500 Great Books By Women discussion

I'm very bad at planning ahead, but it will be interesting to find out in September how my summer list turned out.
So far, this month I managed three good women authors:

- Beloved
- Reflections in a Golden Eye
- The Boy Who Lost Fairyland

I hope to include in the near future some Iris Murdoch, Angela Carter, Memoirs of Hadrian, Laura Resnick and maybe one or two of the lesser known authors that are mentioned in the 500 group.

Thank you for a great idea, Aubrey!

Welcome. Algernon!

Beloved is excellent!

Algernon wrote: "I'm very bad at planning ahead, but it will be interesting to find out in September how my summer list turned out.
So far, this month I managed three good women authors:"

Welcome Algernon! Beloved's one of the original 500 GBBW, so you're welcome to submit a review if you wrote one. Both McCullers and Valente have other works in the database (you would know for the latter!), so you may submit the ones you read if they qualified as great in your eye.

Murdoch, Carter, and Yourcenar are all in the database, although for the last I'm very surprised MoH hasn't been submitted by a group member yet. You may be the one to do so if you find it great, Algernon, if I don't get to it first.

I will try to contribute more to the group.
Thanks for the encouragement.

back from holidays, and time to put some order in my summer reads.
Here are the reviews of the books I mentioned above:

- Toni Morrison - Beloved

- Carson McCullers - Reflections in a Golden Eye

- Catherynne Valente - The Boy Who Lost Fairyland

A great Science-fiction novel that should appeal just as well to people who don't usually read genre fiction:

C J Cherryh - Downbelow Station


coming soon: Marguerite Yourcenar - "Memoirs of Hadrian" (my favorite so far)

Algernon wrote: "coming soon: Marguerite Yourcenar - "Memoirs of Hadrian" (my favorite so far) "

:)))

Algernon wrote: "back from holidays, and time to put some order in my summer reads.
Here are the reviews of the books I mentioned above:

- Toni Morrison - Beloved

- Carson McCullers - Reflections in a Golden Eye
..."

Hey, welcome back! And congratulations on finishing some great reads!

one week left in the official summer months, but I am not going to stop reading great books written by women just because the challenge is over.

I did manage to write a few more reviews:

- Memoirs of Hadrian

- Rum Affair

- Strangers on a Train

Margaret Yourcenar proved to be a hard act to follow, setting the goal posts so high than any novel that I read after would suffer in comparison, yet Dorothy Dunnett would more than hold her own in terms of erudition and thorough research. "Rum Affair" is a lightweight crime caper, but I urge any reader with a passion for history to check out her Lymond and Niccolo epics.

Patricia Highsmith is another woman that is without rival in her field - psychological thrillers - and her debut novel was snatched immediately by Hitchcock and turned into one of his best movies.

Finished reading, but didn't get around to write reviews yet for:

- Faces in the Crowd
- At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories
- Uprooted

Algernon wrote: "one week left in the official summer months, but I am not going to stop reading great books written by women just because the challenge is over.

I did manage to write a few more reviews:

- Memoir..."

Actually, since summer officially runs till September 21, Summer of Women will be doing the same, so you actually have a little less than a month left!

I didn't read the fine script, so it's good news.
I'm going back to my shelves to see what else beckons.

Two more reviews done:

Faces in the Crowd text

and
Kij Johnson

last update of the books I finished before 21st September (sorry for the delay, but I wanted to have all reviews up) :

- Maj Sjowall - The Terrorists

Maj Sjowall is one half of the duo who wrote one of the best police procedural series ever. I think it belongs here for the strong focus on social issues that informs especially the latter episodes.

Nicole Krauss - The History of Love

One of my top three picks of this summer of love project, mixing the horrors of the Holocaust with the loneliness of old age and with the pain of losing a parent.

Lynn Fleweklling - The Bone Doll's Twin

genre fiction, traditional fantasy, but also a very interesting take on sexual identity and sexual discriminations

Iris Murdoch The Bell

I saved the best for last, but I confess I am biased in favor of her work. The Bell explores the life of a lay religious community, torn between the need for spiritual menaning and the human passion in all its forms.