Last week, we asked editors at The Huffington Post to share which books they think all men should read, as a way of subverting the typically macho roundups of books for dudes. The responses ranged from Jane Austen to edgy young essayists such as Roxane Gay. But we also think it's important to highlight the great female authors who aren't always in the spotlight.
These women don't necessarily address women's issues directly. In fact, one of them, Deepti Kapoor, wrote in a blog for us last week about maddeningly only being placed on panels that discussed the changing role of femininity in India, while more lofty topics were reserved for her male contemporaries. Another, Kelly Link, writes fantastical stories packed with very real emotions, and another, Laura van den Berg, has penned a dystopian book with a strange twist. Check out these 6 stellar books by women that we recommend adding to your bookshelf ASAP:
Neruda famously lamented, 'Love is so short, forgetting is so long.' It’s a sentiment most of us relate to: We cherish memories of loved ones lost to life’s whims. We bask in nostalgia, and in fact benefit from doing so. Laura van den Berg’s first novel takes the value of nostalgia a step further, as her characters demonstrate that the past, when replayed through a rose-colored lens, can shield us from future harm."
Read our full review here.
Deepti Kapoor, author of A Bad Character
"A Bad Character has drawn comparisons to Marguerite Duras’ class- and race-conscious erotic classic The Lover, but it also bears echoes of Elizabeth O’Neill’s Nine and a Half Weeks, a pseudonymously published erotic memoir about the author’s passionate affair with a man who leads her into increasingly sadomasochistic sexual experiments. As in Nine and a Half Weeks, A Bad Character hints only slightly at the dark turn the ardent love-making and all-consuming infatuation might take, at least until we’re deeply involved in the psyche of the narrator and the sexual dynamic of the couple."
Read our full review here.
Bird-as-feminist symbol isn’t exactly a new trope. But Zink’s references to cages and songs are fewer than her observations about the natural environment and the role her protagonist plays in it. Tiffany gets married young and suddenly to a man she hardly knows, and moves with him to Berne, Switzerland where she promptly begins an affair and otherwise fiddles around playing house, sans children. She’s frank about her immorality, both with the reader and with her husband, Stephen, who’s understanding mostly because he’s the same way."
Read our full review here.
Ugly Girls is Hunter’s first novel. As she states in the acknowledgements, she began as a poet, then found her home in flash fiction -- short stories that don’t exceed 2,000 words. Her background is evident, as her scenes are both quippy and psychologically deep."
Read our full review here.
The letter, which veers from guilt-ridden to accusatory, chatty to anguished, maps the tortured psychology of a close friendship marred by betrayal."
Read our full review here.
