Earlier this week, Time magazine did a survey of college syllabi and listed the Top 100 women assigned in college. (The list got a lot of notice because they accidentally included Evelyn Waugh, a man.)
As I was browsing through the list, I noticed that several of the books I’ve read are on the list! But that reminded me it had been a few months since updating my progress. So, once again, for those who are interested, here are the books I’ve been reading in my year of only reading women.
- Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
- “Daughter of Fortune” by Isabel Allende
- “Beautiful Music for Ugly Children” by Kirstin Cronn-Mills
- “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt
- “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel
- “Strong Poison” by Dorothy Sayers
- “Hild” by Nicola Griffith
- “Ripley’s Game” by Patricia Highsmith
- “Fairest” by Marissa Meyer
- “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion
- “The Girl on the Train” by Paula Hawkins
- “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed
- “The House of Mirth” by Edith Wharton
- “Justice Calling” by Annie Bellet
- “Fangirl” by Rainbow Rowell
- “My Brilliant Friend” by Elena Ferrante
- “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler
- “Winter” by Marissa Meyer
- “Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear” by Elizabeth Gilbert
- “State of Wonder” by Ann Patchett
- “Murder of Crows” by Annie Bellet
- “Cocaine Blues” by Kerry Greenwood
- “Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own” by Kate Bolick
- “The Round House” by Louise Erdrich (underway)
Now that the end is in sight, I feel a lot of pressure for selecting my remaining books. My reading pace slowed a lot in December and January as I was working to get my own book out, and I’m trying to pick up the pace again.
But even so, I know that I’m not a fast enough reader to get through all the books on my shortlist by April 30 (I’m not exactly sure when I started this project last April so I’m just declaring the end of April as the end of the project).
So now I’m picking and choosing.
I think I’d like to get in a couple more classics, and a couple more contemporary books. We’ll see how many more I can manage! Onward!
(Note on this image. I find the cover image of Hild incredibly striking. Without a doubt, it was seeing Hild staring at me in bookstores that made me buy the book. Hild’s face makes for a fitting image to my posts about reading this year.)
