Books : Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

i just checked my goodreads list of favorite writers and they are all males. i'm not feeling guilty or anything but simply stating a fact.

what about the rest of you?

Why hang on to antiquated notions like "the soil is like my mother?" - Man

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

I'm not much better, I'd say I read ten books by a man for every one by a woman. I might struggle to list ten favourite writers but would probably have Margaret Atwood in there somewhere.


Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

I'm the same.


You're my wife now.

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

Same here, although I read the occasional Janet Evanovich novel when I'm in the mood for something light, breezy and very comical.



No trees killed in the sending of this message, but many electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

Yes. Diana Wynne Jones and Cornelia Funke would probably be on mine.

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

Well, considering my LibraryThing name....

Besides the Sisters Bell....
I consider Emily Dickinson the third greatest American writer (after Henry James and Mark Twain).

It's a little hard to pinpoint a whole lot of favorite writers male or female, though, so much as identifying favorite novels or stories written by women (a few that come right to mind):

"The Arabian Nights" and "Afternoon in Linen" (Shirley Jackson). Personally, my two favorite stories.

"Bloodchild" (Octavia Butler). Her "pregnant man" Hugo/Nebula story.

Frost in May (Antonia White). Greatest boarding-school novel ever written, assuming you don't consider Jane Eyre a boarding-school novel (only chapters 5 through 9 or 10 are Lowood).

Fledgling (Octavia Butler). Greatest vampire novel ever written.

Cranford (Elizabeth Gaskell). I jokingly call Gaskell "the honorary Brontë" based on her friendship with Charlotte and her authorship of the very influential though highly romanticized The Life of Charlotte Brontë.

Also, I have a particular interest in Maine regionalism, and there we've got Sarah Orne Jewett, her successor Mary Ellen Chase, and Chase's successor Elizabeth Strout, along with (in a somewhat different style) Carolyn Chute.

ETA: As a follow-up on Antonia White, I'd also refer very favorably to the "Clara Batchelor trilogy" sequel to Frost in May. Also, White's story "The Exile" is a positively hilarious monologue by a whack job who wants to be a nun.

You know, there are also some non-fiction writers whom I hold in very high regard, a couple who come right to mind being....
... Juliet Barker (Brontë biographer, but also a Wordsworth biographer and a medieval historian)
... Jenny Uglow (biographer of Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Thomas Bewick, and others)

Here's my LibraryThing photogallery:
https://www.librarything.com/gallery/member/CurrerBell

Oh, and one other "novel" I should mention (though I read it way back then not in its 1962 novelization but in its 1959 "Jack and Jill Magazine" serialization): Holdup on Bootjack Hill by Marion Garthwaite.

https://www.librarything.com/work/10848947/reviews/68925778.
The rest of Garthwaite's work doesn't come near to Holdup, though some of it is fairly good.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://librarything.com/profile/CurrerBell

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

I don't make lists of favorite authors, but here's the females I've read and/or reread the most.

Agatha Christie
Marcia Muller
Sara Paretsky
Diane Duane
P. D. James
J. K. Rowling
Sue Grafton

I don't even think about the writer's sex when chosing books to read. Just whether or not the story sounds interesting.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It's all like some bad movie.

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?


I consciously go out of my way to try reading more female writers...


Any particular reason...?

I just finished How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran. I'd recommend it somewhat strongly if you're curious...


According to me, yes. I am the person it's usually according to when I'm talking.

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

Cool.

I never seek out specific things from books. I take note of authors I like and go back to them, of course. But I more regularly just read what sounds interesting.

Ordered 7 or 8 books recently pretty much blind, just browsing and reading the synopsis of any thing with a catchy title or unique cover design. About half of them turned out to be authored by women, but I didn't notice until I opened the box. How to Build a Girl Was in that box. The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane is up next...if I ever sit down and knock out Warren Ellis' Normal.


According to me, yes. I am the person it's usually according to when I'm talking.

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

These three are in my Top 25:

Willa Cather
Jessamyn West
Flannery O`Connor

Edith Wharton just misses the cut.

