tirra Lirra by the River

  17. 17.
    ?
    The Butcher's Wife
    by Li Ang
  18. 18.
    I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
    by Maya Angelou
  19. 19.
    Aquamarine
    by Carol Anshaw
  21. 21.
    'Incantations' and Other Stories
    by Anjana Appachana
  22. 22.
    ?
    Alicia: My Story
    by Alicia Appleman-Jurman
  23. 23.
    The Twilight Years
    by Sawako Ariyoshi
  25. 25.
    ?
    A Midwife's Story
    by Penny Armstrong
  26. 26.
    Dollmaker, The
    by Harriette Simpson Arnow
  27. 27.
    Cat's Eye
    by Margaret Atwood
  28. 28.
    Emma (Oxford World's Classics)
    by Jane Austen
  29. 29.
    The Land of Little Rain (Modern Library Classics)
    by Mary Austin
  30. 30.
    So Long a Letter (African Writers)
    by Mariama B
  31. 31.
    Gorilla, My Love
    by Toni Cade Bambara
  32. 32.
    Artemisia (European Women Writers)
    by Anna Banti
  33. 33.
    A Week Like Any Other: Novellas and Stories
    by Natalya Baranskaya
  34. 34.
    Regeneration
    by Pat Barker
  35. 35.
    Nightwood
    by Djuna Barnes
  36. 36.
    The Good Times Are Killing Me
    by Lynda Barry
  37. 37.
    Composing a Life
    by Mary Catherine Bateson
  38. 38.
    Yes Is Better Than No
    by Byrd Baylor
  39. 39.
    The House of Ulloa (Penguin Classics)
    by Emilia Pardo Bazan
  41. 41.
    ?
    A Belfast Woman
    by Mary Beckett
  42. 42.
    Yoruba Girl Dancing
    by Simi Bedford
  43. 43.
  45. 45.
    Plain and Simple: A Woman's Journey to the Amish
    by Sue Bender
  46. 46.
    ?
    Farm Under a Lake
    by Martha Bergland
  47. 47.
    The World and the Bo Tree
    by Helen Bevington
  48. 48.
    When I Was a German, 1934-1945: An Englishwoman in Nazi Germany
    by Christabel Bielenberg
  49. 49.
    ?
    A Bridge Through Time
    by Laila Abou Saif
  50. 50.
    Circle of Friends
    by Maeve Binchy

Pages: 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

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Created by desertlizard on Jul 17, 2006.
 

Comments

kthejoker

Ouch, no Ayn Rand? — 5 years ago

Not that big a fan, but I’m sure The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged is more deserving than some of the books on this list.

May 08, 10:38AM | 0 comments | Reply to this

Melissa B.

Saints and Strangers — 5 years ago

The book listed at #93 appears to be written by an actual man (as opposed to being written by a woman under a male pseudonym). I don’t have access to the source book for this list, but based on where it is on the list alphabetically — between “Carson” and “Cary” — I’m inclined to think that the book is supposed to be the “Saints and Strangers” by Angela Carter.

Jun 15, 05:20PM | 1 comment | Reply to this

cassiopeia81

Untitled — 6 years ago

Number 283 is misspelled, the correct english title should be “The Löwensköld ring”. I went to the editing page, but could not figure out how to edit the title, maybe someone with more experience of this site could fix it?

Mar 01, 04:06AM | 1 comment | Reply to this

bah

Untitled — 6 years ago

Thanks for doing this list!

There were some misspelled titles & right-title-wrong-authors on here, so I fixed those.

Feb 19, 04:57PM | 0 comments | Reply to this



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