500 Great Books By Women discussion

These are books that I'm currently thinking about reading for YoRWoC. My list is going to start out small and hopefully grow as the year progresses.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemison
The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy
Fledgling, by Octavia Butler
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban, by Malala Yousafzai
Who Fears Death, by Nnedi Okorafor
The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende
The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 1, by Hiromu Arakawa
The Epic of Gilgamesh, by Anonymous

In 2015 I read seven books by women of color (Interpreter of Maladies, Purple Hibiscus, Kindred, Skim, A Mercy, The Lake, and Falling in Love with Hominids), all of which were excellent, so I intend to read at least that many in 2016.

Welcome, Lily! 'The God of Small Things', 'The House of the Spirits', and 'The Color Purple' are all 500 GBBW, so I hope you enjoy them.

I loved house of the spirits and the god of small things so much. I really hope you enjoy them. Great to see some books I haven't heard of either

Lily this is such an interesting collection. I will be very interested to hear what you think of these. I'll be reading The Color Purple and The God of Small Things too this year, and The House of the Spirits is one of my very favorites. Enjoy!

Thanks Aubrey, Shirley, and Kathleen! I'm definitely keen to get to those books from the 500 GBBW list.

My first WOC read of the year actually wasn't on my original plan: The Only Child by Guojing, which is a wordless graphic novel about a lonely young girl who gets lost while trying to visit her grandmother. It's partly inspired by the author's own childhood, growing up while China's one-child policy was in effect. The book is quite gorgeous and haunting.

'Who Fears Death' was one of my absolute favourite reads of last year, and I kicked of this year with the prequel. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! I also read my first Octavia Butler last year (the Xenogenesis trilogy) and really enjoyed most of it. The way she dealt with gender and sexuality seemed quite problematic (or perhaps just dated) to me, so I was surprised to read that she was actually gay. I'll look forward to hearing what you think of them all!

Audrey wrote: "'Who Fears Death' was one of my absolute favourite reads of last year, and I kicked of this year with the prequel. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! I also read my first Octavia Butler last yea..."

Awesome! I don't normally go for post-apocalyptic fiction but I figured Who Fears Death is probably worth making an exception for.

I've finished two rather fun books for the challenge: The Duchess War by Courtney Milan and Fullemtal Alchemist Vol. 1 by Hiromu Arakawa. Now about to start on The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemison.

The Color Purple is fantastic, I look forward to hearing what you think of it!