🇺🇸 Liberty • E Pluribus Unum • In God We Trust 🇺🇸

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

I don't really have a top ten but I regularly read Kathy Acker, Djuna Barnes, Susan Howe, Ann Waldman, Anne Carson, Mary McCarthy, Camille Paglia, Karen Armstrong, and Angela Carter - probably the latter would make it in. Looking at my Goodreads, I also rated books by Christina Brooke-Rose, Flannery O'Connor, Edith Wharton, Simone de Beauvoir, Fay Wheldon and others highly. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't trying to read more female (and minority) writers; I'd guess that about 70-80% of what read was written by (white) men.

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

Ooh, Ursula le Guin might make a top ten. She did write my favourite novel (The Dispossessed). And Joanna Russ, too.

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

Sylvia Plath,Anne Sexton,Emily Dickinson,Flannery O'Connor,Anne McCaffrey,Octavia Butler,and the Bronte sisters would make my Top 10 female writers list.

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

I'm going to read that one soon.

Just finished 'The Left Hand of Darkness'.

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

I've read 2 Earthsea books and The Lathe of Heaven, so I will get to it eventually...


Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

Not really, J. K. Rowling and Robin Hobb is among my favorite writers, but the genres I read is male dominated.

I think it depends largely on what genre you are interested in. Mystery books as an example has about an equal share of women and men in the most popular lists, women dominates romance books, paranormal, and for some reason erotica (although many of those are probably pseudonyms).

Mostly I think that many people read books with people they can identify themselves with. An it's more difficult to identify yourself with a person of the opposite sex.





It`s far easier to start a war than to end one.

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

Margaret Atwood is the only female currently in my top ten "most read" authors according to Goodreads, coming in at number 6. Anne Rice, Toni Morrison, and Virginia Woolf all make my top 20 (although I don't think, I've read anything by Ann Rice in 20 years and certainly would not consider her a favorite at this point.)

Other female Authors that I would ranks as favorites would include Kate Atkinson, Flannery O'Connor, Alice Munro, Karen Russell, & Annie Proulx. I've also read several Joyce Carrol Oates novels, but she is really hit or miss for me.

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

I don't have any lists per se, and a tumbleweed just floated past my Goodreads account, but I like Gillian Flynn and Flannery O'Connor and I'm conscious of wanting to be a little more proactive in seeking out more female writers. I was planning actually on buying Red Dragon by Thomas Harris and having that be the first of the month for February. But in the spirit of this thread I've plumped for Life After Life by Kate Atkinson instead. I had been thinking about reading it anyway recently but it had faded a little in my mind, till reading this revived it.

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

Harper Lee of course and Carson McCullers.

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

I don't have official lists, but Alice Munro, Lydia Millet and Toni Morrison would probably make a top 10 list...if I were to make one.


According to me, yes. I am the person it's usually according to when I'm talking.

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

Gabriela Mistral [Poetry] Chile

Tove Ditlevsen [Poetry] Denmark

Astrid Ehrencron-Kidde: The Strange Events Happening to Martin Willén [A chain of short-stories happening to the same man] Denmark

Nawal al Saadawi: God Dies at the Nile [Novel] Egypt

Irene Nemirovsky: French Suite [Novel] France

Bettina von Arnim: Dies Buch gehört dem König. [Novel?] Germany

Else Lasker Schüler: [Poetry] Germany

Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger [Poetry] Germany

Emely Bronté: Wuthering Height [Novel] Great Britain

Mary Shelley: The Last Man [Novel] Great Britain

Oriana Fallacci: Inshallah [Novel] Italy

Elsa Morante: History [Novel] Italy

Higuchi Ichiyô: ”Troubled Water”, ”The 13th Night”, “The Last Moment of
Childhood” [Short-stories] Japan

Murasaki Shikibu: Genji Monogatari [Novel] Japan

Ananda Devi: Eva Out of Her Ruins [Novella] Mauritius

Marie-Therese Humbert: My Father’s Daughter [Novel] Mauritius

Katherine Mansfield: “The Lady’s Maid”, “The Fly”, “Weak Heart” [Short-stories] New Zealand

Wislawa Szymborska [Poetry] Poland

Maria Isabel Barreno & Maria Teresa Horta & Maria Velho da Costa: New Portuguese letters [widely known as “The book by the three Maria-s”. [Novel?] Portugal

