Books by Women That Every Man Should Read

This is one of the 743 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

The Guardian, 23 Books

Chosen by Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Richard Curtis and more. The description on the website says:

Studies show men avoid female authors. Ahead of the Women’s prize for fiction, chair of judges Mary Ann Sieghart finds out why – and we ask male authors to redress the balance

This list was originally published in 2022 and was added to this site over 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
30 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
17008 We Had To Remove This Post Hanna Bervoets 2021 Dutch Dutch
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
1350 Olive Kitteridge Elizabeth Strout 2008 American English
358 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Indian English
2498 Homegoing Yaa Gyasi 2016 Ghanaian English
848 Regeneration Pat Barker 1991 British English
9053 Autumn Ali Smith 2016 British English
17008 Winter Ali Smith 2017 British English
17008 Spring Ali Smith 2019 British English
14901 Summer Ali Smith 2020 British English
17008 The Terrible Yrsa Daley-Ward 2018 British English
59 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 British English
2159 My Cousin Rachel Daphne du Maurier 1951 British English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
1232 Cheri Colette 1920 French French
3124 Oryx and Crake Margaret Atwood 2003 Canadian English
740 The Goldfinch Donna Tartt 2013 American English
17008 The Last Widow Karin Slaughter 2019 American English
453 The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch 1978 British English
1739 The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 Sue Townsend 1982 British English
17008 My Phantoms Gwendoline Riley 2021 British English
17008 Singin’ Swingin’ And Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas Maya Angelou 1976 American English