75 Books Every Woman Should Read

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

About this list

Jezebel, 75 Books

Jezebel lists the 75 books every woman should read. Here's their description:

We started you off with 20 culled from our editors' suggestions, and you guys took the ball and ran with it. A few notes on the compendium of 75 that you helped us compile below. As we said in the original post, most of the extant rosters of must-read classics are full of old white dudes. So our list is going to be mostly women. Which doesn't mean there are not myriad male-written must-reads! A second note: we're aware that "The Lottery" and "A Good Man is Hard to Find" are short stories. We were referring to the eponymous books that contained those stories as well as several others. Finally, we're in no way implying that this is the final word in amazing, rich, edifying books for women, so please refrain from the "OMG I can't believe you morons forgot X," comments, mkay? The alive 75, in no particular order,after the jump!

This list was originally published in 2008 and was added to this site about 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
1070 The Lottery and Other Stories Shirley Jackson 1948 American English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
218 The House of Mirth Edith Wharton 1905 American English
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
290 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
1017 Slouching Towards Bethlehem Joan Didion 1968 American English
689 Excellent Women Barbara Pym 1952 British English
102 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath 1963 American English
157 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
1128 The Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri 2003 American English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
21 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
3376 Like Life Lorrie Moore 1990 American English
12 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
28 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
1729 Delta of Venus Anaïs Nin 1977 French English
999 A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley 1991 American English
207 A Good Man Is Hard to Find Flannery O'Connor 1953 American English
488 The Shipping News Annie Proulx 1993 Canadian English
17008 You Can't Keep A Good Woman Down Alice Walker 1981 American English
68 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 American English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
827 Fear of Flying Erica Jong 1973 American English
5748 Earthly Paradise Colette 1966 French French
1641 Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt 1996 American English
14901 Property Valerie Martin 2003 American English
30 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
1888 Annie John Jamaica Kincaid 1985 Antiguan English
140 The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir 1949 French French
1561 Runaway Alice Munro 2004 Canadian English
117 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 1940 American English
1034 The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston 1976 American English
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
17008 You Must Remember This Joyce Carol Oates 1987 American English
93 Little Women Louisa May Alcott 1868 American English
4051 Bad Behavior Mary Gaitskill 1988 American English
4133 The Liars' Club Mary Karr 1995 American English
521 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou 1969 American English
243 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith 1943 American English
189 And Then There Were None Agatha Christie 1939 British English
721 Bastard Out of Carolina Dorothy Allison 1992 American English
278 The Secret History Donna Tartt 1992 American English
1884 Little Disturbances Grace Paley 1959 American English
5351 The Portable Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker 1944 American English
771 The Group Mary McCarthy 1963 American English
668 Persepolis Marjane Satrapi 2000 French French
61 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
113 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 1947 Dutch Dutch
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
7647 Against Interpretation Susan Sontag 1966 American English
1915 In the Time of the Butterflies Julia Alvarez 1994 Dominican English
283 The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck 1931 American English
1058 Fun Home Alison Bechdel 2006 American English
13498 Three Junes Julia Glass 2002 American English
773 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Mary Wollstonecraft 1792 British English
802 Sophie's Choice William Styron 1979 American English
2625 Valley of the Dolls Jacqueline Susann 1966 American English
1206 Love in a Cold Climate Nancy Mitford 1949 British English
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
361 The Left Hand Of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin 1969 American English
9839 The Red Tent Anita Diamant 1997 American English
101 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
14735 The Face Of War Martha Gellhorn 1959 American English
160 My Antonia Willa Cather 1918 American English
168 Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez 1985 Colombian Spanish
15786 The Harsh Voice Rebecca West 1935 British English
17008 Spending Mary Gordon 1998 American English
296 The Lover Marguerite Duras 1984 French French
358 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Indian English
2117 Tell Me a Riddle Tillie Olsen 1961 American English
289 Nightwood Djuna Barnes 1936 American English
1154 Three Lives Gertrude Stein 1909 American English
480 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons 1932 British English
575 I Capture the Castle Dodie Smith 1948 British English
731 Possession A. S. Byatt 1990 British English