500 Great Books By Women discussion

Read so far:

Ann Leckie - Ancillary Sword 3+/5 review (US)
Judith Schalansky - The Giraffe's Neck 4/5 review (Germany)
Harper Lee - Go Set a Watchman 2/5 review (US)
Marie NDiaye - Ladivine 4/5 review (France)
Oksana Zabuzhko - The Museum of Abandoned Secrets 5/5 review (Ukraine)
Banana Yoshimoto - The Lake 3/5 review (Japan)
Andréa del Fuego - Os Malaquias 2/5 review (Brazil)
Louisa Hall - Speak 4/5 review (US)
Tove Jansson - Travelling Light 4/5 review (Finland)
Linda Johansson - Äkta robotar 2/5 review (Sweden)
Sharnush Parsipur - Women Without Men: A Novel of Modern Iran 4-/5 review (Iran)
Albertine Sarrazin - Astragal 4/5 review (France)
Kameron Hurley - God's War 3/5 review (US)

Planned:
A bunch. Trying to take it as it comes, but as usual trying to spread it between different countries.

Welcome, Bjorn! I'm very much looking forward to your reading of women from around the world.

Welcome, Bjorn! I'm looking forward to your review of Go Set A Watchman.

Thanks, Aubrey and Dustin! I've linked my reviews above now.

Added Ladivine by Marie NDiaye. Almost a 5/5, a novel that will turn over in my head for a long time.

I think I have Ladivine as a E-book, your review made me want to read it sooner rather than later.

I think I have Ladivine as a E-book, your review made me want to read it sooner rather than later.

Added The Museum of Abandoned Secrets. Wow.

The Lake was a very quick read, but page for page not a bad one.

Unimpressed by Os Malaquias, which is a bit of a shame. But hey, as with any Brazilian novel, at least it's better than The Alchemist.

Leajk wrote: "I think I have Ladivine as a E-book, your review made me want to read it sooner rather than later."

Meant to say, glad to hear it! It's really the kind of novel that deserves to be read and pondered. Hope there'll be an English translation before long, too.

Bjorn wrote: "Leajk wrote: "I think I have Ladivine as a E-book, your review made me want to read it sooner rather than later."

Meant to say, glad to hear it! It's really the kind of novel that deserves to be r..."

Thought of putting it on my list, but I'm following your approach of being a bit more noncommittal.

I have a more specific question as to reading books from different countries in Sweden, I'm curios of how you get a hold of yours? I find that many of the more rare ones are often hard to get a hold of on any public/university libraries. Any tips?

Leajk wrote: I have a more specific question as to reading books from different countries in Sweden, I'm curios of how you get a hold of yours?

Most of the ones I read in Swedish are fairly easy to find, either in bookshops or as e-books. Ladivine, for instance, just came out last year. I also try to regularly buy books from smaller publishers that work a lot with translations from rarer languages (Leopard, Tranan, Ersatz, 2244, Thorén & Lindskog, etc etc). The ones I read in English may (or may not) be a bit trickier to find - I either search them out at various e-book retailers, or shop for them when I'm in London or NYC.

Are there any specific ones you can't find?

Bjorn wrote: "Leajk wrote: I have a more specific question as to reading books from different countries in Sweden, I'm curios of how you get a hold of yours?

Most of the ones I read in Swedish are fairly easy ..."

I see, so you buy most of your books? I've been trying to make better use of libraries, but a lot of untranslated and/or new books seem to be neglected at libraries. For example Nella Larsen seem to be unheard of. But I guess buying is the answer in this case and maybe not only from adlibris/bokus. I'll look into the smaller publishers, thanks for the tip!

Louisa Hall's Speak is a wondrous little novel that I guess I'll have to categorize as SF, but in the best way. Clever and heartfelt.

With every Tove Jansson book I read, it breaks my heart that I'm one book closer to running out of Tove Jansson books to read. Of course, they always make for good re-reading, which I'm sure to do at some point with Travelling Light.

I've been trying to get people to read Tove Jansson's books the entire summer. Just gave away two of them yesterday.

Leajk wrote: "I've been trying to get people to read Tove Jansson's books the entire summer. Just gave away two of them yesterday."

You're doing good work. :)

Added reviews of Women Without Men and Astragal. The latter, in particular, was a hell of a read that I wish I'd gotten to much earlier.

Bjorn wrote: "Added reviews of Women Without Men and Astragal. The latter, in particular, was a hell of a read that I wish I'd gotten to much earlier."

I'm glad to hear that about Astragal, Bjorn. Sarrazin was one of the authors featured by the 22 Women in Translation list who had a completely blank GR profile before I got to her. Hopefully your review and her now informative bio draw more readerly attention.

Aubrey wrote: "Sarrazin was one of the authors featured by the 22 Women in Translation list who had a completely blank GR profile before I got to her. Hopefully your review and her now informative bio draw more readerly attention."

That was you? Good job! I honestly wasn't familiar with her until this book popped up in a new translation a few weeks ago, but I'm really going to keep my eyes peeled for her other two novels now as well. Hope others do too, she really deserves to be read.

Any author profile with some iteration of (from ___________) at the bottom is one of mine :)

Finishing the summer the way I started it, with some genderfuckery sci-fi that doesn't pull too many punches. Quite literally, as it ends with a very brutal fistfight. Which should in no way be a reflection of this whole challenge, which was a ton of fun and made me pick up some books I'd been putting off way too long. Thanks everone!

Ah, God's War, right? I loved the way that began too! (And I think you're totally correct about the pointlessness of no-cost violence.)