Anna Akhmatova [Poetry] Russia

Marina Tsvetayeva: My Childhood [Autobiographic Novel] Russia

Rosalia de Castro [Poetry] Spain

Karin Boye [Poetry] Sweden

Selma Lagerlöf: “The Story of Gösta Berling” [Novel] Sweden

Selma Lagerlöf [The Trilogy of the Löwenskjöld Ring] [Three novel] Sweden

Moa Martinson: [The Mia trilogy] [Three Novels: My Mother Marries; Church Wedding; The King's Roses]["The King's Roses" is slang for cockroaches]

Emely Dickinson [Poetry] USA

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

I think it was just a request to see if you had any female authors in your top 5/10, not for a list of every novel published by a female writer

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

I think my Ignore List is about to expand by one...


Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

I get too much enjoyment out of gently mocking Max. He always seems to take it in good spirit

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

Dear Markvoyager, I always appreciate your criticism. I goes without saying that my contribution is far from being a list of every book written by a woman. But it is also far from being a collection of those books by female writers which I have read.
- - Nevertheless, you are right that I had some “fishy” motives. I felt somewhat sorry when I saw the abundance of English literature, as if nothing worth reading had been written in other parts of the world. I did hope that some users would find it worthwhile to take a closer look at some books they have probably never heard of.
- - And not long ago I had compiled a list. And the next user stated that it is such list that makes it worthwhile to turn to IMDb.
- - I myself am happy when I find titles I had never heard of.

Anyway, I tried to reduce my list. I have by no means tried to make it conform to any number decided in advance. It is a pure accident that the number turned out to be 10.

But I could not reduce it further except by using the head-and-tail technique.

I would guess that all titles are available in English translation, except the Danish and German books.

Next the reduced list:



Tove Ditlevsen [Poetry] Denmark

Astrid Ehrencron-Kidde: The Strange Events Happening to Martin Willén [A chain of short-stories happening to the same man] Denmark

Else Lasker Schüler: [Poetry] Germany

Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger [Poetry] Germany

Emely Bronté: Wuthering Height [Novel] Great Britain

Oriana Fallacci: Inshallah [Novel] Italy

Higuchi Ichiyô: ”Troubled Water”, ”The 13th Night”, “The Last Moment of
Childhood” [Short-stories] Japan

Katherine Mansfield: “The Lady’s Maid”, “The Fly”, “Weak Heart” [Short-stories] New Zealand

Marina Tsvetayeva: My Childhood [Autobiographic Novel] Russia

Selma Lagerlöf: “The Story of Gösta Berling” [Novel] Sweden

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

Dear everybody. I have just found that at least one poem by Else Lasker Schüler have been translated into English.


Farewell

I wanted always to speak
many words of love to you.

Now you are searching restlessly
For lost wonders.

But when my music boxes play
We celebrate marriage.

O, your sweet eyes
Are my favorite flowers.

And your heart is my Heaven…
Let me gaze into it.

You are entirely of glittering mint
So smooth and dreamy.

I wanted always to speak
many words of love to you,

Why did I not do that?


------------------------------


Abschied


Ich wollte dir immerzu
Viele Liebesworte sagen,

Nun suchst du ruhlos
Nach verlorenen Wundern.

Aber wenn meine Spieluhren spielen
Feiern wir Hochzeit.

O, deine süßen Augen
Sind meine Lieblingsblumen.

Und dein Herz ist mein Himmelreich…
Laß mich hineinschauen.

Du bist ganz aus glitzernder Minze
Und so weich versonnen.

Ich wollte dir immerzu
Viele Liebesworte sagen,

Warum tat ich das nicht?


Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

I reckon I read probably 90%+ male-written works. I don't know why, I've been meaning to read some Margaret Atwood and PD James for quite some time, and never got around to it. The only one of my favourite writers who happens not to be blessed with a cock and balls is Scarlett Thomas. I'm honestly not sure why that is.


Rusty chains and armoured pillows stuffed with silver pins

Re: Do male readers have any female writers in their Top 5/10 lists?

Like everyone else most of my top favorite writers are male. That's largely because I read lots of fantasy and science fiction and historically those have been male dominated genres.

I do love Julian May though, she's high up on my list (not that I make lists...)

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